Letter to the Bank #59

Dear BM,

I’ve been reading so many op-eds, editorials, books, columns about the worldwide financial crisis that I’ve hardly had time to pen my own artsy and numerically illiterate response to the crisis. You could well argue, given the volume of words on the subject one does not need me to add to the pile but humans need to vent as is clear from the millions of bloggers and twitterers out there. I’m just one of them.

What gives my letters to you, my essays (as defined by Montaigne an essay is a melding of the intellectual and the personal) their particularity is the angle I offer of an artist obsessed by greed and its sad counterpoint poverty. In a world that could feed itself if only it could agree to do so it makes me mad to see individuals piling up obscene amounts of personal wealth given the desperation out there. I also cannot stop opining on why some choose the pursuit of creativity and others choose to create money. This fascinates me I suppose and the difference between the two is not always obvious. There are people in the world of finance who seek to create wealth and end up trying to eradicate malaria, and there are artists who decide to make things and discover a way to make objects that is tantamount to printing their own money—quantitative-easing-explainedquantitative easing if you like.

I met a real banker last night. I was not seeking a loan to fix my leaking roof. I was at a party making conversation! I was holding a glass of—well in my case water because I was still coping with a hangover from my spouse’s office party the night before—but it could as well have been fine wine because fine wine is a specialty at our good friends’ Jane and Debras’ Christmas Party. The gentleman I was speaking to said he worked for the Bank of Scotland and in my scattered readings I’d gathered this was one, big struggling institution so I deigned to ask about its’ troubles. He was forthright saying like many banks an act of hubris had lead to its’ current precarious state. I added my interest was that of a mere dabbler in the dark arts of finance and that I described myself with regularity as numerically dyslexic. He said that really a bank is just a big version of what everybody is dealing with when it comes to their own personal finances. Some handle those finances well and some don’t. This struck me as a nice conciliatory note with which to end my last letter of the year. He was a nice man and struck me as, at the very least as honest as I attempt to be. The only difference was that he handles a substance of nuclear proportions and my medium is, when it remains distinctive from the Bureau of Engraving and Printing and the United States Mint, much like sand—loved and much trodden upon.

I do want to add one more little story. Planet Money did a piece the other day about the little island of Yap, Micronesia, where money or currency took/takes the form of huge limestone disks called rai, disks described as stunningly beautiful when radiant and white in the sunshine. This is a great example of what I’ve been trying to say all along—Art is definitely worth more than money. Art is what people should be exchanging for the things they need. If instead of being passed on like regular currency it is kept and enjoyed all to the good! People just have to make more money—I mean Art—and it wouldn’t be considered illegal.
Yours sincerely,

Kristian Witherkay

Socialite bucks rouble recession to host Moscow's biggest contemporary art show

Unemployed Angel

Simpkins from Accounting. Laid off last year and only three weeks of unemployment left. He just cannot find work. Nobody needs honest budgeting officers.

Art & finance: the latest from the barricades

Last Thursday, October 21, Deloitte sponsored its third annual ‘Art & Finance’ conference, in Paris. The overlap between the worlds of art and finance is, to the discomfort of many people in and around the art world, not insubstantial (though not yet ‘substantial’ either).CLICK LINK FOR MORE

Letter to the Bank #58

Dear Financial Engineer,

We do not expect this to make sense, or for you to understand as I—no fan of banks—do shower down upon you a hail of incomprehensible ponderings on the subjects of money and art, art and poverty, wealth and acquisition, greed and patronage of the arts. As one of your clients I do expect you to sit there squirming, suffering through my abstract tirades, my obscure assaults on your wrong headed approach to life, the Universe and everything. Clearly those whose lifetime pursuit of money finds them sitting pretty must feel  that their chosen path is somewhat justified. They have all the stuff of their dreams and can only hope to acquire the one last item on their list—intelligence, or something that approximates depth. Perhaps there is an outrageously expensive machine that can inject the sum of everything into the brain, a time saving educational device that in much the same way money saving devices like collateralised debt bundles need no further input once turned on to churn out profit, will provide infinite wisdom whilst requiring no book learning or essay writing, no work in fact.


You might detect a hint of frustration in my writing. As an artist I have no interest in trying to grasp the intricacies of your grasping ways and am determined to maintain my oblique tangent on life but I do resent the way once you have money you can with little thought churn out more and more of the stuff. My approach to trying to get through to you is patently absurd and that is the way I like it! I am baffled by what you do and hope you are equally baffled and shut out by the meager but honest meanderings of a creative mind such as my own. The frustration you detect is based on the fact that I would also like to have a money machine at my bedside that required no input from me as it churned out a living, enough at least to keep our family at some distance from fear of starvation.  I'm not interested in the pursuit of money. It bores me. You see I can think of a million things to do with my time. I'd make art. I'd  be ever fascinated by the effort to contribute to the big essay of life. I wouldn't find taking and taking and taking that satisfactory. I only want enough money to fend off constant worry. I understand that is a highly mutable amount but do believe if I were confident I could secure enough to support our basic needs we'd be inclined to send the extra toward the helping of others. My most basic need is peace of mind. If only we could secure peace of mind for everyone. So much human capitol is wasted on worry. Freed of anxiety humans would produce so much more effectively be it in the arts or indeed in industry where a happy employee would surely be happy to work if they were confident that they and theirs could rest secure in the belief they'd be provided for. That may be the kernel of this letter, the core of this thesis.


Your response to this: 
1.—Hmmmm! Perhaps we should spread the wealth? Perhaps having the wealth concentrated in the hands of a tiny minority is wrong!
2.—Hmmm! Clearly we are dealing with a liberal/populist/socialist/communist/atheist and anti-plutocrat! Ah! His address is on the envelope!


Yours sincerely,

Kristian Stillwitherkay

We Are A Banana Republic—More or Less What I've Been Trying to Say All Along

Stefan Sagmeister's 7,200 bananas originally displayed @ Deitch in NYC, January 31, 2008 -- February 23, 2008

I have not been adding to this blog of late because now everybody is seeing it (The Horror) and saying it (The Greed) so much more efficiently than I do. Here Nicholas Kristof puts it nicely (click on link above) and there is also a link here to an excellent series on inequality by Timothy Noah of Slate.  
Need I add that banks are evil?

