Melvin and I met when we were both 6 years old. We cemented a friendship that has lasted to this day.
While I toiled hard to secure a position in the shoe polish industry, Melvin’s career was the proverbial meteoric dash. By the age of 30 he had become CEO of an Investment Bank, part of a family conglomerate that also includes hotel chains, a soccer team, an airline and a famous Las Vegas R&R joint.
Following the American tradition, he started at the top throughout his entire career. The generous donations by his parents to elementary, high and private schools, later transferred to some of the Ivy League campuses, placed him always at the top of his class, confirming once more that the elusive American Dream is not that elusive.
We sat at the
Bull & Bear at the Waldorf and properly stimulated by one of Walter’s dry
martinis, I had to ask him about the financial meltdown.
He looked at me and smiled, knowing that his explanation would go by me the same way the 8 am Amtrak flies by Evan’s Crossing:
“You have to take into account that Government intervention is conditioned to unique parameters that compromise not only values and extrapolated projections in the financial markets but it also points to the existence of extreme risks in the global financial system that extends easily into federal regulators, that is if regulations have been in place or if some non-accrued latitude has been bound with poor quality collateral like junk bonds of doubtful loan packages which means that the Fed will have to come up with some middle term emergency loan plans either by default of cash flows or uninhibited referral to use of depreciation and amortization reserves that do not impinge on healthy balance sheets, unless the guarantees are there but not before some of the trillion dollar obligations have been properly indentured and are at least incorporated into a relief formula that can keep the Treasury Department’s position regarding accrual formulas of recovery and perhaps transfers and assignations within modules of long term financing that can be acceptable to debtors and entities backed by currency variations and assessments . Is that clear?”
All I could say was:
“Crystal, Melvin. Now, what is this about Fannie and Mac? How come this couple gets all the attention when there are millions of couples waiting expectantly for some solution to their immediate mortgage problems? Are they related to some of the Pashas in Wall Street?’
He smiled and answered;
“You got it wrong, they are two insurance companies called Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
“I see. Now, is there a solution to this financial crisis?”
“Yes. After the Government gets through helping the financial sector, it will have to regulate real estate, energy, utilities, land leases, school curriculums, transportation, sports, Movies and Television, CEO salaries, the pill making industry, the farm universe, the publishing industry, all kindergartens, import and exports of all types, ID cards, travel permits, Gay and Lesbie associations, Internet postings and diaper manufacture!”
“Gee, all this sound familiar, You are not talking Socialism, are you?
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