west Wheaton, Maryland...cracked duplexes...stained mattresses...kitten-sized rats...paved over front lawns...autos that double as mobile sheds...loud music you can feel before you hear...drunks pissing in your shrubbery...teenagers yelling obscenities at each other...children screeching like banshees...now where're my meds, dammit???
I hate practical jokes because I tend to suspend disbelief with alarming ease, particularly when I’m off my meds.
There are so many fools in this world that we definitely need to claim a day all our own, if not an entire week or fortnight. In that spirit, I present you with this silly post from this weekend that I almost neglected to stick up here.
Following the financial/banking “series” from last week, below are some words to the effect that bankers are wankers. If you are in the banking industry and you are not a wanker, then please forgive me for these cheap shots. They are, of course, aimed at your unsavory colleagues, notyou. I’ve thrown in a couple of curiosities and non sequiturs for variety.
And if you are unfamiliar with colorful cockney vernacular (e.g. wanker), maybe try renting a few choice episodes of “Only Fools and Horses” or something.
These nugatory nuggets are presented in vainglorious Comic Sans MS (where installed) for your general irritation and vexation.
“A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining, but wants it back the minute it begins to rain.”
—Anonymous
(often attributed to Mark Twain, probably erroneously)
“Banks have a new image. Now you have ‘a friend,’ your friendly banker. If the banks are so friendly, how come they chain down the pens?”
“bank’s closed”: Slang from the 1920s that meant no kissing or making out was allowed.
great halls of power
just as the most important people in the city are complete and utter bankers the most important people in the army are the absolute highest rankers
—Michael E. (b. 1967),
British wag
(This guy is likely riffing on British rhyming slang vis-à-vis wankers.)
Bankers Are Just Like Anybody Else, Except Richer
This is a song to celebrate banks,
Because they are full of money and you go into them and all you hear is clinks and clanks,
Or maybe a sound like the wind in the trees on the hills,
Which is the rustling of the thousand dollar bills1.
Most bankers dwell in marble halls,
Which they get to dwell in because they encourage deposits and discourage withdrawals,
And particularly because they all observe one rule which woe betides the banker who fails to heed it,
Which is you must never lend any money to anybody unless they don’t need it.
I know you, you cautious conservative banks!
If people are worried about their rent it is your duty to deny them the loan of one nickel, yes, even one copper engraving of the martyred son of the late Nancy Hanks2;
Yes, if they request fifty dollars to pay for a baby you must look at them like Tarzan looking at an uppity ape in the jungle,
And tell them what do they think a bank is, anyhow, they had better go get the money from their wife’s aunt or ungle.
But suppose people come in and they have a million and they want another million to pile on top of it,
Why, you brim with the milk of human kindness and you urge them to accept every drop of it,
And you lend them the million so then they have two million and this gives them the idea that they would be better off with four,
So they already have two million as security so you have no hesitation in lending them two more,
And all the vice-presidents nod their heads in rhythm,
And the only question asked is do the borrowers want the money sent or do they want to take it withm.
But don’t think I’m against banks,
Because I think they deserve our appreciation and thanks
for eliminating the jackasses who go around saying that health and happiness are everything and money isn’t essential,
Because as soon as they have to borrow some unimportant money to maintain their health and happiness they starve to death so they can’t go around any more sneering at good old money, which is nothing short of providential.
1. While this line sounds outlandish to us today, thousand dollar bills (with Grover Cleveland’s likeness) were around when Nash penned this poem. The U.S. Mint ceased issuing larger denominations after World War II and they were retired from circulation entirely in 1969 to help thwart organized crime rackets.
2. Nancy Hanks was Lincoln’s mother, so “one copper engraving of the martyred son of the late Nancy Hanks” would refer to a penny, naturally. This might have been more obvious had you grown up way back during the early 20th century like I did. Truly I am an “old soul.” Okay, now you know I’m yanking your chain.
