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| October - December 2008 |
The Kitchen Counter Archives
October 7, 2008
First off, yes - it's a new kitchen counter, in a new town. On it lies evidence
of an experience everyone should enjoy once in their lives. Once. Most guys
would simply ask a favor of friends or family to retrieve a pickup truck at his
weekend residence in the city of Chicago. But not me, the model of
self-sufficiency. I just had to have my beloved GMC Sonoma here with me in
Rockford. Now.
Travel options from Rockford to downtown Chicago are somewhat limited.
Greyhound was my $20 solution, and it required a certain mindset to pull it
off. A few years of random bus rides throughout Chicago proved that CTA
bus people are an odd lot. I expected nothing less from Greyhound bus
people.
I got pretty much what I expected. Most of the riders had originated from
somewhere besides Rockford and were on their way to various destinations.
Like most bus people, they rarely acknowledged their surroundings. The
most interesting person on the bus was a guy two rows in front of me
reading Hoard's Dairyman magazine. Had to be a feed salesman.
The bus stopped in Elgin, then the Cumberland transit station near O'Hare
airport. I hopped on the Blue Line, just like old times, and made my way to
my condo (it's for sale...inquire within). Mission accomplished.
of an experience everyone should enjoy once in their lives. Once. Most guys
would simply ask a favor of friends or family to retrieve a pickup truck at his
weekend residence in the city of Chicago. But not me, the model of
self-sufficiency. I just had to have my beloved GMC Sonoma here with me in
Rockford. Now.
Travel options from Rockford to downtown Chicago are somewhat limited.
Greyhound was my $20 solution, and it required a certain mindset to pull it
off. A few years of random bus rides throughout Chicago proved that CTA
bus people are an odd lot. I expected nothing less from Greyhound bus
people.
I got pretty much what I expected. Most of the riders had originated from
somewhere besides Rockford and were on their way to various destinations.
Like most bus people, they rarely acknowledged their surroundings. The
most interesting person on the bus was a guy two rows in front of me
reading Hoard's Dairyman magazine. Had to be a feed salesman.
The bus stopped in Elgin, then the Cumberland transit station near O'Hare
airport. I hopped on the Blue Line, just like old times, and made my way to
my condo (it's for sale...inquire within). Mission accomplished.
November 3, 2008
Here's a sign your banking institution has some issues - not necessarily
financial issues, per se, but...issues. You may have read about National City
Bank and its loss of about 90% of its market value within a period of
approximately 15 months, as well as its pending sale to PNC Bank, with said
PNC bank using most of its $7.7 billion share of the U.S. Government's
$700 billion financial bailout money to buy National City. That there are
some financial issues.
What we have here is an issue that falls into a category called Utter Lack of
Common Sense. Back in February, I discussed a method of changing one's
demographic from a 30-something guy to a 65 year old retiree. Thanks to
Harris Bank, my own demographic was changed in this way after I opened a
couple of depository accounts when I began my employment with that fine
financial institution several years ago. Harris promptly sold my personal
information and that of my father (he was the beneficiary of one of the
accounts I opened) to the highest bidder. Sometimes the mass marketing
companies got me mixed up with my dad. I'd find AARP solicitations in my
mailbox, addressed to me, as well as tempting offers from The Scooter Store
and various supplemental Medicare insurance companies. I grew to enjoy
my alter ego as a retired dude. Sometimes I drove no faster than the speed
limit and left on my turn signals for miles at a time. I took longer, more
frequent bathroom breaks. I began using my blender to grind up food that
was pretty soft to begin with. When I moved to Rockford, though, the senior
solicitations ended.
Until now.
Today I received an offer from National City Bank to open what appears to
be a standard free checking account. Nothing unusual - except my dad's
name and my Rockford address are on the envelope. Once again, Harris
sold my personal information, this time after I notified them of my change
in address (I still have an account there). Here's where Utter Lack of
Common Sense comes into play: they sold my personal information to a
competitor. Granted, it's a pretty marginal competitor, but...really?
financial issues, per se, but...issues. You may have read about National City
Bank and its loss of about 90% of its market value within a period of
approximately 15 months, as well as its pending sale to PNC Bank, with said
PNC bank using most of its $7.7 billion share of the U.S. Government's
$700 billion financial bailout money to buy National City. That there are
some financial issues.
