Tuesday, September 15, 2009

you make me puke

On the anniversary of the Great Recession, the NY Times decided to let a few of Lehman Brother's employees write short OpEd pieces about their precarious situations before and after the collapse of the Wall Street institution a year ago.
As is typical with the self centered public, people took this opportunity to either take bows for their generosity or try to tug at the heart-strings from the American Public because they have lost their Mansions and BMW's and won't be going to Aspen on vacation this year.   This just doesn't resonate which to the millions of people unemployed or under-employed .


Take the following piece by Lynn Gray who was a senior VP at Lehman Brothers

Last Days of Lehman: The Kindness of Strangers



LYNN GRAY


Published: September 14, 2009


EARLY in the morning, a year ago today, I received an e-mail message at home from Lehman Brothers announcing its plans to file for bankruptcy. The message noted that Lehman would still be “open for business” that day.  So I headed toward the office at 745 Seventh Avenue. The television cameras and reporters were already there. I stopped to get my coffee from the street vendor and he asked how I was doing. I started to cry. I told him to keep the change from a $20 bill because I knew that if Lehman was gone he would suffer as well. I walked toward the entrance and a young woman I had never seen before said, “Another Lehmanite!” — and we walked arm-in-arm into the building. Many of us had been together for more than 10 years and were scared of being cast adrift.

We had all seen it coming, but still didn’t understand how our chief executive, Dick Fuld, could have let this happen. We were the firm with the culture that everyone envied. Yes, it had been a wild ride the previous couple of years, and especially the previous six months. We had had so many heads of fixed income that it was almost a joke when another e-mail message came around that another fixed income head had left to “pursue other interests” or “to spend more time with his family.”

We used the rest of the day to pack our boxes. Finally, in the late afternoon, I walked out of the building. I headed to a local bar to drown my sorrows and ponder the future of my career. Around West 51st Street, a homeless man approached me with a cup, gesturing for a contribution. He then looked at my tote bag with its Lehman Brothers logo and said, “Never mind” and “I’m sorry.”

— LYNN GRAY, the chief executive of Campus Scout and a former senior vice president at Lehman
 Obviously the writer is looking for sympathy for her plight, which will be difficult for the American public to swallow since a former senior VP who made annual compensation of at least a half a million dollars per year. Not only does the American Public not care as they feel like you made your fortunes aiding in the demise of the economy but this self serving line about giving the street vendor the change on your shitty coffee reeks of your holier than thou attitude.
First of all get off your high-horse and realize you didn’t save a child from a burning building you gave a guy a couple of bucks you self righteous slob. 
Secondly you have obviously never heard of keeping your ‘charity’ anonymous because you decided to take bows for giving a guy $19.  I'm sure this helped keep his roof over his head



Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

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