Closed Mind

The Senate Subcommittee room reeked of old school. Ghosts of hearings past linger in rap attention to the current proceedings.

What Tom Foolery have we here?

I say, they find themselves in a bit of a pickle and it isn’t kosher.

Same old, same old.

I remember in my day.

Quiet, Bartholomew, they are about to commence once again.

The president of the Are You Kidding Me Bank takes the next question.

“Mr. Caraway do you expect this committee to condone these practices of yours and give you even more money before we see from you a solid business plan for the future?”

“As I have said, sir, we at Kidding were caught up in the affaire of over credit indulgence like all the other banks in our sector. We will now cut our losses and return to sound banking once again.”

“The committee still has not heard from you just how you think your bank got into the trouble it now finds itself in. Please explain yourself.”

“You must understand what we were working with at the time. Real Estate in this country had not lost value since the Great Depression. We thought it would continue to have increasing value going forward.”

“But these bonds you were involved in. Did you have any questions about them?”

“Why should we? They were triple A rated. ”

“But your bank is on the verge of collapse! Surely you must have done something to bring you before us today?”

“Sir, if you understood the climate at the time you would see we acted as everyone else did.”

“And almost everyone else is in trouble. That does not make it right to act a certain way just because others do.”

“Our stockholders would have demanded we act the way we did, in order to maximize profits, or they would have gotten someone else to do it instead.”

“I can’t believe your stockholders would want to see your bank fail.”

“Mr. Caraway.”

“The chair yields to the Senator from Ohio.”

“Mr. Caraway. What did your bank ask of its customers when they applied for a loan?”

“We asked them if they could pay it back, and if they said they could, we would give them the money.”

“If they said they could fly by flapping their arms would you believe them?”

“No.”

“Then why didn’t you ask them to prove they could pay back the loans?”

“In the old days we asked for their tax returns, bank accounts, employment verification and so on, but the loans we wrote mainly were sold to third parties so it wasn’t our place to ask for verification.”

“Why not?”

“Our job was to do the loan as quickly as possible so we could make money by doing the next loan.”

“Whose problem is the first loan that you made?”

“Someone else’s.”

“Don’t you feel responsible for writing those bad loans?”

“It was just doing business at the time. If we didn’t do it, someone else would.”

“Would your forefathers have done things like that?”

“They had their depressions too. Our great grandchildren might have theirs in the future. Historically, sometimes you just go with the hand you are dealt and play the game.”

“This committee, sir, does not like the hand you have dealt it. You’re application for a loan is denied.”

“But what about the economy?”

“It needs to take a lesson from the past.”

The ghosts of the past ghost to each other.

Here, Here.

Bully.

Author, Author!

The day is won!

Hurray!