Newsgroups: bit.listserv.history
Date:         Thu, 10 Sep 1992 15:21:05 EDT
From:         "Daniel A. Foss" <DFOSS@CCVM.SUNYSB.EDU>
Subject:      Reply to bob pasker (2): the nickels and dimes of widows and
              orphans and poor lunaticks

Attn Chicago Area Subscribers: First Chicago Bank is going bust if it hasn't
already! See below.
-------------------
Yesterday I suggested taking children with proven ability in selling drugs,
pimping, prostitution, gunrunning, illegal gambling, and such, and training
them up to run our largest banks and corporations by teaching them essentially
essentially the Appropriate Behaviour you need for "fast track" upward mobility
to that stratospheric level. And now, come to think of it, maybe the best
immediate preparation for their actual employment would be special tutoring by
our greatest living criminals, starring Michael Milken, Ivan Boesky, and the
rest of the Drexel Burnham Lambert crowd and their henchbeings. We might induce
some participation in the educational process by those never formally charged
or suspected of illegalities but never nailed (we could say we would call off
investigations we called off years ago), and those not evn suspected because,
having the world's greatest legal talent at their disposal, everything they
did somehow came up perfectly legal.

One great advantage our student trainees would have is that they would never
have to learn criminality. They started out like the most admired men (only
ones I know about are men) in the USA, or at least formerly most admired men
would become through practice, criminals, predators, parasites on civil
society. By criminal I mean someone who will do absolutely anthing, legal or
illegal, for money, someone knowing no rules, ignoring laws which it is the
business of the *consigliere* or the Legal Department to worry about. Like
John Anderson, onetime CEO of Continental Illinois Bank, the eighth largest in
the country when it failed, and onetime Banker of the Year thanks to his
unerring talent for building up the balance sheet by lending money to the most
amazing deadbeats at exorbitant rates of interest wherewith he made more
uncollectable loans and so on. These included our friendly neighbors to the
south, Mexico, Peru, Argentina....

When Continental Illinois went down in 1986 it damned near took First Chicago
with it. The nominal competitor across town, in Evanston, actually, was in the
habit of buying pieces of what looked like highly profitable Continental
Illinois loans. As it was, First Chicago lost a billion and a quarter dollars
once the inspectors got through with Continental Illinois' books. Nobody
smeared the good name of First Chicago management at the time, as Uncle Sam
shored it up with chicken wire as could not be done with Continental Illinois.
It wasn't that Anderson did anything wrong, that he broke the law, you see. He
did *everything* wrong, but it was entirely legal.

Yesterday this writer found in the US mailbox a bounced check on First Chicago
to the amount of $16.08. Marine Midland Bank would have to charge the $16.08 to
my account, as there was insufficient funds in the account to cover the check I
cashed, DO NOT REDEPOSIT. It was a dividend check from Exxon Corporation, a
bloody nuisance as it costs $12 for round trip cab fare hence was cashed only
when enough itty bitty checks piled up to be worth a trip. Date of issue,
March 10, 1992. Between then and August, Exxon found out something about this
bank I didn't know. And since the FDIC insures only up to $100,000, Exxon made
a discreet withdrawal.

First Chicago did the same wrong things as Continental Illinois, only more
competently. So did Citibank and Bank of America, even more competently so far
as we know. Bankers are induced to become criminals, punished for deficiency of
criminality. They have adventages over Savings and Loans, there are more things
to speculate in than real estate. There's currency speculation; every now and
then you hear of a bank or corporation dropping a quarter of a billion on a
bet. And speculate they must, because there is not a thing else they can do
with the money.

The Reagan Administration began it all by bribing people to get rich. As I
said, there were three things you could do with the tax cuts and the investment
tax credits. You could invest it or lend it out, that is, speculate with it.
You could export it and make widgets in Indonesia. Or you could build office
buildings with the newest and most expensive computers, "Nobody ever got fired
for buying IBM," whoever said that has probably been fired, which bred more
computers to handle the workload. This is called "throughput" within the
organization itself.

When the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced, back in 1990, that the hours
of office work put in by professional and managerial employees had just set
an all-time record since it started keeping records in 1906, an official blamed
this on "throughput," doubting that it did the economy any good. This was just
before the fad for "downsizing" got going as we know it today.

Another thing, this is for Juniper Sage, that happened in 1990 was the tax
increase that broke the "read my lips" pledge. Sure enough, the volume of
spending by businesses fell; then consumer spending fell. There is, indeed,
a continuing need for making criminals rich and making the rich crimial. Those
are two sides of the same coin. The capital thrown down this rathole comes at
the expense of putting people to work, as it has become socially deviant for
US-born people to work in factories instead of offices and stores. And the
factories built here will hire just enough people to check that the machines
have not broken down. There are just not enough jobs in stores, burger stands,
and gas stations for all the people, Robert B. Reich estimates 80% of those
in the "labor force," who are not doing "symbolic analysis services." Which
requires magical powers only four years of college at minimum can instill:
"Problem-identifying," "problem-solving," "problem-brokering." The last one
sounds to me like plain old hanging out.

I say it again, let us show that if you teach the art of spending money to
those posessing the magic of criminality to begin with, you can get rid of
all those expensive toys in the office, or hide them, since it will not be
necessary to fool anyone into believing that the creature behind the computer
screen Knows something. You are dealing with a truly quilified conniver who
can tell you who you pay off how much for what.

I say the schools teach how to hang out with people who know how to live
richly, who have made the right choice of parents, who are getting experience
watching money get spent and finagling and conniving go on. Oh yes, proper form
and ritual incantations. I say this because in my neighborhood I can watch
"Asian boys doing what American boys should not have to do." Which is physics.

Daniel A. Foss,
who says, heard a rumor about airconditioning coming this way but
too late for *you*, Mario Cuomo, because one of the History graduate
students has a Haitian girlfriend, and last night she called down on you
the wrath of the *worst* Dahomean gods, yer through, Mario, and I'm not
gonna tell where on the doll she stuck the pins, it was almost a pleasure
cleaning up what was left of the chicken afterward.
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