There is a wonderful thread of comments regarding Sagmeister's use of bananas in his art work.
Perhaps artists are evil to.

Letter to the Bank (possibly an Urban Legend but very funny)

Letter to the Bank #57

From Russell Christian Illustration

My Dear BM,

These letters are turning existential! I think that is the right word. Rather than be mired in the humdrum world of my own crumbling finances I like to look up and out and on. I cannot stand just thinking and breathing anxiety all the time, or being pulled to shreds on the torture rack of the need to make art (and live and breath it as and when moments in the day open up) and make money not only to confront the impossible task of paying down debt but also to keep the little people in my life, at the very least, away from robbing banks i.e.—in modern parlance—off the computer. I’m confident my brood would make fine cyber-hackers given enough incentive and believe me if you deprive them of their candy, their toys, their sugar-bloated cereals they will find a means to acquiring these things themselves. You mark my words. In fact you’ve always known this and that is why, not so long ago, you were giving them credit cards as soon as they could walk. This whole financial crisis is THEIR fault! Let’s blame the toddlers! This isn’t far from the truth either come to think of it. Blaming naive, wannabe homeowners for the crisis, beginners who’d were sold a bill of goods, toddlers who dreamed of home ownership, were What did you expect? You guys didn’t understand what you were doing and still do not understand the half of it so how dare you point at those who fell for your sales pitch? If it was too good to be true then why were you selling it in the first place? And now you want to take their toys away! Simply put your behavior was criminal.

Gosh every time I start writing these letters in hopes of soaring poetical I end up dragged to the ground by these sorry, all too earthy and humdrum truths.

I was going to write about how life is so much more than money but money somehow always inserts itself into the picture. It destabilizes me every time I think ont (sic—I believe this is an acceptable Shakespearian term).

I was going to share with you all the current questions in my head. Some examples:

How would people respond if I burnt the books of Ann Coulter?
What if I framed a book of hers and titled the now completed artwork “Unburnt Book by Ann Coulter”, could I sell them? Make some money?

How about an artwork so insulting to bankers it could never possibly sell? You’d buy it, right?

Do you thinks bands who perform on a nice sunny day at an open air concert are sorry for those who are cancilled the next day due to rain?

Do you know what GOP stand for*? I bet a good fifty per cent of the population has no idea.

Do you like ambient music? That one just popped into my head.

Yours trying so very hard to remain polite,

K.W.

GOP stands for "Grand Old Party". Its a nickname for the Republicans who resent any form of government because it always gets in the way of them having "Fun."

Letter to the Bank #56

Hello Bullrider,

Finally another letter!

Funniest thing is writing these letters is such hard work but I keep doing it anyway. Finding a moment to sit down, getting comfortable (so hard to do when your ceiling is leaking), finding a pen that works, finding a stamp for goodness sakes!

Fortunately I am a patient man and so I go to this effort for you, my bank manager.

Funnier still is the fact that you are, frankly, the last person I wish to write a letter to but here I am, pen in hand, doing just that.

Feel free to explain!

Foolish Harry here certainly has no idea what is going on.

Frankly though I keep writing in hopes an explanation will be forthcoming.

Felicitous greetings aside why do the rich feel so entitled?

Falling stocks, crumbling edifices, collapsing DOW and they keep partying?

Fold your newspaper under your arm and join me for a drink.

Face to Face perhaps we can figure this thing out together.

Ferocious cold aside I think you should touch base with your real clientelle—those like me with nothing to offer but the shirts off our backs because we’ve given everything else.

Sincerish regards,

Kristian Witherkay

PS-To keep things lively I might start a series of letters whereby every sentence begins with the same letter—a madcap creative exercise guaranteed to infuriate my BM (you!) and keep me on my toes and out of  oh I dunno—Debtors’ Prison. Oops! I forgot! I'm already in Debtors' Prison! My own home! I exagerate only a little. Fond of it though I am it is a ball and chain around the neck. 

I’ll work my way through the alphabet in no particular order starting today—it would appear—with F.

Delete All Debt Mug

My first attempt at merchandising.
These are available from me for $25 which includes shipping.
Seems simple enough: Why not delete all debt everywhere all at once one day so everyone can wake up debt free.
I'm sure it would all shake down just fine!

Depression Era Sunday Funnies pg.4 Feb 8, 1931

Depression Era Sunday Funnies pg.3 Feb 8, 1931

Depression Era Sunday Funnies pg.2 Feb 8, 1931

Depression Era Sunday Funnies pg.1 Feb 8, 1931

I found some Depression Era Sunday Funnies in a flea market this week and was struck by the constant theme of jobs and lack of them. Possibly from the Philadelphia Enquirer, they echo themes from the current yet-to-be -named Depression we are in. More pages to come.
PS-Note the Word Google in BARNEY Google. Doesn't it look familiar?

Letter to the Bank #55

Dear Bullrider,

I made a shocking discovery today. I believe I’ve become physically allergic to banks! I was required to enter one of your fine if a little unkempt facilities to deposit a meagre check (enough at least to tide us over until our next direct deposit so I shouldn't complain) when I found myself all of a sudden paralyzed from the knees up. Below the knees seemed hardly affected. I could only presume this is related to the vicinity of my wallet—its placement about my person. As a frequent wearer of baggy cargo pants/shorts this can be anywhere along the length of the thigh depending on where the pocket is attached. I won’t go into brand differences between say Old Navy and whatever one might find in the local charity shop. Because I am left-handed the pocket I usually use is also usually to be found on my left side. My left side definitely became far more rigid than my right. You could say it is all in the mind but I found this compelling back up for my theory.

