The Financial Crisis Was Your Fault

by Nathan Lindberg 

Whose fault was the financial crisis? Look no further than the mirror you’re lying under. We are all to blame for the financial crisis, but especially you. It’s time you faced it. You caused the financial crisis.

Sure you want to blame high profile players like Countrywide CEO Angelo R Mozilo who not only orchestrated one of the biggest financial disaster in the world, but skipped away with a 57 million dollar bonus by doing so. Sure you want to rant and rave against the financial “gurus” who played public companies like slot machines. But it’s time to confess. We all did it. All you have to do is listen to the sophisticated TV people trained to never say “um.” They’ll tell you that we were all the greedy. We all wanted to make money. We all wanted to get rich. And we all bundled subprime loans which we sold off as falsely labeled triple A bonds. We are all to blame. Especially you.

Take a deep breath. I know how you feel. Right now you are trying to say Goldman Sachs were the ones who sold shares of subprime bundled loans that they themselves were betting against with an innovative scheme called credit swap defaults. But face it. We were all greedy. We all wanted EZ money. And we all invested in company retirement funds. Especially you. You saved every month, thinking matching 401K contributions were going to make you as rich as a Bernie Madoff pre-prison gala. Your greed to retire at 65 caused this mess. You did this, and you have to pay.

Still in denial? Still blaming the Wall Street fat cats?

Now, now, just because the bankers are doing great again, and their bonuses are back with a vengeance. It does not give you the right to blame them for your troubles. Do you know how bad that can make them feel? When they drive by protesters, they have to lock their Carrera doors and tip extra at valet just to ensure their safety. It’s truly awkward for them at times. Think about it. They worked hard to have their fathers pay for their elite schooling and be nurtured by some of the most pompous fraternities. Clearly they deserve bonuses bigger than your, your extended family’s, and miscellaneous friends’ yearly salaries put together. Think about it. If they didn’t get those lard-laden bonuses, they might just quit and work somewhere else – like the Mafia. Then where would we be? No more innovations like exchange traded derivatives used to make money off the real estate crash. Don’t blame the Wall Street fat, bloated, gaseous cats. Can’t you see now – it’s all your fault.

Now that you’ve read it in a blog, I think you get the picture. If you really want to protest, stand outside your own house with some hate sign and yell at yourself. You’re the one who didn’t bother to investigate exchange traded derivative contracts. You’re the one who allowed hedge funds to go unregulated. You’re the one who wanted to retire at some point before death. Now, the real question is, what are you going to do about it? Well, I would suggest you do what you do best. Work hard, save your money, and please, give it to the people who know how to deal with these things. Then relax and leave the rest to them.   

by Nathan Lindberg

I am a Christmas Failure

By Nathan Lindberg

Christmas is a wonderful time of year when everything is wondrous and special and magical and stuff. Which is why it sucks.

Christmas is so magical it makes me feel stupid. I rarely feel magical, especially in the morning. In fact, when I wake up I feel, and look, extremely unmagical, even on Christmas. Which makes me feel even less than unmagical. Because I'm supposed to feel magical, and I don't, so I end up feeling sub-unmagical. And you can't get less joyous than that.

Sometimes you have to work on Christmas, or you have to work the day after Christmas, which is almost as bad depending on how much magical eggnog you drink on Christmas Day. Sometimes you don't feel like hanging out and being magical and wonderful with people. Sometimes you just feel ordinary on Christmas. Then you’re a Christmas failure.

Christmas must be the most wondrous time of year. If you feel just ordinary, you are obviously doing something wrong. If you don't have the Christmas spirit, you are like the mean old people on Christmas cartoons.

Even this blog should be warm and wonderful and magical. I should talk about how commercialized everything is and how we really need to think of all the wonderful parts of Christmas like sharing and caring and borrowing money through treasury bonds to send to Afghanistan: i.e. money black hole. I should tell people of all the wonderful things we have to be thankful for and how we all love each other and are glad for the Tea Party. Maybe I should come up with some magical story. Or maybe I should talk about how special it is to be patriotic and drive a large truck. Instead I'd like to talk about how I'm actually looking forward to January.

It's too easy to fail at Christmas. You don’t spend enough money on your kid. Your gift for your spouse was not difficult enough to buy. You burn the figgy pudding. You accidently blurt out in public how much you hate Christmas music. You drink too much hot buttered rum before the church Christmas play and wish you were a Jehovah’s Witness. Last, you get your credit card bill before the holidays are over.

If you really want to capture the Christmas spirit, you should buy everyone, including your mailman, plumber and proctologist, gifts. And you should bake cookies and send out cards before January and put up decorations and buy your kids better gifts than last year and if you don't… you must be a Christmas failure.

Christmas success is something some people work on all year. They start buying presents in July. They plan their dinner in October. They get cards ready in November. Those people think they are going to be Christmas dynamos, but they are even more prone to failure. After all those hours of work, something as stupid as one drunk uncle at the Christmas party can ruin everything, and then an entire year of planning goes down the drain.

My friend Dale always gives me the perfect present. He buys a six pack of beer, gives it to me and then asks for one. Then we sit and drink and talk about football or 2 X 4s or something. Together we are absolute Christmas failures. And it really feels nice. Not magical, just nice.

By Nathan Lindberg