I have been rather surprised about the paucity of columns and letters on the opinion page from Gazette readers concerning the latest banking crisis, which has affected the neighborhood and the world at large, for that matter. My assumption is that residents of the “Happy Valley” just don’t comprehend the gravity and complexity of the problem. 

That’s where I come in!  As a public service, I’ve decided to share my wealth (of information that is) about the issue. (Sorry, I just couldn’t resist.)

My credentials: I’ve been involved with “banking” most of my life. I began my work in the field at the age of 7. I’m now 78 years old. That’s 75 years worth of experience.  Well let’s not quibble about my arithmetic being slightly off. It’s close enough for the banking biz these days, isn’t it, and after all, I went to public school in New York City. 

When I turned 7, my parents launched my banking career by granting me a 2 cents per day allowance and appointing me CEO of a bank shaped like a hog in which to accumulate my nest egg. They called it a “piggy bank.”  I believe that is a misnomer as I’m sure you will agree with after reading this “bank statement.”

I had to be very careful with my money. I had the option of saving my pennies for a week and then purchasing two nickel packs of baseball cards, including a stale slab of bubble gum plus four penny candies, or keeping my stash in the bank for a second week in order to purchase a 25-cent “Spaldeen” plus three penny candies.

It all depended upon how many balls broke windows in nearby apartment houses, were hit on the roofs of those very same nearby apartment houses, or rolled into sewers during the week’s stickball games.  There were no government bailouts. Now that’s a real budget crisis if you ask me. I’m proud to say that I never took a bribe, stole from my sister’s bank, or conducted a Ponzi scheme in order to balance the books. I do hope, however, my sister doesn’t convene a grand jury to investigate. 

From those austere days, my banking career has soared to dizzying heights including mortgages, education loans for me and my kids, dealing with a stolen identity, lost wallets and credit cards, and other issues that I’d rather not discuss here. 

I have been reading about the “difficulties” some of our banks and some international institutions have been facing. It seems like the CEOs, presidents, and other top officials of these organizations have “serendipitously” been able to sell off their stock holdings in the company just before the bank collapsed. Other executives collected huge raises and bonuses.

In addition, they received exorbitant severance packages, retirement deals, and golden parachutes for their “excellent work”  while the patrons were left holding the bag — I mean their bank books. I can assure you that you won’t see any of those bigwigs selling apples and pencils on the street corner. Now that’s what I call a real piggy bank. Oink. Oink.

This is nothing new. Some of you might recall when the U.S. government (you and I) bailed out Chrysler and AIG because some other rich guys said, “They are too big to fail.”  I, like many of you, have taken a big hit in my retirement account, and to quote Tom Paxton in his song, “I’m Changing My Name to Chrysler” he said, “I will tell some power broker what you did for Iacocca would be perfectly acceptable to me.”  

I’d like to close by discussing a different, but closely related, issue in the news today. There’s a big debate about whether or not the government should help our students by forgiving part of their enormous education debt burden. One of the major arguments against doing this is proposed by people, like me, who have paid off their loans.

They (though not I) argue that since they did it, the kids of today have to as well. And here I always thought that parents and older generations should strive to make things better for our kids and the younger generations. Silly me. To be consistent, maybe these dissenters should also claim that since they inhaled polluted air and didn’t benefit from new medical research, our younger generations should also have to suffer. Oink Oink. 

Jonathan Kahane lives in Westhampton. ]]>