Needless to say this truly puts the kebosh on further efforts to engage with my BM in person at my local branch—can’t do it anymore! Previous attempts to do so have been so hopeless any way especially given your proclivity for face-lifts. Either you are a master of disguise or a victim of botox treatments run amuck. Your name on that little bronze plaque remains the same but your look changes with every visit? Is it that I don’t have a personal BM anymore? Is this a thing of the past? In numerous letters I have addressed this issue and yet still I cannot come to grips with the awful possibility that you, my BM, are in fact many, many different people.

How about Skypeing in future? This would demand minimal effort on your part (and is cheap!) and I could closely observe your features without having to step into your strange and alien world, a world that, these days, is a proven danger to my health.

Yours sincerely,

Kristian A. Witherkay

PS- I’m not about to appologise for not having written in a while. You NEVER write to me —unless you count those dry missives churned out of your department suggesting I transfer higher rate balances to your oh so briefly lower rate.

Why Struggling Homeowners are not being Heard

In my naivety I still imagine it reasonable to ask the banks to restructure the debt they helped create when they encouraged and made loans based on home values they knew were unsubstainable.

Symbols for Our Time

UNDERWATER

TREADMILL

OVER A BARREL

From Guinod's Faust pg.115

The Art of Self-Expression in 360º

How to say it all using all means at one's disposal
This blog has been on hiatus. I'm not sure where to take it. 
I hoped time and distance might provide a new perspective. 
I keep returning to thoughts on satirists who stop satirizing (Tom Lehrer for example) because they can no longer see the funny side in what they observe. Satire is anger expressed with humor i.e. not so funny one almost forgives the object of one's wrath but funny enough to keep the reader reading. 
My letters to the Bouncy and ever so elusive Bank Manager will continue but sporadically.  I don't want to be angry.

Art remains elusive as well but nonetheless is at the core of this blog. I could as well have called it Art and Life wherein an artist struggles to balance:
His need to create with his urge to destroy, 
His roles as father/husband, home owner (the most onerous-see previous entry), and earner/worker (I don't have a bad job as jobs go but it is part-time and with property taxes that are the highest in the nation still totally treadmillish). 

The life dream is hard to chase when debt hovers over one so menacingly. Instead of blogging and PAINTING shouldn't I be: 
Chasing after a business degree? 
Getting my realtor's licence? 
Climbing in to finance? 
Going where the money is? 
Selling my body?
Selling my soul?
Selling secrets to the Russians even though it is all there on Google? Hey! If they'll pay for it why not? My secrets are very dull but I am willing to sell them and I'm pretty cheap.
I remember once, with my old room-mate and dear friend, Steve, standing over a wood burner in the kitchen of his loft in Bed Stuy, both of us wearing fingerless gloves. We were warming our chilled fingers before heading back into our studios to continue the arduous, possibly absurd task of making our art. We looked at each other mournfully and chatted about how, if we had any sense, we'd have worked on Wall Street. Then we both burst out laughing. 

We would've been miserable.
Nothing has changed.
I'm still broke.
I'm still making art. 
I still get distressed by the ills of the world.
I'm currently distressed by: 
Fox News (never watch it but knowing it is there is enough to give me ulcers)
Right Wing bloggers who lie with impunity,
Massively paid Lobbyists,
Stalling on climate and new energy legislation, 
Loopholes for banks, car dealerships/mortgage brokers/financial engineers (who came up with that one?)
The cost of applying for Art competitions (I'd love to get my art out there but for goodness sake!)
The lack of jobs out there for High School kids,
The lack of vision,
The lack of vision,
The lack of vision.


I'll keep fumbling in the dark for the light switch.

On Housing Starts going Down

(COMMENT LEFT ON NPR's PLANET MONEY)

Great! Then stop building! I don't want the construction industry to keep building homes we don't need! There are so many homeowners desperate to sell let alone a gazillion foreclosed homes waiting to be snapped up at minimal cost by those with ready cash. It seems absurd to build more homes. I own a home and these days kind of wish I didn't. We've an in ground oil tank and though we've no immediate plans to sell if we did decide to do so we'd have to get the tank out of the ground before we could go ahead. Doing that is a potential nightmare. We considered being pro-active but have no tank insurance and if we found the tank was leaking we'd be screwed. We have looked into refinancing but have little financial confidence when it comes to knowing who to trust. The house is a chain around our necks. We are house poor. It needs to be painted and repaired but with its value so uncertain I am not sure pouring money into it is any different than pouring money down the drain. I certainly do not want to take out yet another loan to fix it up which is surely what any realtor would encourage me to do. We are paralyzed and I know we are not alone in this respect. Sorry if I veered off topic. (www.bouncybanker.blogspot.com)

An Asset

Letter to the Bank #54

Dear Longshot,

It's been so long I've completely forgotten your name. It is possible your bank changed hands since we last spoke, and I use the word spoke loosely considering we have never, in fact, spoken. Are you still you, or have you morphed into someone else? Has your staff turned over? Is it facing the other way? Is the new new team on board with financial regulation or already finding ways around it? I gather all financial regulation is pretty much demolished before it can ever take hold. Sad really. I'd like to get this relationship going again if only to keep you on your toes. You certainly keep me on mine with your continually badgering me for my next interest payment. Like I told the previous gentleman I'd appreciate it if you threw more of my payments at principal in future. Then we might get ourselves on more of an even footing. We'd almost be able to look each other in the eye! A society where the distance between the rich and poor had been substantially eroded would be a thing to see wouldn't it?

Yours sincerely,

K. W.

PS-I'm feeling a little flush! Sold a couple of drawings and have more than enough in my pocket to pay for lunch this week!

Letter to the Bank #53 (Financial Streaking)

Dear Bullrider,

Hello! Your transparently ridiculous friend here, or more precisely ridiculously transparent friend...the one who believes you should/we should all be up front when it comes to the money we do or don’t have. I understand that smoke and mirrors are all part of the game but this game you are all playing is now ruining lives. You are leaving a trail of destruction in your wake—foreclosures and oil spills being just the tip of the ice-burg—not to be rude but the public is beginning to perceive you all as murderous thugs who are indifferent to life as we mostly know it.

