Summer's End

I’m writing this at the tail end of an almost perfect weather-wise four day weekend here in New Zealand that began with Good Friday, a public holiday and ended with Easter Monday today, also a public holiday. Good Friday is not a public holiday in the U.S. Most workers in the States who want to take it off would have to use one of their personal days. Most of the financial markets in the U.S., including the New York Exchange are closed on Good Friday and since I worked for a good number of companies on the Street, I was able to frequently enjoy the three day weekend. Christmas is the only religious holiday that is also a U.S. public holiday. Why does Wall St. observe Good Friday? Wall St. lore has is that the last time markets were open that day was in 1907 when there was a severe financial panic which had JP Morgan, in that pre-Federal Reserve Bank era, pledging his own wealth to stave off a complete meltdown of the credit markets. The only problem with this legend is that this panic started in October, long after Easter occurred that year. However I’m unable in my brief research of the subject to find a more plausible explanation. I knew about Boxing Day before I came here, the holiday that is the day after Christmas and celebrated in the U.K., New Zealand and Australia, but was pleasantly surprised to learn that there is an Easter equivalent. I guess it was created to help recover from over indulgence on Easter after consuming all of those chocolate rabbits. We don’t have four day weekends like this in the U.S. because of the Federal Reserve Bank. Their policy is that banks should not be closed for more than three consecutive days.

What I find to be odd about this extended Easter holiday is the sense I get, after nine months of living here, that Kiwi’s are no more particularly religious than Americans and lack the equivalent of a Bible Belt region of fervent devotion. It’s true that the 3^rd largest city in New Zealand is Christchurch and was founded by devout Anglicans from Britain in the 19^th century who had their own John Winthrop like shining city on a hill aspiration. So the long holiday probably has a real legacy from a time when no one questioned that New Zealand was a Christian nation and is still being observed because who wants to argue against a nice long weekend? Jackie Mason said he gave up on atheism when he discovered that they have no holidays. Kiwis also have the Queen’s birthday in June as a public holiday; this interestingly enough is not the case in the U.K.

When a radio announcer here said this morning that this was the last big holiday of summer I immediately was taken back to those Labor Days of youth when I accompanied my parents to a traditional end of summer Sunday dinner at my Aunt Florence’s apartment in Queens. Despite her loving hospitality and delicious feast it was always hard for me to shake off that feeling of longing and regret I felt at summer’s end. Today my seasonal clock was still in a northern hemisphere mode when you can begin to entertain fantasies of boogie boarding at the beach and backyard barbecues soon to come. Bryan and I decided to seize the day with what could be our last summer fling so we had a dip in the beach that's just across the street from our apartment here in Oriental Bay. Besides the almost cloudless sky it was also a most un-Wellington windless day and the bay was more like a tropical lagoon in its stillness and clarity. The moderate coldness of the water made it refreshing and we marveled at being able to spot through the clear water some very large starfish. The beginning of autumn was evident in the chilly air despite a strong sun and we didn’t linger on the sand for too long afterwards. Later I barbecued some shish kebabs in the small veranda at the back of our flat and thought about past summers spent by the sea on Long Island, Maine and the Jersey shore.

Happy Easter!

Lust in Action

Why? I have a hard time understanding it even though it’s been happening from time immemorial and recently with more frequency (until now mostly with Republicans). I’m talking about those rich and powerful individuals who truly have it all, wealth, fame with stellar career success but then self destruct in that most tried and true way: pitiful indiscretion. It was my intention on writing about the Eliot Spitzer debacle since he announced his resignation as Governor but David Brooks has written such a succinct and insightful, case closed and no further explanation needed article in today’s NY Times that I almost decided against it. Brooks’ premise is that these men (they are always men – have you ever heard of the Alpha woman?) might have some Asperger like disorder that while not negatively impacting on their drive to become successful or appear charismatic, makes it harder for them to learn the social skills that most people acquire without second thought and which are needed to bond with people in a genuine way and enjoy real intimacy. The resultant loneliness and isolation can result in an irrational and dark end. It sounds plausible to me and it’s a more thorough and thoughtful explanation than anything else I’ve read. But it does nothing to dissipate the cloud of exasperation and anger that so many of us feel. I mean there must be legions of proverbial lonely guys out there who are reading about his meteoric rise to fame while eating their microwaved Kraft macaroni and cheese and looking at the pictures of his most photogenic and lovely trophy wife and children while asking that question in their minds: Why?