What we have here is an issue that falls into a category called Utter Lack of
Common Sense. Back in February, I discussed a method of changing one's
demographic from a 30-something guy to a 65 year old retiree. Thanks to
Harris Bank, my own demographic was changed in this way after I opened a
couple of depository accounts when I began my employment with that fine
financial institution several years ago. Harris promptly sold my personal
information and that of my father (he was the beneficiary of one of the
accounts I opened) to the highest bidder. Sometimes the mass marketing
companies got me mixed up with my dad. I'd find AARP solicitations in my
mailbox, addressed to me, as well as tempting offers from The Scooter Store
and various supplemental Medicare insurance companies. I grew to enjoy
my alter ego as a retired dude. Sometimes I drove no faster than the speed
limit and left on my turn signals for miles at a time. I took longer, more
frequent bathroom breaks. I began using my blender to grind up food that
was pretty soft to begin with. When I moved to Rockford, though, the senior
solicitations ended.
Until now.
Today I received an offer from National City Bank to open what appears to
be a standard free checking account. Nothing unusual - except my dad's
name and my Rockford address are on the envelope. Once again, Harris
sold my personal information, this time after I notified them of my change
in address (I still have an account there). Here's where Utter Lack of
Common Sense comes into play: they sold my personal information to a
competitor. Granted, it's a pretty marginal competitor, but...really?
November 29, 2008
Here's what's been on my Chicago kitchen counter for the past 2 months.
Yep, the condo is still for sale. And what a great time to sell a property. If you
ever had any doubt that we live in a faith-based economy, doubt no more.
When people start believing things are bad, they will be. Last week's housing
numbers for October showed the lowest number of home sales in the city of
Chicago since the early 1990's, which was about the same time I graduated
with honors from the University of Illinois with no job offers. The auto
industry recorded similarly poor results in October. It's ugly out there, folks.
Yep, the condo is still for sale. And what a great time to sell a property. If you
ever had any doubt that we live in a faith-based economy, doubt no more.
When people start believing things are bad, they will be. Last week's housing
numbers for October showed the lowest number of home sales in the city of
Chicago since the early 1990's, which was about the same time I graduated
with honors from the University of Illinois with no job offers. The auto
industry recorded similarly poor results in October. It's ugly out there, folks.
December 2, 2008
| Early into my 10-year career as a corporate banker, I decided it was time to learn more about the origins and inner workings of our financial markets. A history lesson, of sorts, was in order. And what better way to learn, than to read about the various financial debacles that made headlines when I was a kid. Den of Thieves was a pretty good primer on 1980's insider trading, the rise of junk bonds as a way for companies to raise capital, and the Savings & Loan crisis. I moved on to Monkey Business, which taught me all I ever wanted to know about investment banking. Barbarians at the Gate told the story of how to buy a Fortune 500 company using massive quantities of debt. The above two books, however, have always been my personal favorites. Liar's Poker is Michael Lewis' account of his four years in the mid-1980's at Solomon Brothers, which at the time was one of the best bond trading firms on Wall Street. When Genius Failed told the story of a group of seriously intelligent guys (some had won Nobel prizes) who came up with a great idea to make a bunch of money in the early 1990's and, well, the book's title pretty much says how that all turned out. What makes these books most interesting, aside from the financial history lessons, is that they keep being written. Over....and over....and over again. I didn't bother reading any of the books about Enron-type scandals, nor will I spend much time on what will surely be an endless release of hardcovers delving into the sub-prime lending meltdown, because it's the same story: a few smart guys come up with a great idea to make themselves lots of money, they're eventually exposed as frauds, the companies they work for blow up, shareholders lose everything, CEO's are paraded in front of congress, some serve jail time, and 5 years later, rinse and repeat. These 5-year cycles have been well documented since the 1980's. But try locating a book similar to those I've listed above, published between the time of the Great Depression and the start of the Reagan years...go ahead, try. It's tough to find any financial scandals over the course of those five decades that required more than 2 pages to describe. The reason for this lies in a little something the investment bankers like to call Financial Innovation. Investment bankers, by nature, are salesmen. They sell ideas, and financially innovative ones sell best. Before the 1980's came along, government regulation kept those ideas within a compact set of parameters. But over time, the salesmen sold the ultimate idea: legislate the idea-stifling regulation out of existence. It worked, fantastically. For a solid 25 