scalpers would have a field day.”
Janet glowered. “My son is graduating from Vanderbilt University next June and he asked me if he should come to Wall Street for a career. “
“What did you tell him?”
“I told him to forget it and go suck on the Government teat just as all the other freeloaders are doing in this country; to go work for the Post Office instead. He’d have more job security sorting mail and can retire in 20 years at 85% of his full pay.”
Tuck took another sip of his whisky. “My oldest daughter graduated from NYU last year with almost $80,000 in student loan debt; she still hasn’t been able to find a job and is living at home, driving her mother crazy, while waiting tables at a local diner in Short Hills for nickels and dimes. To make her loan payments, she’s been selling off her personal stuff on Craigslist.”
Jocko belched again. “I say the best thing to do is to live high on the hog and let the good times roll; borrow all you can, spend as if there’s no tomorrow; eat out at the best restaurants seven nights a week and dance your ass off at the trendy clubs; take luxurious trips to Asia and Europe, ski in Aspen, visit the spa in Baden-Baden, and lease a yacht to sail the Mediterranean in style.”
“But what happens when the bills come due?” Tuck asked.
“DEFAULT! You renounce your debts like Russia and Argentina did a few years ago; you walk away like all those homeowners are doing today in California, Michigan, Florida and Arizona; you file bankruptcy like GM and Chrysler did, there’s no social stigma anymore.”
“Your credit rating will be ruined?”
“Screw my credit rating! I’m not going to be buying any more houses or cars; I can’t even afford the ones I already own. Who needs a fucking credit rating?”
“Hmm.”
A nerdy, young guy in a tie-dyed T-shirt with long greasy hair and a scraggly goatee strutted by the group and nodded at the potbellied man. “Howdy Doody, Tuckeroo.”
Tuck scowled at him as he passed.
“Who’s the hippie?” Jocko inquired.
“Fred or Ted, some such name; he’s a new hire at my firm, a Quant.”
“Another Rocket Scientist.”
“Yeah, he’s got a Ph.D. from MIT in Quantum Theory or String Theory, way-way-out shit. It’s all above my simple mind.”
“Me, I had trouble with fractions in school.”
“Apparently we’re paying him a gazillion dollars to create mathematical models that will predict the ups and downs in the stock market.”
“The black-box guys got their heads handed to them in 2008,” Jocko said, “their supercomputers and models failed miserably.”
“True, however, this kid is supposed to be another genius like Einstein.”
“Einstein lost money in the stock market when he was alive, Tuck, I read it in his biography.”
“Tell my Senior Managing Director to read that fucking book.”
Jocko grimaced. “You can’t apply scientific reasoning to fluctuations in the stock market because human behavior is impulsive and illogical.”
“You’re right.”
“The fallacy is that scientists think risk is a measurable uncertainty.”
“Well, Jocko, isn’t it?”
“It is when you’re talking about known unknowns, Tuck, the risks we are all aware of.”
“Hmm.”
“The difficulty arises with the unknown unknowns, the risks that we don’t even know exist.”
“I think I’d need another drink, Jocko, to understand what you’re trying to tell me.”
“Does this kid know a lot about the securities business?”
Tuck made a face. “Nada; my cat knows more about it than him.”
“Then a clairvoyant with a deck of tarot cards would be of more use to your firm.”
“You betcha, Jocko, and much cheaper too.”
“It’s a case of the blind-leading-the-blind, Tuck, no wonder the country is in so much trouble.”
“Yeah.”
“The kid is a smart aleck,” the tipsy man said, glaring in his direction, “I’d like to cold-cock him and then kick him in the nuts while he’s down!”
Tuck drummed his fingers on the bar, a sure sign that he was about to disclose awful news. “Did you guys hear about what happened to poor Jimmy Donovan?”
“What?” the others asked in unison, clutching their cocktail glasses more tightly as they sensed the news was going to be very bad indeed.
“Let’s order another round before I tell you,” Tuck suggested, “it’s a grisly tale and a possible harbinger of things to come for all of us.”
“Make mine a double!” Jocko shouted to the bartender before anyone else could react.
*
Frank & Claire
Frank Mills, 79, didn't look that old although he felt much older than he was. A roly-poly, gravel-voiced man with a cherubic countenance, curmudgeonly disposition, crinkly hazel eyes, and thinning gray hair, he parked every afternoon on a bench in the courtyard of Trinity Church on lower Broadway. The Episcopal house of worship, the oldest public building in continuous use in New York, was originally built in 1698 and destroyed, the first time, in the big fires of 1776 when the British occupied the city and forced George Washington and the Continental Army to flee north to White Plains.
It stands opposite the landmarked Art Deco office building where he had worked for 44 years. Coincidentally, the building and he were the same age; the ziggurat limestone skyscraper was erected in 1931, the year of his birth, and for the brief period of eleven days, it garnered the distinction of being the tallest structure in the world, until one 23 feet taller topped out on nearby Broad Street.
They didn't build buildings like it anymore. The edifice had aged gracefully over the years and it remained as elegant and sturdy today as the day the cornerstone had been laid. The lobby was, and still is, an architectural marvel of inlaid wood, lofty marble columns, red and gold mosaic tiles, stainless steel, lacquer, frosted glass and sweeping curves; he loved that building.
He, in contrast, hadn’t fared so well; arthritis deformed a few of his fingers, his posture was slightly stooped, and the lump under his armpit, the one he was going for the biopsy on next week, hurt more each day.
The company he worked for had been merged out of existence decades ago, a casualty of the first hostile takeover in the banking industry, however, its name still lived on in a fashion, chiseled into the soft stone above the building’s main entrance. The cost to remove it was, no doubt, considered to be an unnecessary expense by the current owner.
One of the things he missed most about his employer’s demise was the newsletter the bank had published. In addition to updating you on general corporate news, it contained an obituary section which enabled retirees to keep abreast of the deaths of former co-workers. As the situation stood now, he hadn’t the faintest idea who, amongst them, was still alive and who had passed away.
Frank realized that the people who worked on Wall Street now were reviled as a result of the financial crisis and the taxpayer funded bailouts of the banks. Millions of home mortgages had been made to unqualified buyers – called liar loans -- even dead people managed to obtain mortgages. Bankers bundled (securitized) this shitty paper and sold it to thousands of unsuspecting insurance companies and pension funds, making obscene profits.
And