* * *
Below you’ll find my stab at an Ogdenashy ode. Only I take aim at a very 21st Century set of targets. This is clearly more jeer than jeremiad, inveighing against influential and irresponsible media figures with churlish cheekiness. However, the underlying target is really their employers, the mainstream media outlets that featured personalities who indulged in chatty cheerleading during the bubble and splenic spluttering during the bust.
Business media personalities are just like anybody else, except they have unusually exorbitant hair & makeup allowances
This is a verse to celebrate every silly talking head,
Who lulls with such fatuous chatter the most easily led.
Most fashion-plate correspondents sit in Herman Miller Aeron chairs
And affect light conversation and smiles that draw willing viewers’ stares,
And particularly because they all observe one rule, and their fans do a great deal to support it,
Which is you must never deliver news or analysis unless it is dumbed down and distorted.
Fiend, you forsook to foresee the financial fiasco, forsooth!
Objectivity: FAIL, you fraudulent Wall Street mouthpiece herald!
If we worry about our savings is it your duty to deny us the reverse of the coin of truth,
Even if it costs us some more numismatic portraits of the martyred son of the late Rose Fitzgerald?!
While your ink-stained betters lose their shirts despite all their toil,
You still prosper while peddling your infotainment snake oil.
But don’t think I’m against air-brushed personalities,
With their packaged presentations and banalities,
Because I think they deserve our full gratitude
for helping to cultivate our dull attitude
Besides which, we'd be hung higher and drier
And find ourselves even more out-of-lucker,
If our culture failed to be a supplier
Of the latest, greatest model of sucker
—Publius Ignominius Stuporis Slumburbius
(two-bit American wag)
Joey ♥ Maria
* * *
Gabba gabba hey... To make up for that kind of lame Ram0nes song, I feel compelled to include a classic from 1977’s R0cket to Russia LP. “Teenage Lobo†omy” keeps up the brain damage theme (albeit sans zombies), complete with Lego stop-motion action. Hey, these little dudes play air guitar better than I do, and I have the luxury of articulated elbow and wrist joints.
B¡lly C0rgan of the Smash¡ng Pumpk¡ns, “¢herub R0ck,” S¡amese Dream (1993)
¢ $ ¢ $ ¢
Here are two token positive quotes about market investment and speculation.
“A speculator is a man who observes the future, and acts before it occurs.”
—Bernard Baruch
“If there were no bad speculations there could be no good investments; if there were no wild ventures there would be no brilliantly successful enterprises.”
—Francis W. Hirst (1873 – 1953)
British economic journalist
¢ $ ¢ $ ¢
In keeping with the times, the rest of the observations I include are inevitably more circumspect, cautionary, or outright negative.
“The main purpose of the stock market is to make fools of as many men as possible.”
—Bernard Baruch
“There are two times in a man’s life when he should not speculate: when he can’t afford it, and when he can.”
—Mark Twain (1835 – 1910)
iconic American writer
“Another great evil arising from this desire to be thought rich; or rather, from the desire not to be thought poor, is the destructive thing which has been honoured by the name of ‘speculation’; but which ought to be called Gambling.”
—William Cobbett (1762 – 1835)
British journalist & reformist thinker
“[T]he stock market has not come down to historical levels: the price-earnings ratio as I define it in this book is still, at this writing [2005], in the mid-20s, far higher than the historical average. … People still place too much confidence in the markets and have too strong a belief that paying attention to the gyrations in their investments will someday make them rich, and so they do not make conservative preparations for possible bad outcomes.”
This graph shows the recent housing hypervaluation that helped to dramatically inflate 2000s securities values, as derived from data included in Shiller’s 2005 book. (The graphic was skillfully assembled by Wikipedian “Frothy.”)
“October. This is one of the peculiarly dangerous months to speculate in stocks in. The others are July, January, September, April, November, May, March, June, December, August, and February.”
—Mark Twain
The hunt for dread October...