So why is it that when I wish to bend an ear it is yours I turn to? I believe if I can bend your steely, sludge filled cochlea there might just yet be hope for us all. As obtuse as I may be when it comes to balancing a check book I may be the one best situated to see this whole shebang of toppling and regenerating stock quotes for the soggy cardboard edifice that it is. To the world of high finance I am the quintessential outsider (no longer victim but wizened observer).


My proposal is this:

We must all engage in a new openness regarding our personal finances and recognize the inarguable fact that, like the Greeks we live beyond our means and perhaps, like the Greeks, are in danger of having assumptions about what we deserve—like retirement at you know...forty, and so forth. These assumptions are based on what? Certainly they are not based on reality. We are all in debt whatever way you choose to look at it. Even you guys are in debt. The bonuses comprise the money you don’t throw at your debt obligations because having (as you all are so sure you do) the money smarts, you don’t want to tie up your money in petty matters like reducing the abstractions and distractions imposed by debt!

I’ve a name for this new plan of mine—Financial Streaking.

Henceforth we shall bare our financial souls.
I’ll be the first.
Just when people are least suspecting it, in the middle of a nationally televised football game for example, I shall rip off my facade and run across the pitch of our shared existence, plow through our collective dreams and so reveal the shallowness of the motivations at their core.

You’ll hear the sound of shock and awe as I determinedly streak, financially butt naked for all the world to see, dropping personal information like PIN numbers and passwords as I go.

Being human and all too frail my gumption and gall will run out quickly and so, if all goes to plan I shall needs must reach the changing rooms (preferably of my favorite team though truth being told I’m indifferent to football and use the analogy only to garner a populist connection to my otherwise whacky theme), having evaded security as I go.

Back on the field there it will lie, throbbing and sad, teetering on the twenty yard line, my dirty laundry, the truth of my financial instability, and in it the masses shall see therein reflected the paucity of their own dreams, based as they too often are on materialistic yearnings.

Yours sincerely,

Kristian Witherkay

Michael Moore on Brian Lehrer

Letter to the Bank #52

Dear Mr. Bullrider (or current BM if not available),

This idea is so insane…it just might work. Why don’t we simply delete all debt? I know it is a simplistic but I believe simplifying is good. We can assume debtholders won’t like the idea too much but visionary ideas must always face and overcome resistance. If we are ever to restore balance to the universe this is the only way. To the Mr. Potters of this world, for those who have never encountered debt the idea will no doubt be seen as dystopian, nightmarish, but for those in the hole—the other 99% —it is not just a utopian dream but one that is within reach! As the majority we can vote to end all debt because we live in a democracy. Of course the debt doesn’t stop at the borders and not every country believes in the democratic process. There are problems we’ll have to overcome. Naturally picking the date for Debt Deletion Day would be tricky. The whole thing would have to happen instantly so people don’t go hiding their assets or knocking down doors to find them. This is more of a headache than I thought. You could help. Give me your thoughts—the thoughtful ones not the reactive kind.

It is funny to think that communist China stood in counterpoint to capitolist America for half a century but now holds the purse strings. They are the greatest debt holder of all! My idea should appeal to capitolists everywhere. Even the banks that are too big to fail owe money to someone, somewhere! The US woud bennefit enormously if China freed it from its fiduciary obligations. At the other end of the spectrum homeowners could keep their homes to salvaging the remaining tattered remnants of this beleagured society. Surely that would be a good thing? Oh I know…legal paperwork would be voided. Ownership would have to be reconceived that sort of thing. These are minor details. The point is to let people be. Leave them alone. Get off their backs. Cease with the threats. Go silent. Be gone. Let people live their lives, their all too brief lives, with some semblance of dignity! This current system is no longer tenable. We need to circumvent, short circuit, the system. Spelunkers in the Matrix can surely find a way.

Perhaps we can find a happy compromise. If we were to be more modest in our goals and merely iron out the wrinkles in debt, even it all out, spread the pain. It would be good for people to feel in control again, self-respect, and bodily hygiene would return and, having learned to iron they’d all be well dressed to boot.  If we all took less and gave back less…for example you keep the art I sent you, keep the books you borrowed, and, for goodness sake, keep all that paperwork you insist on sending me. You know I never read it. And I’ll keep what I already have which means you’ll hardly notice a thing! If you don’t want me to write to you any more I won’t—all the less paperwork for you to deal with!

In short I’ll stop bugging you if you stop bugging me.

Yours sincerely,

Art Witherkay

Letter to the Bank #51

Dear BM,

I’ve been attempting to write haikus of late though not in their strictest form. They are pop haikus, westernized impoverishments of a transcendent form.

In a World That Shoots its own Foot
There’s a hand I often see
That likes to point at me.
Paralyzed from the shin bone up
I gawk at the passers by

My mind feels like a spiral cooked ham these days, hurtling inward to the core, soon to be turned into soup. All I wish to do is turn my protracted whine into an oratorio, convert my confusion into clarity. The desire to share the fruits of my labor with the world is overwhelming but who wants wrinkled skins, and mushy texture, spotting and bruises? It would be nice to share excitement for a change, the thrill of travel, of making new discoveries, the joy of painting.

Why do I keep addressing these letters to you, my friend? Because it seems to me essential that you, more than most, must come to your senses. I’m hoping you will finally grasp the extent of the havoc you have unleashed on this ravaged world.

I’ve always had an angry bent I suppose but mostly have always been regarded as an optimist by nature, not all dark and bent out of shape. That is the awful power of debt—it turns you into gnarly roots and vines. I’ve become an ancient olive tree in the past few years but you wouldn’t want to make oil out of my olives, no siree! Debt crushes the life out of a person. Lack of financial health is more damaging to one’s physical health than lack of exercise! You are positively no help. I can’t trust you any more or any of your ilk. Money experts are expert at making money, but not at helping people manage their own. If people do manage their money well, the experts, I suppose, make less? Is that how it works? I thought if you helped me and I did better then so did you.That is how naive I have been for all these years.

I suppose I keep writing to you out of that optimism I mentioned, that part of me that strains to comprehend, or rather find, the heart in you.