years, investment bankers dreamed up financial ideas that hadn't been possible since the 1920's. Huge fees were generated from these ideas. Derivatives, junk bonds, commodity trading, equity research, you name it. If a scandal was associated with it, Financial Innovation was there. Michael Lewis wrote Liar's Poker with the idea that he was documenting the end of days for the ridiculousness of investment banks. And it was pretty friggin' ridiculous. At my former employer, we routinely handed out six-figure incomes to 23-year-olds and only asked them for 90 hours a week designing PowerPoint presentations. Moderately experienced investment bankers were lured away from big Wall Street firms with 3-year contracts guarantying a cool $500,000 paycheck each year. Youngsters fresh out of our training program were given corporate credit cards and, on each night they stayed in the office past 7:00, were reimbursed for dinner and for $90 cab rides to their parents' houses in the suburbs. Needless to say, they all stayed past 7:00 whether they were working on anything or not. Every...single...night. Turns out Lewis' end of days prediction was still a couple decades off, but eventually the various financial innovations related to sub-prime mortgage lending would bring us to where we are today: a time when being a buyer of real estate is much more fun than being a seller. Follow-up note: after you read Liars Poker, check out an article Michael Lewis wrote shortly after the financial markets crashed in 2008. Very interesting reading, from a guy I'm not ashamed to admit is my favorite author. |
December 27, 2008
Here lies the final remnants of employment termination. Inside this
envelope is one last "goodbye" payment to make nice for the events of June
25th, 2008. It's easy to offer up overused, safe-sounding words for losing a
job as part of a planned staff reduction, but when the guy in the cubicle next
to you gets to stay and you have to leave, you done got yourself fired. It
actually worked out pretty well, all things considered. If you're going to get
canned from your job, here's how I would recommend doing it:
I learned there's a whole subset of people roaming around my neighborhood
that I never would have known about (like Crazy Fur Coat Lady and that guy
with the shockingly large head), if not for being out and about during
weekdays instead of nights and weekends. I turned on Comcast's cable
radio and discovered Bluegrass, Latin R&B/Hip Hop, and some long forgotten
old school Rap (remember Kool Moe Dee?). I got to know my condo
neighbors better.
But most of all, I remembered what I like about what I do for a living. And I
found that again.
envelope is one last "goodbye" payment to make nice for the events of June
25th, 2008. It's easy to offer up overused, safe-sounding words for losing a
job as part of a planned staff reduction, but when the guy in the cubicle next
to you gets to stay and you have to leave, you done got yourself fired. It
actually worked out pretty well, all things considered. If you're going to get
canned from your job, here's how I would recommend doing it:
- Get fired during the first week of summer. Race your dirt bike. Ride
your bicycle across Iowa. Bask in afternoon sunshine on your deck
with a cold Pacifico. - Be sure to be unemployed for at least 3 months. That's about the
minimum time needed away from work to figure out why you chose
your profession in the first place. - Find a new job before the financial markets implode.
- Live some, learn some.
I learned there's a whole subset of people roaming around my neighborhood
that I never would have known about (like Crazy Fur Coat Lady and that guy
with the shockingly large head), if not for being out and about during
weekdays instead of nights and weekends. I turned on Comcast's cable
radio and discovered Bluegrass, Latin R&B/Hip Hop, and some long forgotten
old school Rap (remember Kool Moe Dee?). I got to know my condo
neighbors better.
But most of all, I remembered what I like about what I do for a living. And I
found that again.
December 31, 2008
Something wondrous happened in 2008. Something truly fantastic.
I did not play golf.
The whole year, not a single swing of the driver. This hadn't occurred since I
began my banking career shortly after college. At least once a year during the
previous fifteen, I'd lugged my Walmart clubs to golf courses in random towns
across the country for the sole purpose of entertaining my clients.
Ankeny, Iowa.
Owatonna, Minnesota.
Elkhorn, Nebraska.
Golf purists would say that all the courses I played during those years were
distinctly special in their own way, but they all looked the same to me. I know
my golfing days are far from over, but for one glorious year - 2008 - my clubs
never left the bag. Best year ever.
I did not play golf.
The whole year, not a single swing of the driver. This hadn't occurred since I
began my banking career shortly after college. At least once a year during the
previous fifteen, I'd lugged my Walmart clubs to golf courses in random towns
across the country for the sole purpose of entertaining my clients.
Ankeny, Iowa.
Owatonna, Minnesota.
Elkhorn, Nebraska.
Golf purists would say that all the courses I played during those years were
distinctly special in their own way, but they all looked the same to me. I know
my golfing days are far from over, but for one glorious year - 2008 - my clubs
never left the bag. Best year ever.