Dear Bankers, 4/1/09
Is a Zombie Bank the same as a dead possum? That is my question of the day. I passed a dead possum this morning that was so dead maggots were crawling out of its eyeballs. Still I fully expected it to jump up and run away as soon as I was around the corner. That is kind of what the banks keep doing. They are all so big they can’t simply lie down and die. Then again if they don’t put on a good act of doing so the government won’t come in with those delicious tricks to revive them. Possums are so good at pretending to be dead one tends to suspect they aren’t dead even when their guts are all over the road. We've grown
that used to things being surreal.
I have a suspicion that despite all efforts by the President to harness populist outrage the end result will be some form of collective impotence—not a happy prospect. We will no doubt be left holding not only our own debt but that of the banks as well—swell.
As you are well aware at this point (if you ever pay any attention) my missives are full of ire, laced through with fury. My writing has always contained the seeds of that metaphysical anger that just cannot come to terms with the irrevocable fact that the world is an unfair place. The built in injustice of the whole shebang just gets my goat. That injustice is now no longer playing possum but is dancing around spitting in our eyes yelling: “We are too big to die!” and so, by default, saying: “You are too small to live”, which you have to agree is not very nice.
So a certain populist joy at the prospect of one huge car manufacturer floundering, flapping its fins about on the beach, going down (naturally dragging thousands of hard working people down with it) is, if not excusable, understandable. This is one of those rare David and Goliath moments. As the masses stare into the dying light of the day allow them some small pleasure in the rare spark of a fire fly lighting up the dusk in the off season. Oh I know I’m being dramatic. There is always Art to soothe the Soul and it is accessible to everyone any day of the week unlike your once venerable institutions. Still I suppose if our lives are dreary we’ve only ourselves to blame. But…and there is always a But…could you at least stop trying to make them grimmer?
K. Citizen
April Fool! Of course I love the Banks! Really—dare I do otherwise?
PS—I’ve dated this letter though usually I am loath to do so—just to prove it is April Fool’s Day.
PPS—I did receive your letter—more loathsome I have to say than any of the letters I've ever sent you.
A neutron loan explodes, destroying the people but leaving the buildings intact. When I was a kid there was a lot of talk about atom and neutron bombs. I made a cartoon about an evil English school boy genius who created a bomb that destroyed buildings but left the people intact. Not as evil as neutron loans...or ninja loans wherein the borrower has no income, no assets and no job!!