Sincerely,

Art Witherkay

PS_Here is another haiku for you:

We are the bankers’ wet dream
All that we earn they get
For a job poorly done
To maintain good credit
And a debt that will never
Ever diminish

Letter to the Bank #50

Dear BM,

I keep writing in hopes of discovering I am not alone. But you never answer my letters. I persist because I have hope. I’m a hopeful pessimist. Also you not responding allows me to speak my mind. Here is my latest thought:

The institution of banking as we know it has had it’s day. I do wonder what you observe from the inside though— do you see fine marble columns that bolster a sense of security—or do you see decay? Do you notice the gilt work (as it were) or the guilt, that insidious virus, working its way into the fabric of your networks, despite all efforts on the part of your guilty peers to ignore, sideline or deny that any such thing exists, or would even have reason to exist as all that they do is above board and beyond reproach?

So it is that I find myself standing on the pulse of my local branch, the sunlight streaming through that splendid rose window setting my hair aflame. I hold on like some heroic sailor going down with his ship. Then I hesitate. Is this how I want to go? Do I lash myself to your mast and keep making those massive interest payments to your floundering institution, into that leprechaun pot of gold you so cherish? Or do I jump ship, abandon my obligations, and attempt to swim all the way to the shore? The latter feels no less noble these days. This life of indentured servitude in a society so batty it can’t tell its head from its toes doesn’t ring right. I’d like to try something else for a while, somewhere else, somewhere off the grid where it is warm and the life is a simple one. I loved Robinson Crusoe when I was a kid!

Best regards,

Art Witherkay

Admit it. You enjoy my letters. Without them you’d be terribly out of touch with how the other half, rather the other 90%, think.

Reining in Corporate Influence

In January the Supreme Court opened the door wider than ever to corporate interests by allowing them to donate pretty much whatever they wish to influence elections however they choose. Show me a politician who can take the money and then ignore the bidding of these massive corporations. This was a distressing day for this tattered democracy. On the upside there are people out there struggling to do something about it. I received this request from Jessica Sharp and enclose the links she provided.

Hello!

My name is Jessica Sharp and I'm involved in a new movement to rein in corporate influence over our elections.  Corporate persons have enjoyed tremendous influence over our democratic process for decades, but the 1/21/10 Supreme Court decision opened a new door.  It's time for the madness to stop and to re-introduce sanity into our electoral process!  I've been working with a few different groups, some national and some MD-based where I live, to do this. 

One of the groups I'm working with on a national scale is Free Speech for People.   This documentary I'm sending was produced by them about our rally in MD.  It was released on Wed, 3/3 and was featured on michaelmoore.comand huffingtonpost.com almost immediately!  That being said, our movement is non-partisan.  Conservatives, liberals and independents are all equally disgusted with corporate influence on our elections.

Since the news cycle is so fast, it has now been rotated away from the homepages of those sites and into the archives.  I am trying to keep it in the public consciousness so we can continue to spread the word and recruit concerned citizens to our cause.  Since it is a professionally produced video, it really gives some clout to the movement.  Could you please link this to your blog?  I've been reading Art and the Bouncy Banker and I really like what you have to say.  I will offer 3 possible sites:

www.freespeechforpeople.org/making

http://michaelmoore.com/words/must-read/jessica-sharp-why-she-got-involved-fight-campaign-finance-reform

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/harry-hanbury/new-populist-heroine-spar_b_483706.html


Thank you so much!  I really hope you will consider it!
Jessica Sharp

The New Money Lenders

I quote from money.co.uk"

It's looking very likely that within the next year or so the face of British banking is going to be unrecogniseable from its previous incarnation.
Not only is this the year that Santander stamp their name firmly on our highstreets (Alliance & Leicester are next in line for a rebranding). But, after the unprecedented number of mergers, takeovers and rescues that have narrowed the financial sector considerably, 2010 looks like it's going to be the year we welcome a host of new brands into British banking.
While we're not setting our expectations too high, the new additions are looking promising and we're keeping our fingers (and toes) crossed that a new era of customer focused banking is about to begin.

Last night I watched the not very good film version of Animal Farm (featuring the voice talents of such as Patrick Stewart and Ian Holm) wherein we are reminded that absolute power corrupts absolutely. The story of Animal Farm by George Orwell is a story for the ages and though it was a reflection on the rise and disintegration of communism at the time it might just as well be a parable on how excessive zeal in any quarter—capitalism for example— will always bring out the worst in people. Let us only hope these new banks truly intend to help people manage their assets and their debt holdings responsibly and do not encourage bad practices. This will only happen if they are regulated. Regulation is a word that strikes fear into the hearts of the private sector. These new banks should embrace it if they want their public to trust them.

Here in the States a similar movement toward community banking, customer focused banking, is thwarted by the mountains that need to be climbed to move one's accounts (such as they are) into the hands of community banks that seem themselves to be precarious at best. It is easier to stay with the nasty banks and so, exhausted as everyone is, that is what they do. At least when the big banks collapse they'll do so with a bang not a whimper.

It is hilarious that I write about these things. I am not a money guy. I suppose it is this lack of fiduciary confidence that prompts me to try and figure all this out. I've always resented needing money to live. These days I resent it more than ever, and cast around for the next job to bring more in.

Editorial - A.I.G., Greece, and Who’s Next? - NYTimes.com

Editorial - A.I.G., Greece, and Who’s Next? - NYTimes.com

Letter to the Bank #49

Letter to the Bank 50


Dear Bullrider,

Art here. That is what I’m sticking with these days, Art.