I cannot find the original context for Twain’s quip. Of course, he never lived to see the most spectacular stock market crash of the twentieth century, spanning October 24 – 29, 1929, (or the “roar” that preceded it, which he likely would have laid waste to with his wit).
However, the 1907 stock market panic, which traced many of its roots to the previous year, unfolded dramatically in an October. It also overlapped with a sudden monetary contraction and a widespread banking panic.
If you mention the “Panic of ’73” today, some baby boomers may think of the supply shock crisis that began in mid-October of 1973 when OPEC began waging a campaign of punitive crude oil pricing against the U.S. From its period peak in January 1973 to its relative nadir in early December 1974, the DJIA lost almost half of its value. [ (577.6012/6/74 – 1047.591/5/73) / 1047.59 = –44.86% ]
The “Black Monday” nose dive of October 19, 1987 was the largest single-day percentage market loss. (Oddly, the related recession didn’t set in until a few years later. Even now, the reasons for the speculative volatility of the latter ’80s and subsequent late-onset stall in the economy remain opaque, especially compared to other recent recessions.)
“Speculation is only a word covering the making of money out of the manipulation of prices, instead of supplying goods and services.”
—Henry Ford (1863 – 1947)
American industrialist
“The speculation economy is one in which business management focused on production is replaced with business management focused on stock price.”
“The short-termism of the late 1990s and early twenty-first century simply is an exaggeration of a quality that was embedded in the American economy a hundred years ago. The typical public corporation we know today, what I will call the giant modern corporation, was created during the merger wave of 1897 to 1903. It gave birth to the modern stock market. As it did, it transformed speculation from a disruptive game, played by a few professionals and thrill-seeking amateurs that from time to time erupted into a major frenzy, into the very genetic material of the American stock market, American business and American capitalism.”
—Lawrence E. Mitchell
The Speculation Economy ... (2007)
“Now, speculation — in which the focus is not on what an asset will produce but rather on what the next fellow will pay for it — is neither illegal, immoral nor un-American. But it is not a game in which [the vice chairman] and I wish to play. We bring nothing to the party, so why should we expect to take anything home?
The line separating investment and speculation, which is never bright and clear, becomes blurred still further when most market participants have recently enjoyed triumphs. Nothing sedates rationality like large doses of effortless money. After a heady experience of that kind, normally sensible people drift into behavior akin to that of Cinderella at the ball. They know that overstaying the festivities — that is, continuing to speculate in companies that have gigantic valuations relative to the cash they are likely to generate in the future will eventually bring on pumpkins and mice. But they nevertheless hate to miss a single minute of what is one helluva party. Therefore, the giddy participants all plan to leave just seconds before midnight. There’s a problem, though: They are dancing in a room in which the clocks have no hands.”
—Warren Buffett (b. 1930)
American executive, investor & philanthropist, FY2000 Chairman’s letter to Berkshire Hathaway, Inc.
“In reading the history of nations, we find that, like individuals, they have their whims and their peculiarities; their seasons of excitement and recklessness, when they care not what they do. We find that whole communities suddenly fix their minds upon one object, and go mad in its pursuit; that millions of people become simultaneously impressed with one delusion, and run after it, till their attention is caught by some new folly more captivating than the first.”
“Money, again, has often been a cause of the delusion of multitudes. Sober nations have all at once become desperate gamblers, and risked almost their existence upon the turn of a piece of paper.”
—Charles Mackay
“National Delusions,” Extraordinary Popular Delusions ...
“Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one!”
—Charles Mackay
“National Delusions,” Extraordinary Popular Delusions ...
“Some in clandestine companies combine; Erect new stocks to trade beyond the line; With air and empty names beguile the town, And raise new credits first, then cry ’em down; Divide the empty nothing into shares, And set the crowd together by the ears.”
