Coping with Financial Absurdity

My husband passed me a page of USA Today, where psychiatrist Judith Orloff was spinning her book on "Emotional Freedom" into something related to the economy. That's what just about every author has to do these days--because losing money has become the great unifier for the middle and higher classes, the ones who normally buy books but won't anymore unless it has to do with finances.

If you haven't lost your job, then you've probably lost value on your house. Or your stocks went down (most middle class folk nowadays own at least some stock) or your bills went up. Our natural gas bill is a killer, because it's been darn cold this winter. Al Gore, I'm waiting for Global Warming.

So this psychiatrist was trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear and say what great opportunities adversity provides: "Sometimes people discover unexpected strengths; they get creative. Retired people may focus on making the best of what they have left, guarding it...[as if they have a choice??] It's an opportunity to show kindness and generosity to others in trouble."

Being upbeat used to be called positive thinking. Norman Vincent Peale got a best-seller and several sequels out of it, starting with The Power of Positive Thinking, in 1952. I have fond memories of my mom reading Dr. Peale's inspirational newsletter, "Guideposts," which she kept by her bedside. There was no one more optimistic than my mom. Of course, Dr. Peale's Positive Thinking was preceded by Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People (1936) followed by the pep-talking How to Stop Worrying and Start Living (1944).

But, as a mental health professional myself, I'm doomed to analyze my malaise about the demise of our family's net worth. (Albert Einstein: "The hardest thing in the world to understand is income tax") It's not that now we have less--far less--for the future. Or even that we'll have to cut back, since we're already masters of thrift.

What bothers me is the years we sacrificed in so many ways to save money--which now seems useless. I can't get back the hot afternoon when I went thirsty because I felt the cost of a bottled drink was too high. Or the evenings when instead of being together as a family, my husband was on the road earning a small speaking fee. Taught me great respect for single moms and dads, who shoulder the roles of two parents every day.

But if we (especially my husband) didn't have such a driving work ethic, we would have had more time together, closeness, and certainly more precious family memories.

That's the source of rue for me---not the loss of money, but the loss of our life, the time and the discomfort and the passing something desired by, simply to balance the budget or save for something, or put money away for the kids' college tuitions. Nothing unusual, just what people do to get ahead.

But that's what I think Americans resent with the new Obama tax plan. Even those receiving tax cuts, or low-bracket citizens receiving outright gifts from fellow taxpayers, will see their earnings--their time--buy less as inflation pushes costs for basics ever-higher.

At least Judith Orloff offers this comfort: "Money doesn't have to do with self-esteem. I've treated so many people with all the money in the world, and they feel horrible about themselves." (Now that's encouraging!)

Or perhaps she's merely echoing John Lennon and Paul McCartney's lyrics from "Can't Buy Me Love." The gist of Orloff's book, apparently, is that you shouldn't just let out your negative feelings but rather consider possible consequences before venting.

Duh. And it's also no surprise that wealth doesn't guarantee happiness. But as Sophie Tucker said, "Rich is better." Or, asks Henny Youngman, "What's the use of happiness? It can't buy you money."

Don't get me started. We might just laugh through the tears of this Alice-in-Wonderland absurdity yet. One final thought from the late, great Bob Hope: "I love to go to Washington, if only to be nearer my money."

Madoff: The Man, the Men, the Mench, and...

A perfect Sunday. Sleep late after enjoying a fabulous opera last night (I'm not usually an opera fan, but Bizet's "The Pearl Fishers'" final performance by the Seattle Opera Company was so lush musically, and enticing visually that I was enthralled). Make breakfast of hash browns and scrambled eggs while watching fat snowflakes tumble lazily before my window and...hooray!..melt when they hit the ground. Sit with a cup of coffee brewed from freshly-ground beans, doctored just right with blizzards of sugar, real cream and a touch of hazelnut.

And scarf up the latest article on the front page of the New York Times Sunday Business section on...Bernie Madoff. Many of the tidbits tossed into the story by Julie Creswell and Landon Thomas Jr. I'd already read in this juicy British report, in which The Mail interviewed Julia Fenwick, 38, the manager of his London office.

The British piece dug into his weirdness, like his cravings for cigars and pork sausages, and his refusal to allow any oval surfaces in his office. The photo is from The Mail, showing Bernie and Ruth at his 70th birthday party last May. Note her Marlboros pack on table, cigarette in ash tray. Nice glass of Chablis; he's got the diet coke. Compare the skin on Ruth's hand with her face: Ms. Fenwick said "I had to buy tubs and tubes of Boots No7 Protect and Perfect Beauty Serum," as part of her job. "I was buying five or six tubes at a time. We sent them over to Ruth in America." Whatta life.

