There Go The Toasters!

Nostalgia Part 4.

Remember when you opened a new account at the bank and they gave you a toaster?

Or a microwave? Or one of those kits for cutting hair which you could also get by saving 7.3 million Plaid or Green Stamps? The kind of kit that your father got so he could give you a haircut just before you returned to school from summer vacation and, therefore, had to wear a woolen hat (we called it a "Beanie", as in "Beanie-Copter", the hat with the propeller on it) to hide the disaster even though it was September and still very warm...

I mention this because The Bank of America, affectionately know as one of the "Five Families", has been ordered to pay 8.5 billion...billion...dollars in reparations as a result of their involvement in the sub-prime debacle.

Ordinarily this would be cause for rejoicing, for doing "The Happy Dance!" You know, the dance where you push your ass out, your head forward and move your arms up and down like a lunatic (not to be confused with Elaine's famous dance move...)

Anyway, normally I'd be doing "The Happy Dance!" But I'm not.

I'm just not doing it and here's why.

The entire fiscal "crisis" of '07 was somewhat suspect, mostly because I and almost everyone else, could not even begin to understand derivatives and the other Whartonesque (Full Disclosure: my father was Wharton, Class of '27) fabrications that caused the so-called "meltdown."

If something is that complicated then it is probably bogus in some way. The "baffle 'em with bullshit" theory...

All I know is that a very few people got fabulously rich while the vast majority of the rest of us were, and are, circling the drain. We, the taxpayers, gave the banks gabillions so they wouldn't "fail." Hmmm...

I was in Cannes in '09 and '10. If you could have seen the yachts and luxury cars your only question would have been, "What Recession...?"

So the B of A must fork over a paltry 8.5B

What do you think will happen to the bank? Will it be chastened? Will it reexamine its' ethics? Will heads roll?

Not on your life.

The only thing that will happen is that they will discontinue the only thing of value that they offer.

They will stop giving away lollipops at the teller's window. The lollipops which are the modern day equivalent of the toasters and microwaves and hair cutting kits of yore.

But let's look on the bright side.

Less lollipops? Less cavities.

And there is not one man jack of you over 60 who bemoans the loss of the hair cutting kit.

It was 1965...The Beatles were the rave. My father "sported" a crew cut. 'Nough said...

I miss my father every day. But I'm here to tell you that I don't miss his "haircuts."

Not one little bit!