Letter to the Bank #73 (Occupying a little of Wall Street's Valuable Time))

Letter to the Bank

Dear Mr. Bullrider, My beloved bank manager, my very own BM,

Throw me a bone here.
Do you not manage my money? Is that not why I deposit my money with you? Am I not your client? Do you not work for me? Are you not, in effect, my employee—our employee? Are you not indeed a public servant? Was this not supposed to be the case? Do I not give you my money—albeit a paltry sum—so that you might invest it wisely? You guys are magicians! We stare at you in wonderment. You have us in the palm of your hands. Pull the bunny out of the hat! Go on! Make my money grow! I’ve seen you do it. You are amazing how you take nothing i.e. what I give you—the aforementioned paltry earnings of a toiler—and end up with bonuses for everyone but me! One moment your financial edifice is teetering on the edge of financial ruin, the next you’re riding high! That poor bull of yours is plum tuckered out! Then you bounce right back! Your manic energy is an inspiration to us all! What fabulous tricks you do perform and I look on in amazement. But then I ask: where’s my ice cream?

I am not naive. I know you are all in it for yourselves but you are in it with our money! You get your hands wicked dirty for pathetic little investors like me, but as owners of feeble checking accounts that never, ever grow it is hard to applaud you for the evil you do on our behalf.  Actually you must be quite bitter. See? That is your opening. That is where you can screw us good and proper—by hoisting us on our own moral petards* (see note). We are compromised. Banking as we do with you we are therefore culpable and thus you can render us mute, voiceless. Or we could insist you take our monies and make ethical investments. These days I am really trying to fathom why we have our money in your banks in the first place. At the best of times you were clearly an inspiration to us all. Suddenly everyone wanted to become a banker, a financial engineer, a ...mortgage broker. And apparently it wasn’t about intelligence or skill, it was all to do with who you knew. Any Tom, Dick or Jane could get wealthy over night if they weren’t encumbered by scruples and had the right connections. And because there was no money to be made anywhere else even the brightest amongst us sold our souls to become derivatives traders. Suddenly getting a Master of Business Administration degree was the way to go. It was the best of times...for you and continued to be the not so good times for everyone else. But now it isn’t looking so good for you either. The suits arew in trouble! Once more money is evaporating everywhere. Thanks to new regulations gouging your customers is not so easy so now you have had to find another trick. You are no doubt mad at the regulators and decrying their crimping of the flow of currency from our accounts into yours. If you’re so mad at big government meddling then perhaps you should show yourselves up to the task of handling our monies in a fiscally responsible manner and go after the few bad apples that are giving your industry such a bad, bad, bad, bad, so terribly bad name! Instead, in another example of your shining brilliance, you intend to charge us for spending our money, tax us for using our debit cards! Now if ever seems like a good time to forgo the banks and withdraw all ones money and stuff it under the..., up the, in the.... Look all I am saying is if there should be a run on the banks you’d only have yourselves to blame. With your hidden fees and smoldering agendas you have lost the trust of the people entirely, lock, stock, and two smoking barrels.

I trust you understand that I care about you and that is why I share these thoughts with you my very own, if elusive, possibly non-existent bank manager. I’m trying to save you from yourself
, or an MFA, which was seen as a kind of MBA  but that is another story)

In these letters I’ve tried so hard to keep my tone reasoned and polite, and intrapersonal, between you and me. I’ve tried for the most part to avoid going down the rabbit holes of politics and religion and keep the message simple: From one human being to another. We are alike in so many ways, you and me.

We are not provincial thinkers. We both think big. We see this as a world wide crisis and this spot as its epicenter. This isn’t just about America. This is about the whole planet. Where on this planet can we hide our money these days—in your case to avoid taxes in ours to avoid those pesky debit fees.

Another thing we have in common is our need to make money. How we make it is another matter. I make art and you invent financial instruments. We are both so creative. But never forget art is worth more than money.

Yours sincerely,

Art O’Connor on behalf of the Bruxist Collective