Letter to the Bank #15

Dear Bank,

I recently looked at my reserves of empathy that, if ever they were banked with you have long since found a safer refuge under my metaphorical mattress, and found they were running dangerously low. Clearly I’ve been spending way beyond my means. What I have left I must preserve for the downtrodden and the disenfranchised, those who rarely if ever get to brush their teeth using fresh, clean water. This means future letters I send you may appear dry or brusque on occasion, if not, once in a while, downright snippy. Do not take it too personally. I believe the supply of Love to be boundless so we should all be okay in the long run.

Why am I telling you this? Because lately some desperate individuals have been grabbing at my shirt sleeves demanding my sympathy and understanding and I find myself unable to give them any. They are mostly snake oil salesmen: unscrupulous money lenders, credit officers, and mortgage gamblers. For years (or at the very least a year) they have toiled to make money (mostly theirs) grow. That has been their work. That is what they are paid to do. Is it their fault that the money pool is shrinking instead? Should they be penalized for the worldwide epidemic of credit defaults? Apparently they have now discovered within themselves new feelings-feelings of soulfulness and angst, feelings of being victimized, preyed upon, and cheated. They have discovered deep reserves of righteous indignation and they want my help. They now want redress for wrongs perpetrated on them by the public at large. And what has the public done to cause them so much grief? The public has decided that their huge, excessive, boundless, irrational bonuses are out of all proportion to the work they do and want them to go without. People are mad-not just a little mad, or jolly mad, but murderously so. They want to throw eggs. They’d like to sit at the foot of the guillotine knitting as the heads roll. That is how bad this is. Instead the carpet is being pulled out quite gently from beneath them and they are being offered food stamps. They are getting off lightly. They should cut their losses and lay low. The pool of empathy out there is getting dangerously shallow. I used to have a lot more and I am sad to see it evaporate just as they are sorry to see their prepaid vacations go up in smoke. The upside of course is this: ultimately we are all in the same boat. Question is who is going to end up cannibalizing whom in that vast, endless ocean of debt?

I should publish these!
Yours sincerely,

K