If you’ve come here to chuckle or guffaw during or after reading this post, don’t bother. It ain’t gonna be funny.
My dad retired a few months ago. My dad will be 65 this spring. He worked hard, saved, sacrificed, and at times was downright tight with benjamins. But he had a bigger plan. He wanted to be able to retire at an age that would allow him to enjoy his wife, his family and especially (or hopefully) his grandchildren.
He took a job with Bear Stearns, Inc. 29 years ago. He had the privilege of working for and with some great people and some not so great people. My dad working at Bear Stearns was really my only memory of his workplace. I mean, I remember some things about the Shearson days, but the Bear is where I met his peers and friends and where I worked some to put food on the table at home when things were tight.
I made friends at the Bear. One friend worked with my dad closely for seventeen years and they never had a single cross word for one another. I am positive that this friend would do anything, up to laying down his life, for my father. Through all of the ups and downs, that is the kind of thing that matters.
That and the company’s philosophy of employee ownership. The Bear was proud of the fact that over 30% of their common stock was held by employees. That too was unique.
By this point you all know what happened, or at least you know what the TV tells you happened. The Bear’s deep investment and exposure in the sub-prime home lending markets came home to roost.
But that’s not the whole story.
The events of the last 16 months, the last six months and the last six days are irrefutable. The Bear went from $170 a share in December of 2006 to $105 in December of 2007 to $75 in January to $30 last Friday to $2 on Monday with the announcement that the company was being sold to JP Morgan for $260 million. Half of their global staff of 14,000 will lose their jobs, if not more.
Mind you, Bear Stearns was valued at between three and four billion dollars on Friday. Hell, their Madison Avenue office building is valued at around one billion dollars.
Why am I writing this you might be asking yourself?
For this. For two years now I’ve had to listen to this bullshit about how the subprime lending crisis hurt consumers and all of these poor poor people dumbasses that ignored apparently nearly every page of their lending papers at closing that said “YOUR MORTGAGE IS ADJUSTABLE AND YOUR PAYMENTS WILL GO UP AFTER X TERM” and just said “Fuck it. I know I can’t afford this house. But when the whole thing goes tits up, I’ll just say I got jobbed and that the government should fix it while I take no responsibility for my actions.”
Was it the borrowers or the shareholders faults that Bear Stearns was heavy into mortgage-related derivatives? No. But nevertheless, the idiots that took bad loans weren’t the people ultimately really hurt by the sub-prime lending nonsense.
Do you know who was? Guys like my dad and his friends that spent years working and building and saving and now have seen it disappear.
Luckily, my father was more diversified than some. One man (whom I shall not name) comes to mind.
This man sat just a couple of offices away from my dad for years. They’ve been friends for 30 years. They’re both from the Midwest, both Lutherans, and both men of character.
This dear friend of my father and of our family was diagnosed with cancer this last year. he’s fighting, but you know how that stuff goes. He also had over 90% of his retirement tied to Bear Stearns stock.
My dad talked to him today, and he told my dad the following:
“Floyd, if you’d have told me that at 65 years old I’d be broke, unemployed and have cancer, I’d have told you that you were nuts.”
You don’t owe me anything, but if you could spare a nice thought for my Dad and his friends and family at the Bear who’ve had their lives turned over in less than 96 hours, I’d appreciate it.
What say you?