Bernie and Some Other Guys

If you're tired of talking about the wickedness of CEO's, don't bother with this tirade. I can't stop myself. I'm fascinated about what's going on, except for the possibility that I (whose savings have evaporated) will have to go to debtor's prison and eat cat food.

Every CEO or ex-CEO has something to teach us. Richard Fuld, one of the big shots who ran Lehman Brothers (into the ground, as it happened) sold his thirteen million dollar estate in Florida for $100. To his wife. Now if anybody has to pay back anybody else (creditors, cleaning ladies, the United States government) it won't be Mr. Fuld. Wasn't that smart?

And Stanley O'Neal, one of the gods of Merrill Lynch, probably didn't want his wife to feel left out, so he gave her his $4.5 million dollar mansion in Westchester.

Then the newspapers revealed that the wife of Bernie Madoff (presumptive leader of the pack) had trotted out to some bank or brokerage outfit and removed five and a half million dollars her very own self. That was back on November 25th, 2008. She withdrew another ten million on December 10th. Better to paint the apartment, or buy a new Jag than turn over your cash to the Feds, right?

The Madoffs are celebrities now. A company is selling Bernie Madoff dolls along with hammers, so buyers can batter the poor dollies to pieces, I guess.

When eight of the financial executives (sitting like birds on a branch in front of Congress) were obliged to listen to people who were not friends of said financial executives, the executives did not seem happy. Especially irritating to them must have been one Harry Markopolous, a fraud investigator who testified that he had spent the last nine years trying to make the SEC accept the fact that Bernie Madoff wasn't just a nice guy. "I'm saying," said Mr. Markobolous, "that if you flew the entire SEC staff to Boston, and sat them in Fenway Park for an afternoon, they could not find first base."

A lot of people who had lost a lot of money were hoping that the executives were going to get a good tongue lashing, but Barney Frank, Chairman of the Home Financial Services Committee, stared at the gazillionaires strung out in front of him, and decided not to get nasty. "We have no option, if we are to get credit flowing in this country," said he, "other than to work with the existing institutions." The existing institutions stared right back at him, and some of them even confessed they had been naughty boys, because they had, among them, spent 165 billion dollars of tax-payers' money.

The Morgan Stanley chief, John Mack, said he was sorry. And Vikram Pandit, the Citigroup chief, said he was going to cut his salary to one dollar a year, and give up the idea of buying a new private jet.

On the other hand, there seem to be a number of citizens who have nothing to be sorry for, and are actually enjoying the recession. They weren't rich to begin with, so they don't feel any more poor than they ever felt, and now they can hop around the city picking up bargains. There are people out there stacking up treasures bought at 80% off. I read about one woman who bought ten pairs of Manolo shoes. I think it was Manolos, but even if it wasn't, I know it was 80% off.

Me? I'm thinking of going to Bergdorf Goodman tomorrow.