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It’s The End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)

By redjac ⋅ February 11, 2009 ⋅  Email this post ⋅  Print this post ⋅ Post a comment

I was walking down the street tonight with a friend from work, and we agreed that New Yorkers look downtrodden of late. Some people look happy, but they’re tourists, and tourists always look happy because they’re on vacation, their currency is worth 150 times the US Dollar and their health care system is probably free.

It would have been a short enough conversation, for the reason behind the sad, downtrodden looks is reasonably obvious. Saving it from brevity, however, was my observation that I, myself, am doing great. When my friend criticized me for being self-absorbed, I explained myself: I didn’t buy a house I can’t afford. More importantly, I didn’t design esoteric, convoluted and ultimately unsustainable investment instruments that strained the laws of economics, physics and morality. And my company is doing pretty well right now… partly due to a number of new clients I worked until 4 in the morning to acquire. So while the overall economy is unquestionably in the shitter, my personal economy is doing pretty well.

My good fortune unquestionably plays a part in not feeling too bad about the economy, but I don’t think we should ignore the other two factors. This is New York City. Though most of the people who signed up for homes they couldn’t afford don’t live here, some of the people who put the mortages in front of them do. And most of the people who turned those mortgages into labrynthine financial instruments definitely live here. They’re the ones who built a ring of kindling around the spark of mortgage defaults and ensured it burned through stock markets from here to Tokyo. Leverage is a powerful thing, especially when wielded by the unscrupulous… and this recession lies at their feet, not mine.

So yes. We’re in a rough patch. But I didn’t put us here, and since none of my friends have real money, you probably didn’t, either. So relax. It’ll blow over soon. And when it does, we should have some fresh regulations that keeps people like Madoff from finding success that rightly belongs to people like us — the people who come by it honestly.