Kristian, my first name, despite being spelt with a K, feels too burdensome, too high fallutin’, even a little dishonest. Though I do put you through the ringer on all that moral stuff like having scruples and actually using them I never pretended to be perfect myself. But I am just an artist. What I do effects nobody. I can be immoral because I can be ignored. You cannot. If I mess up my finances I now understand it is my problem and the ripples caused will barely register on your radar. What you do or don’t do has consequences for everybody and these days, don’t argue, you are causing pain. I’d call you a sadist except I’m still not sure you see it. I’m not convinced it is intentional. You’re just callous, blind. I’m Art. I see all so watch it. I’m everywhere but so elusive. Just when you think you have caught up with me I disappear around the corner. Go ahead. Foreclose on me. My home is in my heart. Trouble is that is also where you’ll find my family. That is where you get to me. You hurt the children. This is why I can’t let down my guard. I might lash out. This is why I must bone up on finance. I warned you about this in my last letter because I am never anything but upfront. I’ll read “Investing For Kids”,and Money For Dummies” and then I’ll come play with you! I can’t let up but I can be lighter. Light interests me so much more than the darkness of your turgid world, the darkness I refuse to let you pull out of me.

I may not write many more letters to you because I can safely say that the only letters I ever receive from the bank are the least poetic, least enjoyable correspondence I ever have the misfortune of receiving. I had hoped you might respond with real advice. I hoped you’d make human your institutions, accessible your world but honestly we are all shut out who do not spend a quarter of our life times joylessly balancing our check books. It is only because I feel I’d be in a position to act on your conscience if (having relentlessly chipped away at your cold granite facade) I eventually find something in you I can relate to. Then I can hold you to account. I write to you as a last act of defiance, defense and hope.

My time would be so much better spent writing to the people I admire in this world, the people who truly make this world a better place. Just the act of writing to them would be uplifting. This would surely be a better use of my time.

Yours sincerely,


Art (Witherkay)

Letter to the Bank #48

Dear Bullrider,

As a self confessed financial neophyte I must confess this letter writing campaign of mine has been good for me, if nobody else. The feedback has been nonexistent. There is something to be said for getting things off one’s chest but this has also become for me a crash course in understanding the world of finance. I am becoming (lord save us) a self taught financial expert. There are many more like me out there—people who barely knew how to balance their check books, had no understanding of how to finance a mortgage, and certainly no comprehension of what caused the Big Meltdown, or what those big, strange words you all used meant—who are now waking up to a new and frightening reality: A multitude of us now see  there is no safety net to speak of any more and that pursuing any interests besides those of acquiring money (by any means necessary) is an ass’s game. Painting for example, who needs painting? Who needs Art or creativity? Workers? What are they? Machines are easier to deal with so the machines will come. So now we are joining your game. If that sends shivers up your spine it probably should though our expertise may prove no more dubious than yours in the long run. Frightening for you is the possibility that we may even attempt to exercise good judgement, fair practice, and mat attempt to make our transactions ethical. Our arrival presages a change of language in the banking sector. Gaining real Trust might make a come back as a winning formula. Aware as we now are of the condescending viewpoint of the bankers on high we’ll tread warily. Given that they tend to regard us all as poor fools I do think it rather kind of me to point out this thing they may not have noticed: A flood, a tsunami of self taught financial wizards is pouring onto the trading floor because, with rising joblessness, and most available jobs failing to pay enough to even cover basic health insurance costs, a tide of humanity is betting on one last great gamble—playing the bankers at their own game. Armed with creativity and a willingness to work, actually work, who knows? Some of them might just find a crack in the system through which to squeeze and so be in a position to unseat the unscrupulous souls at the top.

Yours sincerely,

 Kristian Art Witherkay, financial neophyte

Letter to the Bank 47

Dear Bullrider,
Art here. I've had a fantastic idea. What if you didn't ever have to lobby government, congress, your senators ever again? What if they simply said: Okay! We'll play it your way. From now on there will be no more regulation. Whatever tricks you come up with you can employ without fear of consequences. Bring on your financial instruments, bet against the economies of whole countries. You go right ahead. We will leave you alone on the one condition that you give us, your government, ten per cent of your profits, and, what the hey, give the American people ten per cent as well. You are on such a winning streak just now all you'd have to do is factor these commissions into your work as you go ahead with your next game plan. Let us all forget ethics, moral responsibility. You'll save a lot of time and energy, let alone money, if you don't need to lobby folks anymore, and you would finally have bought the American public hook, line and sinker. We could all suck the planet dry together! I'm now of the opinion if you can't beat them join them."You can't buck the market," said Margaret Thatcher. Madeleine Bunting, in her article in the Guardian Weekly, goes on to say:
"...and no British government has disagreed since. It was the adage that was used to justify soaring pay for the highest earners and stagnant earnings for the low-paid. The market ruled, and questions of injustice, honor or integrity were all secondary or irrelevant.
A poll for the World Economic Forum last month found in 10 G20 countries that two thirds of respondents attributed the credit crunch and its ensuing economic recession to a crisis of ethics and values."
Well yes! You guys figured this out long ago! The crisis is this: The ethics and values just get in the way! I've seen the light. Aspiring to be Superman is a mug's game! If we all get on the same page, if we get rid of our scruples, things might run a bit more smoothly! We all get a piece of the pie and we are all happy. It turns out you can buy happiness after all.
Of course if your piece of the pie is dramatically bigger...jealousy followed by populist anger might rear its ugly head once more...and I suppose to avoid such a thing happening we might need to develop a code of conduct, honor amongst thieves and so forth, because there is no getting around it thieves is what we are. To avoid eating our own shinbone we might need to even develop ...some ethics. So here I am back at square one.
Please let me know if you can see a way out of this maze.


Sincerely,


K. A. Witherkay

Letter to the Bank #46

Dear Mr. Bullrider,


I'm going to lighten up! My middle name is Art. Did I ever tell you that before? This is my latest attempt to get more intimate. There are so many barriers that exist between us, between you the guy with his hand on the purse strings, and me the guy with his hands in his empty pockets. 

