I am part of the nervous generation born about the time of the Great Depression that followed the disastrous stock market collapse of ’29.
So I grew up being told by the wise men of the neighborhood and family that those who dabble in stocks are sure to end up on a window ledge, wailing, “Farewell cruel world, I have lost all” and doing a belly-flop on the pavement of Wall Street.
I had an uncle who used to say: “All those fast-buck millionaires who thought they were so smart. Hah! They are all dead or are bums, but look at me. I put my money under the mattress. So always put your money under the mattress and you won’t wind up jumping out of a window or being a bum.
“You want to get rich? Then learn how to cheat at poker. And take your winnings and give it to a guy named Rocco in Cicero and have him loan it out at 20 percent a week and hit the deadbeats on the shins with a Louisville Slugger if they don’t pay up.”
His other financial advice was: “The best thing is to find a rich woman who drinks, marry her, and when she is sleeping off a binge, you steal an earring here, a ring there, and a necklace or brooch, and sell them to Sidney the fence, who will give you 50 cents on the dollar.
“By the time she figures out what is going on, you will have stashed away enough to buy your own tavern on Milwaukee Avenue and will be on Easy Street.”
As a boy, I was taught that the best place to end up was on Easy Street.
And the easiest way to get there was when “your ship came in.”
It was never clear what ship this was or where and when it would dock. But one thing was certain: If you messed around with the stock market, your ship would never come in. Somewhere out there in rough seas, it would sink and you would end up on a window ledge.
And my uncle was right, up to a point. He did not wind up losing it all on the Dow Jones and jumping out of a window. But he had so many coin-filled coffee cans under his lumpy mattress that he developed a chronic bad back, which he self-medicated with vodka and ended up a bum anyway.
But his sad fate is another story.
Because of the teaching of my elders, I became convinced that all those men in pin-stripe suits and homburg hats who arrived on LaSalle Street in limos each morning would eventually face financial ruin and disgrace.
And to this day, I shun stocks, as do most of my contemporaries who received similar sage advice.
So when the financial world has spasms, such as the past few days with the stock market acting like Jerry Lewis at his worst, I wander over to LaSalle Street and stand on the sidewalk, looking up and waiting.
That’s what I was doing this morning when the Dow Jones was flinging itself about like a schizo in a padded cell.
A well-dressed gent walked up and said: “Excuse me, are you looking for UFOs? If so, save yourself the bother. They only appear on rural roads in Alabama and contact dimwits who drive old pickup trucks and lack at least two front teeth and breath through their mouths.”
I explained that I was waiting for a tycoon who went bust to come out on a window ledge and do a swan dive.
He laughed and said: “Ah, I understand. You are of that fearful, timid generation that grew up believing all the horror stories about the stock market crash and the Great Depression.”
You betcha, I quipped, and it will happen again.
“No,” he said, “it didn’t happen even back then. Even most of those who went bust found ways to steal it back. They hired stuntmen to jump off ledges and fool poor boobs like your uncle–I assume you had such an uncle–into thinking the rich lapsed into misery.”
But it was true. Several liberal generations drew spiritual sustenance from the miseries of the rich.
“Nonsense. The rich always survive these speed bumps in their lives. If they didn’t, what would be the point of being rich? And why would there have to be an America? We would all be hunched little Asians, sewing Michael Jordan’s favorite gym shoes for a nickel an hour. Which, incidentally, isn’t bad pay if a plate of boiled carp costs a mere 2 cents.”
But when the stock market plunges, somebody must be the big loser, right?
“No, that is what you journalistic ninnies don’t understand. Nobody loses. It is all done on paper or in blips on a computer screen. Numbers go up, and they go down. But nobody who is smart loses. It is all a jiggling and juggling of numbers. And in the end, the rich get richer. It is what God wanted. If he didn’t, why did he create slender women with credit cards?”
You have destroyed my economic beliefs. Who are you?
“I’m like you. I had an uncle who told us the same kind of stories.”
And?
“We had him committed.”