—Daniel Defoe (ca. 1660 – 1731)
English writer, orig. publ. context unknown (quoted by Mackay)
“If a man walks in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer. But if he spends his days as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making the earth bald before her time, he is deemed an industrious and enterprising citizen.”
washington, DC craigslist > northern virginia > rants & raves
Couple in need ---------------------------------------------------------------- Reply to: [please-dont-flame-the-happy-hubby-2-b]@craigslist.org Date: 2009-03-21, 8:08AM EDT
This is a long shot, but here goes. I am 38 year old dealing with overwhelming task of getting married for the first time. My future wife and I are both employed, hard working tax paying citizens. She owns a condo in Las Vegas which unfortunatley has be to be short sold to get out from under that burden. At our age we basically are paying for our wedding by ourselves, which is putting further and further in debt. I can easily say it is the best investment we both have ever made! Unfortunatley we are still in need of help. With only 1 month till the big date. That is why I am posting this. If find you can donate, even a little bit I could not thank you enough.
God Bless Jason ----------------------------------------------------------------
Re: Couple in “need” (the courthouse steps)
“Love: A temporary insanity curable by marriage.” —Ambrose Bierce
Regarding this beggar bridegroom and his “long shot” at satisfying his nuptial “need”:
Maybe “Jason” still believes in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy, too.
Otherwise, why is he begging a bunch of strangers on Craigslist to help pay for his catering bills? Is he even trying to hit up his parents or his fiancée’s parents? Is he shaking down his buddies and his girlfriend’s girlfriends? After all, at least those folks can look forward to attending this blessed celebration that he’s not even inviting us to crash in his charmless appeal.
When “Jason” and his lovely bride-to-be made these wedding arrangements many months ago, there were obvious signs that we were already heading into a recession, if we weren’t there already.
Besides that, if he’s 38, that means he was in his early twenties when the last recession hit. Of course, it could very well be that it didn’t hit him too hard back then, either.
Perhaps like a lot of D.C.-area workaholics, he is already married—to his career—and doesn’t have a concrete idea of how dire things are out here for many people.
Maybe he somehow thinks that asking anonymous strangers to help finance a wedding is not an asinine thing to do in an economy where anonymous strangers are losing their jobs, having to drop out of school to pay their bills, postponing retirement because their life savings are depleted, witnessing their businesses fold, and sacrificing their health while trying to stay afloat.
He may believe that asking for donations to carry on a lavish rite-of-passage party is not a tacky thing to do at a time when people are getting kicked out of their housing, watching their marriages & relationships fail, trying to explain unsettling new realities to their kids without upsetting them, having their “friends” turn their backs on them, losing their minds and their identities, becoming victims of crime as those with less scruples grow even more selfish and desperate, and more.
To be fair to “Jason,” so many people in our generation get suckered in by our parents, our friends, our sad-sack middle-class assumptions about the “American Dream,” and the extortionists of the wedding & hospitality industries who prey upon the princess-for-a-day fantasies of brides-to-be.
I’ve been to a few weddings in the last ten years where the families blew tens of thousands of dollars on a weekend—only to find out that the blessed couple filed for divorced within 3-5 years anyways... Many of these were extravagant affairs that were almost embarrassing to participate in because of all of the tasteless excess. Half the time we didn’t even know why these conspicuous consumers and careless carousers invited us to these over-the-top shindigs, as we barely knew the couple or the family.
“In economics, a study (done by Pew Charitable Trusts, the American Enterprise Institute, the Brookings Institute, the Heritage Foundation and the Urban Institute) challenged the notion that each generation will be better off than the one that preceded it.[16] The study, 'Economic Mobility: Is the American Dream Alive and Well?' focuses on the income of males 30-39 in 2004 (those born April, 1964 – March, 1974) and is based on Census/BLS CPS March supplement data.[17]
The study, released May 25, 2007, emphasized that in real dollars, this generation made less (by 12%) than had their fathers at the same age in 1974, thus reversing a historical trend. The study also suggests that per year increases in the portion of father/son family household income generated by fathers/sons have slowed (from an average of 0.9% to 0.3%), barely keeping pace with inflation, though increases in overall father/son family household income are progressively higher each year because more women are entering the workplace, contributing to family household income.[18]” —http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_X
I don’t know what the facts on Gen Y are but they can’t be very good either.