Today's Times piece detailed Bernie's Laurelton, New York upbringing and later educational and employment history, providing some additional fascinating anecdotes, like the dribbling pear. Apparently (a PEAR-ently?) when obsessively-neat Bernie caught a New York employee's succulent snack dripping onto the carpet, he snapped, "What do you think you are doing?" and "ripped the soiled carpet from the floor, then rushed to a closet to retrieve a similar swatch to replace it."

The most amusing part of today's coverage plumbed his psyche, quoting experts to suggest a dual personality propelled by a "heady, intoxicating" thrill in "playing financial God, ruining these people and taking their money." Most bizarre was a comparison between serial murderer Ted Bundy and smirking Bernie: "...whereas Mr. Bundy murdered people, Mr. Madoff murdered wallets, bank accounts and people's sense of financial trust and security."

As devastating as financial ruin may be, I think I'd prefer Madoff's murder to Bundy's. I could always borrow a wallet.

The problem with Bernie was that he was such a fine actor. Or, perhaps he had a classic split personality, in which his philanthropic, family-loving side didn't really know what the evil fraudster was doing. Or, it could be that he was excellent at compartmentalizing, rationalizing while acquiring new millions from unsuspecting customers that "at least I'm loving and loyal to my family." Even as he drew Jewish charities' investments down his rabbit hole, he could have countered with "But I give back by spending my time sitting on their boards, donating to their appeals, and attending their events."

But with all this focus on Bernie the man, Bernie the men, Bernie the mench and Bernie the impossible-to-believe jerk and criminal, the media splash has yet to exploit the possibility that he probably did not act alone. Where are all the stories about accomplices? Where's the probe into whether he's taking the bullet for a web of conspirators?

Ahh, but that is all to come in subsequent installments. Meanwhile, I'm now grabbing the Business section even ahead of Sunday Styles. Because we know about failing fashions and the chi-chi faces newly frowning over their financial foibles. But there's always something new in the soap opera-turned-murder mystery of Madoff. As in "made off with the money."

Gimme Shelter

It's almost the "Feast of Tabernacles," the Jewish holiday of Sukkot. It's called "the season of our rejoicing," as God has allowed us to clear our slates at Yom Kippur, and now, by constructing a booth in our back yard where we take all our meals and spend as much time as we can, we show our confidence that God provides our true shelter.

We have eight days of holiday, the first two and last two being full-out "yom tov," days when, like Shabbat, we stop work and any creative activity. The big difference from the Sabbath for families like us who are hosting guests in our succa is that we can cook via the transfer of flame. The intermediate days of the festival are less restrictive but still a notch more special than non-holidays.

This year we enter the festive week more acutely aware of our vulnerability, which is a theme of Sukkot. Our backyard booths, covered by cut branches--in the northwest, fir--have roofs whose formerly-living, water-filled organic matter evoke the "clouds of glory" that protected the Jews in their historic wanderings in the wilderness prior to entry in the Promised Land. In the wilderness, the Jews were dependent on God for everything, from their manna food to the miraculous repair of their clothing, to their climate-controlled environments. The message? After being forgiven our sins, we must not get too cocky and assume our own amenities are any less from God.

With the stock market tumbling, the government scrambling, voters confused, disenchanted and seeking change, we are all feeling vulnerable.

It makes me anxious. Not only is national finance teetering, but so are institutions that have been the bedrock of civilization. Connecticut, in a 4-3 judicial ruling Thursday that cannot be appealed, will begin allowing gay marriages October 28. The decision written by Judge Richard Palmer held that civil unions violate equal protection clauses, a whopper of a difference from the rulings (also each by one judge's vote) that brought gay marriage to Massachusetts and California. This is a precedent whose domino effect could destroy the essential character of marriage, and yet with news dominated by an election maelstrom and financial chaos, received yawning coverage and little comment.

Yes, it's the economy, stupid, and stupid we are, most folk parroting buzzwords like "subprime mortgage" and "fannie mae and freddie mac" without really understanding what's going on. Derivitives? Hedge funds? Can you clearly define them? Yet most people are willing to blame Bush for it all, forgetting that we were in a huge boom just last October, and it's only since Democrats controlled both houses of Congress that suddenly those "subprimes" and "fannie and freddie" caused Wall Street collapse. In fact, in the last presidential debates, "Wall Street" was used as a synonym for "greed and corruption."

It's just not that simple.

And so, with much insecurity, we move to our succa. I personally could use a dose of emuna, faith in God. I can't say that sitting in the succa for meals provides it for me, frankly. But serving our guests, observing this time together as a family, noting the colder nights and threatening rain does remind me that political and financial issues are, like most everything, temporal. This, too, shall pass, and so being anxious about it serves no purpose at all.

Chag Sameach--a happy, meaningful Sukkot--and may we all take refuge in the most significant kind of shelter.