My first reaction after the reading the Times expose about the young woman from the Emperor’s Club who commanded such a high fee was pretty much the same one I had when we all first learned about Monica Lewinsky. This is what you’ve jeopardized your personal and professional life for? Yes, she’s an attractive woman but for $10,000 I was expecting Aphrodite, Helen of Troy or maybe Rita Hayworth. Instead we have a young twenty something from the Jersey Shore and a broken home with a somewhat eclectic taste in music (according to her MySpace profile). As a friend of mine said to me during Monicagate, “At least JFK did it with Marilyn Monroe and Marlene Dietrich”.

F.Scott Fitzgerald wrote, “Give me a hero and I’ll write you a tragedy”. I’ve read a few opinion pieces about this story that explores the premise of Spitzer as a tragic figure in a Shakespearian sense but then quickly dismiss the idea as not being even worthy of such a comparison. The Shakespeare connection intrigues me only because I’ve recently moved to a new flat here in Wellington and as I don’t have a television, I’ve exhausted all the available reading I have on hand except for a hardcover Shakespeare collection that belonged to my brother while in college. I’ve been perusing the sonnets and thought that there’s one particular piece, more so than any of the tragic plays, that is more appropriate to this week’s headline news:

The expense of spirit in a waste of shame

Is lust in action; and till action, lust

Is perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame,

Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust;

Enjoy'd no sooner but despised straight;

Past reason hunted; and no sooner had,

Past reason hated, as a swallowed bait,

On purpose laid to make the taker mad:

Mad in pursuit, and in possession so;

Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme;

A bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe;

Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream.

All this the world well knows; yet none knows well

To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.

Part II - How to succeed in business while failing

I haven't posted recently as we moved two weeks ago and it's only two days ago that I got broadband access in our new flat. We'll it's just in time to write about the hearings that Rep. Henry Waxman of California conducted this past Friday on the exorbitant severance packages of failed Wall Street CEO's Stan O'Neil and Charles Prince.

Dear Representative Waxman:

I want to thank you for chairing the Committee on Oversight and Investigations hearings on the issue of high compensation of failed CEO’s. As a former employee of Merrill Lynch I have been closely following the story since last year, of the huge financial losses of Wall Street firms due to their reliance on collateralized debt obligations. I was almost despairing that there would be so little follow up to Stan O’Neal’s and Charles Prince’s spectacular failure in that regard while receiving exorbitant golden parachutes until I read the news accounts of your committee’s hearings. I am glad that you have helped to keep this outrage in the news and to not let it fade it away. Even though these gentlemen may not have committed any illegal acts we have yet to see the full awful consequences that their irresponsibility and recklessness may cause to our economy. It is a very lame excuse for a professional manager to claim that they didn’t see this debacle coming. Risk is always a concern for financial service firms and properly managing and hedging against it is the most important part of an executive’s fiduciary duties. The disparaging comments by your Republican colleagues, Darrell E. Issa and Tom Davis on why these hearings had to be held has reminded me of why I voted a straight Democratic ticket in 2006 (I’m a registered Democrat in Alpine, NJ but I am currently working in Wellington, New Zealand) and why I was so exultant in November of that year on learning of the Democratic Congressional victories.

In 2003 I was downsized from Merrill Lynch, along with thousands of others by Mr. O’Neal as part of a cost cutting move to increase the value of the firm’s stock. As a six year employee I received the company’s standard severance package: three months compensation with health benefits plus one month for every year above five years on the job. How can it be justified that a man who is responsible for a six billion dollar loss, the largest in Merrill Lynch’s history, then receives a severance package worth 141 million dollars? Thank you for asking this question in a public forum and God bless you.