Our baby boomer parents have done a lot of us a huge disservice. Their rules no longer apply to many of us but they still keep at it, urging us to follow in their footsteps and hit all the adult milestones in the correct order, at the right time, just like they did.
I just want all you older (boomer and Gen Jones) folks to know that we are not all as blissfully oblivious and shameless as “Jason” appears to be.
“I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take this any more...”
He builds up to this crescendo after saying other things that eerily resonate with our current climate of anxiety: “I don’t have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It’s a depression. Everybody’s out of work or scared of losing their job. .... Banks are going bust. Shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter. Punks are running wild in the street and there’s nobody anywhere that seems to know what to do and there’s no end to it. .... We know things are bad, worse than bad, they’re crazy. It’s like everything everywhere is going crazy so we don’t go out anymore. We sit in the house and slowly the world we’re living in is getting smaller and all we say is, ‘Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms ... just leave us alone.’”
When the madman utters the climactic line, he is exhorting the Everyman, the Silent Majority impassively assembled in the anemic blue glow of their living room television sets, to literally get up out of their seats and go scream their outrage out their windows.
Paddy Chayefsky, the creator of this timeless American character, explained his attitude about Network like this:
“People say to me: ‘Jesus, you moved into some pretty surreal satire.’ I say: ‘No, I still write realistic stuff. It’s the world that’s gone nuts, not me. It’s the world that's turned into a satire." We never lied. Everything in the movie is true—with some extensions. It's very hard to describe simply and realistically what is going on without being grotesque. I think the movie is right now. .... I think the American people deserve some truth—at least as much truth as we can give them—instead of pure entertainment or pure addiction.”—“Chayefsky: ‘Network Is True’,” Time, 12/13/1976
I was reminded of the Network rant scene for the umpteenth time recently while checking out “Silver Spring, Singular,” a downcounty blog that attracts a lot of attention because of its whip-smart & candid writing, topical currency, and its connectedness to the goings-on of greater Silver Spring. Plus, it’s got plenty of photos and graphics and the blogger keeps comments open to Anonymice, which makes things livelier and more engaging.
“I don’t know about on yours, but the locals on my neighborhood message board are mad as hell about the ‘melee’ in [downtown Silver Spring] this past Saturdayand they aren't going to take it anymore!” [Acronym expansion, formatting, & linking all added.]
SSS accompanies the post with a movie still from the Angry Man classic Falling Down (1993), which left me scratching my head over the madman movie mixed metaphors.
SSS: “... the regularly expressed opinion that ‘it's just like that in Bethesda’ is total bulls***. Anyone who says this has clearly never been to Bethesda.”
Springular sure got that right. Downtown Bethesda invests a lot of money in attracting the right crowd of self-actualizing professionals and big spenders. BUP and friends do a bang-up job of keeping baggy-pants, saggy-seat crews out of their scrubbed urban districts.
The most aggressive people you’ll encounter in Bethesda generally include the Type-A jerks that jockey for the plummest parking spots in the downtown garages, the aging frat boy drunks that frequent “Caddies” on Cordell Avenue, and the Valet Parking Mafia that extort fat tips out of west-county and NWDC gentry flush with an embarrassment of disposable income. While some of these potential rowdies may threaten bodily harm if you make the mistake of wasting their time or delaying their gratification, none of them is very likely to break out in fisticuffs with you.
123cartoon on WashingtonPost.com quips: “The ‘Stop the Violence’ concert is over. You may now return to your previous violent nature. Thank you for coming.”
»»»
Sublime Magic theatre. Entrance not for everyone. For madmen only.
«««
Here’s an English etymological enigma. “Mad” variously means angry, crazy, and a combination thereof. Why and how did this come about? Is there psychological research that bears out the observation that raging makes can make you raving?