Have you ever noticed how those who do not have to worry about where their next paycheck is coming from, (or, for that matter if a paycheck is coming at all seeing as they are sitting on cushions so soft their paths throughout their lifetimes will be smoothed and swept before them) prefer not to talk about their finances. I suspect this might in part be due to a certain kind of shame or guilt, a feeling that perhaps they should be sharing the wealth. Meanwhile those with nothing obsess about money and needs must talk about it otherwise they slide into deeper and deeper debt. How can two such diverse approaches to this substance that is so essential to us all ever see eye to eye on the topic? The rich do not get why the poor are so upset by their stratospheric earnings. They cannot understand the failure of the poor to make more money! But the fact is the poor are always penalized for having nothing and the rich are always rewarded for having something. I'm not saying this situation should be reversed. I'm just just suggesting people get payed for their hard work. You shouldn't be paid a lot for playing squash and once in a while tweaking some numbers. This certainly doesn't warrant a bonus. Meanwhile the single mother putting her kids through school and working two jobs to get food on the table should be making a decent wage.

Yours sincerely,

the ever elusive Art

PS-do you know he even eludes himself sometimes, fails to get on with his painting, obsessed as he is with his own inability to create wealth. Creating paintings, making Art, (because that is what Art is doing in essence, making Art-he is growing himself) must seem like such an absurd thing to do with a life when there is money to be made. I've tried but I can never figure out how to perfect that watermark. Tips please! You are my bank manager after all!

I call the painting enclosed Score or Underwater. I haven't quite decided yet. I show you this just to confirm in your mind that I'm truly getting up to no good.

Letter to the Bank #45

Dear BM,

It is a funny thing but when I think back on why I began writing these letters to you I realize I was looking for therapy. There was a lacking that needed filling (caused by numeric dyslexia), a big dark hole in my universe that I was in danger of stumbling into (my own financial ineptitude). Basically I was going to fall into myself if I didn’t do something soon. I was at a crisis point. So I turned to my bank manager. Who better was there to provide me with the answers I needed and who better to get me grounded once more? Who better to answer the deepest question of all? Just as life’s more mundane questions—its meaning, is there a god etc etc—might best be addressed by a therapist (or an artist!), the deepest questions, those of a more existentialist nature, for example: how to make more money without creating more of that suffering that usually goes along with the territory, are best addressed, best gorged upon, by someone like you, someone with a level head on their shoulders, someone who faces life’s practicalities with pragmatism, someone who fully understands that without money nothing gets done, but also someone who manages people’s money! These questions are best served up by a muddle headed being such as my self, someone with slightly exhibitionist tendencies and an, shall we say, artistic* temperament. So I turn to you, someone who knows how to make money, for advice. You are my perfect compliment. I’m pretty sure most of my angst can be soothed by the acquisition of said supplement—money, and responsible management thereof. Other questions I have concerning life’s inequities—the ruthlessness of the rich, the cruel indifference of those who have towards those who don’t—I’m sure these questions would evaporate upon resolving the biggest question of all—how to pay for life! Once I also have, I won’t be needy anymore. Imagine a world without my griping, my whining, my complaining! Imagine, and this is hard, a world without the griping and whining and complaining of all those who do not have! Then we could all rest easy. I guess what I am saying is this: if you do your job well by protecting the assets you hold for me without asking me for yet another fee to do so, if you help me to manage my finances, others to manage theirs, bingo! A better world! That crippling distrust, meanness between classes that has been with theoretically classless America since the revolution might evaporate.

"There is a mean low dirty envy which creeps thro all ranks and cannot suffer a man a superiority of fortune, of merit, or of understanding in fellow citizens—either of these are sure to entail a general ill will and dislike upon the owners." (Charles Carroll, wealthy Maryland landowner, around 1776)

I'm putting the weight of the world on the shoulders of you, my very own local bank manager.

Yours sincerely,

Kristian Witherkay

*Applied to myself this might mean: head in clouds, eyes in belly button, interest in money so low on the scale that he is taking a crash course now before he crashes into a wall, which he will probably do next time Wall Street crashes. etc. etc. etc..

Myself might also be clumsily defined as middle class, liberal, godless, possibly socialist. (He reads Howard Zinn for goodness sake!) So if I crash into that wall bangs goes your buffer between rich and poor. Of course I could ramble on about what I do have and don’t have. I could go on and on about how I am both rich and poor, lovely family, great books, never get to go on island holidays, and cannot afford snowboard lessons for the eldest, and how the rich are poor because they are rich, and the poor are rich because they are poor....

Like I said I am the perfect muddle headed recepticle into which the philosophizing around matters of money can be stirred. Between the artist and the bank manager an alchemy of sorts could occur. Together we might make gold!

Article by John Lanchester in the Financial Times

Even as a successful writer John Lanchester is familiar with the precariousness of the freelancing lifestyle

Letter to the Bank #44

Dear Banks,
It has been a while! So much has happened since we last spoke I hardly know where to begin. You have thoroughly recovered from your nasty, nasty cold, bonuses are pouring in, and corporations are now allowed to make political donations once more without being overly concerned about conflict of interest! After all anyone who accepts your donations is more or less saying they will do your bidding. No conflict there! You should consider this though, and I offer it up in the spirit of uncompromised friendship: intelligent, inquiring, thoughtful voters might think twice about voting for politicians who are in the pockets of big banks, business or corporations. Just to put a flea in your ear. That said how about compromising me?

I was thinking I could exhibit my artwork in the hallowed halls of your institutions. What do you think? There is so much wall space in Wall Street, there is so much square footage upon which to hang artwork even in your local High Street branch. I would be asking for, insisting on, carte blanche, something you guys do all the time so I am confident you'd understand. I'd be the curator, my qualifications? Taste. Not to offend but it is clear from your general over regard for bling, love of big boats, furry coats and so on, that taste is in short supply amongst your colleagues. Sure there is plenty of blue chip art, some of it drop dead gorgeous, hanging on the walls of the man (rarely woman) caves of your CEOs, but what, I ask, is so exciting about staring at blue chips all the time? This is an extension of staring at piles of money. Andy Warhol had it right when he painted dollar bills, had your number, called you on it, and made a bundle, and now has your respect as well. What a coup!

Let me know what you think. If you are going to worry about what your clients may think I'd consider using the space of a bank that has already gone belly up and approaching whoever has the keys.

Yours possibly not but sort of ever so sincerely,

K. W.

The Bouncy Bankers

"Do you hear that pop-pop-popping sound off in the distance?

