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Commentary

By Liz Quirin

Finances and the Infant of Prague

We woke up this morning to more bad news on the financial front: Two more giants of the industry — Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch — are biting financial dust. Actually, the Lehman Brothers are eating dirt, and Merrill Lynch just tasted a bit of the brown before jumping onto the Bank of America rescue boat. These two firms are reported to be among the top financial giants in this country, and that makes everyone, including people like me, among the lowest on the financial food chain, wonder what is happening to our lives with a shaking present and questionable future all that we can see. It’s difficult to put our arms around what’s happening because it seems to be, like quicksand, shifting as we continue to sink.

However, the folks at the top of the financial food chain — like the CEOs of the recently rescued mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — once again appear to be doing fine with their golden million-dollar -parachutes in tact. Our parachutes must still be on order.

We somehow have to put a stop to these pre-arranged exit packages for CEOs of failed or failing companies. It doesn’t make any sense to pay people who lead their institutions — and by default (no pun intended) those of us who have been tied to these failing giants through bond funds or stock funds — into Chapter 11 bankruptcy or buyouts at pennies on the dollar. The end doesn’t appear to be in sight, either, with more financial troubles forecast for other now-familiar names.

Like some kind of cancer, we know personally or one person removed, someone who has experienced the loss of a home through the mortgage mess, or the loss of a job through downsizing or downright business closings. The people wheeling suitcases out of the Lehman Brothers headquarters in New York over the weekend looked to be young professionals who may have been carving out careers on a financial ladder they believed to lead to success. Their parachutes, certainly not golden, have failed to launch them into a safety net. Look for the unemployment numbers to spike again soon.

A simple, possibly distinctly Catholic, suggestion might be to begin a novena to the Infant Jesus of Prague, patron saint of good finances among other patronages offered. But while prayer can sustain us, we need to combine our petitions with action. Too many of us don’t know enough about our investments to fill a thimble. We let other people make all of the recommendations and decisions. In most cases, that’s a good strategy with investments, but if you were shocked and completely surprised by what’s unfolding on Wall Street and how it will affect us on Main Street, we need to start doing some research, read business reports, listen to people explain the present crisis so that when plans are developed to resolve this situation, we can decide whether we agree with the solutions. Floating along, relying on the honesty, integrity and morality of our present “captains of industry” no longer works. Maybe learning more about the Infant of Prague isn’t a bad idea after all.