SSS: “Also, while people certainly have every right to be upset, some use this as an excuse to prop up their bogus theories about how these miscreants will invade Silver Spring throughout the week once the Fillmore is open. Yes, because those Seal (actual Fillmore performer) crowds can get completely out of hand.”
Hey now, once Seal starts singing some of his more provocative lyrics, what if the crowd starts to take it a tad too literally:
“But we’re never gonna survi-i-i-i-ve unless, we get a little crazy...”
Now back to more madcap madness:
Thayer Avenue said [on SSS’s blog]: How did you gain such a penchant for drawing in the crazy people to the comment board? I never cease to be amazed.
And “Thayer Avenue” said this before I added my damage to the mix.
I splenically snorted in return: “‘Thayer Avenue’? Perhaps this proud member of the Nouveau Silver Spring gentry should try on the address and blogger moniker ‘Woodmont Avenue.’ It appears that Thayer doesn’t much care for the untidy opinings of us ‘crazy’ east-county riff-raff.
Springular, how did you gain such a penchant for drawing in the downcounty gentry to act as such wet blankets on the comment board? I never cease to be crazed, er, amazed.” [more crazy stuff followed this jabbering....]
Thayer Avenue said: “Wow, Sleepless. I make an off-handed, generalized comment and you end up attacking me, The X-Files, *and* linking to classic Bernstein all in one fell swoop? Very impressive.
I think my work here is done!”
Indeed!
Springvale Roader informs us: “Well folks, this is timely. This coming Sunday and Monday, AFI will be screening the documentary, ‘Crips and Bloods: Made in America.’ http://www.afi.com/silver/new/nowplaying/events.aspx#crips
I plan on wearing my red bandanna...or should I go with blue?”
Thomas Hardman weighs in: “I was more hoping for a screening of ‘Lord of the Flies’.”
Well, here in the south-central loco-en-MoCo ’hood of west Wheaton, I guess we would have to sport blue bandannas to this cultural event, as MS-13 claims to be the dominant “click” in these here parts.
Yeah, so I’ve heard that the AFI Silver is trying to make it in this recession just like a lot of others arts-and-culture institutions. May I suggest the following quadruple feature, curated by myself:
“The All-American Angry Man Film Marathon” …featuring conniptive classics from the 1970s through the 2000s…
Network — 1970s Ruthless People — 1980s Falling Down — 1990s Gran Torino — 2000s
Why, this could even be the basis for yet another AFI superlative list...
“Yours is the only version of my desertion that I could ever subscribe to, That is all that I can do. . . . You’re so cute when you're frustrated, dear Yeah, you’re so cute when you're sedated, dear Oh yes dear... . . . You are a past sinner, the last winner, and everything we’ve come to, (it) makes you you, you...”
Was Paul Banks taking the piss out of our cohort here? He sounds like he was in thrall of a damaging friendship or affair here.
What if you screamed “INSOLVENCY!” at the top of your lungs in a crowded, chaotic “marketplace of ideas” in the middle of a global economic implosion?
Would some Globalist Stasi arrest you for your damaged tin-foil hat fomenting?
I felt a burning compulsion to unleash this conniption recently:
“And you will not reach me I am resenting a position that’s past resentment and now I can’t consider, and now there is this distance, so...
Sleep tight, grim rite, we have two-hundred couches where you can sleep tight, grim rite, we have two-hundred couches where you can sleep tight, grim rite, we have two-hundred couches where you can sleep tonight …You’re a simpleton… sleep tonight …(You’re) a simpleton… sleep tonight …Can I follow?… sleep tonight ...” [4] Turn on the Bright Lights, 2002
A very few people hear “dream right” instead of “grim rite,” which makes some contextual sense, but I just can’t hear it.
(Yes, I realize that this indie rock dirge is ~7 years old but I need to hear something other than the throbbing sobbing bass-line subwoofing coming from the neighbor’s unit.)