The good news is, it ain't gunfire. The bad news is, it's corporate lobbyists and their Republican lapdogs popping champagne corks and dancing on what's left of the Constitution.

They're celebrating the Supreme Court's decision to allow giant corporations to spend unlimited amounts of money to target any member of Congress who dares cross them."

—Paul Begala, DCCC

Everyone Is Angry but Nobody is Contrite

WASHINGTON — Summoned to Capitol Hill to explain their companies’ roles in the worst economic downturn since the Depression, leaders of four big Wall Street banks offered a largely clinical take on the financial crisis on Wednesday, pointing to lapses in risk management and government regulation but offering little sense of the turmoil’s human toll. See

Voices That Dominate Wall Street Take a Meeker Tone on Capitol Hill

in The New York Times

The Not So Bouncy Banker Watches Aghast as People Walk Away from their Debt Obligations

In today/tomorrow's Sunday New York Times magazine I was delighted to come across an article that pointed up the fact that bankers play around with morals the same way they muck around with financial instruments. They tell everyone how they must be financially responsible, pay their mortgages, pay their debts, debts, they argue that are ultimately debts to society. If you walk out on your obligations we all suffer. If you abandon your home we are all stuck with the soon deteriorating property. All well and good but these days many folks are walking away from their obligations with very little left to show for lifetimes of work at pay that rarely kept pace with the cost of living as the renumerations toward the financial sector skyrocketted, went stratospheric. As one watched banks walked away from payments on office buildings as their values plunged. Are they not required to honor their debts? So it does look as if a lot more people will be walking out on their obligations and not with their tails between their legs but with their heads held high in grim determination not to be left a sucker holding the bone the banks proffered in the first place. Don't think I delight in this. It is sad that we are in this place where it is impossible to respect or trust the very people who were supposed to help us all handle our finances responsibly because they were the experts. For an earlier article on the same issue by the same author, Roger Lowenstein, go to "Just Walk Away".

The Fifth Humor- The Scruplic

Occasionally there are are news items and/or articles that may even give the Bouncy Banker pause for thought. Thought is something all bouncy bankers might work on, might meditate on, like a koan. Thinking and, come to think of it, feeling, are both much neglected as koans in the financial world. These both require scruples, the fifth and mostly forgotten humor, the other four being: choleric, melancholic, phlegmatic and sanguine. Bankers lack the fifth humor. They lack good humor so need to put work in to the other four departments as well. They have plenty of bad humor, guffaws, smarmy smirks and so forth, but I believe there could be an all round improvement in their behavior if only they would concentrate on the fifth humor as defined by me, that is to say the scruplic. I may be the first to ever have employed this word as I am the inventor of the fifth humor.

For article that might exercise the fifth humor in bankers see next post, the Not So Bouncy Banker.

What do Big Banks and the leader of Senegal have in common?

They both have massive egos and get bail outs from the US government! In the case of Senegal this is to shore them up as allies but surely we (the American taxpayer does after all hold the debt-just like they own the banks) could insist on better taste? A huge Korean built statue is nearing completion that expresses, in no uncertain terms, the arrogance, power drunkness, and insensitivity of President Abdoulaye Wade who has spent, according to the Guardian, around 17 million quid (roughly 35 million dollars-remember I am a fuzzy mathematician). There is a huge ego at play here if nothing else. He insists the statue represents progress, a climbing in to the light out of the dark ages and so forth but it shows a massive disregard for a huge part of the population that is Muslim (94%) and who finds the statue in every way offensive. I might usually try to defend any artwork if the argument against it were merely fear of causing offense but in this case the US government is giving money to a government that is an ally in the so called War against Terrorism that is offending its mostly Muslim population and using American tax dollars to do so. None of this seems very helpful AND the art is retrograde. Hard to come up with any argument in its favor. Lets at least cut their next year's budget by the cost of the statue or insist on more oversight so that such monies go to help educate and feed the poor-then they can go out and make better art to counter the official art of the day.

Of course a similar power assumption afflicts the Big Banks who simply cannot understand why everyone is so upset by their enormous bonuses. They need the money. They have mouths to feed, and houses galore to fix. Apparently curtailing their financial needs is not a job the current government is up to. See "What's a Banker Really Worth?" in this Sunday's New York Times Magazine.

Oh Blad Di, Oh Bla Da,

On this the second day of 2010 I wonder why I have a blog that is essentially a veiled scream aimed at those who, let us be honest, make money. On some level I have never understood the mentality of those who make money as in see making money as the end goal. Despite my resistance to rampant greed and consumerism, and the unimaginative quest for wealth and power, I am on some level plain jealous of those who do not suffer from scruples and can freely indulge in the aforementioned. I want money to. What I could do with money!  Oh how much I wish I could travel free of monetary restraints. But this is wishful not so constructive thinking. I do not mean to sound sour. I love my kids and I make my drawings, paintings, things. Our family leads a warm life and one I am not ashamed of. I write my fanciful letters to a bank manager from my thinly veiled avatar Kristian Witherkay, where I express a hopefully more than my "own selfish concerns" concern regarding the state of the world of finance, money, banks, foreclosures.... But have I really zeroed in on anything precise? Have I found a place of populist resentment (not really my goal)? Have I stated anything that has not been stated on the front page, or the op-ed, or the business section (yes, the business section ) of the New York Times, or Guardian Weekly, or NPR, or Brian Lehrer, or ...? Thing is this blog was supposed to be witty but here we are at the end of 2009, beginning of 2010 and most everyone on NPR is saying a recovery is on its way and I am maybe the only one who cannot see it. I see destructive impulses in banking that continue unrestrained.  I see a government failing to restrain the worst impulses of the banking sector. I see my own inclinations to focus on art and poetry distracted by, yes, my own anxiety about mortgage and food and basic needs, and my need to express a resentment I suppose though resentment is a total waste of time, as is anger I suspect, as is moaning and begrudging, and complaining.... So what IS it I am trying to do here?


More to come.
Happy New Year. I mean it. I want you all to have a constructive, happy, thoughtful, proud New Year, one you can all look back on and feel good about.