My Financial Recovery Plan for the Middle Class: Whistle While You Work

So, we all should know the deal by now, right?  It’s over… and we lost.

That’s right… you heard me correctly… I’m calling our Faux Recovery Game early, so if you want to get out before the traffic, do it.  There’s no reason to stay until the bottom of the ninth.  We lost… the financial oligarchy in this country won.  I realize you don’t like it, none of us likes it when our home team loses the series.  But, it’ll be okay.

I’m not just saying that, I actually have an honorary PhD in the Psychology of Un-fair and On-going Loss, and a Masters in Self-loathing from Punk U.   You see, my wife is a Cubs’ fan, and I grew up in Pittsburgh during the 1970s, so obviously, you can trust me when I say that the feelings of utter despair will diminish over time and you’ll learn to live with it.  You may want to consider taking up drinking heavily during the transition if you feel you need a crutch.

Just in case, I’ll write you an Rx: One Pint “Old Kessler,” taken early in the morning
without food.  And I apologize about the photo on the right… it’s already afternoon here.

Special Instructions: Drinking with bottle in a brown paper bag while seated on a bench staring at a drainage ditch or at bus stop can help stimulate feelings of self-loathing.  TUMS chaser optional, but recommended for patients over 50.

Okay, so the average American income is down by more than ten percent nationally, however, if you deduct Wall Street CEO pay, data from North Dakota, and illegal rents from foreclosed homes, the national average is expected to smash through the very important 30 percent decline marker later this year.

The New Obamanomics… 

I think it’s helpful to gain an understanding of the new Obamanomics as it helps to reduce the inexplicable and fleeting pangs of hope for the future that distract us from the mission at hand, which is feigning recovery as we continue racing towards the bottom.

Economists refer to the 30 percent national income decline marker as “Geithner’s Peak,” and it’s considered important because reaching it means that we could be approaching the halfway point in our national decline.  Now, the point at which the average income loss reaches 60 percent nationally, it’s called “Summers’ Trough,” and  the period between Geithner’s Peak and Summer’s Trough is called: “The Mid-Terms.”  

Once we’re down in Summers’ Trough, it’s forecasted to only be a short time before we can expect to see the acceleration of pretend prosperity, which is characterized by sharp increases in bubble wealth at the top… and the amassing of prodigious amounts of predatory debt among the middle class… which is the period called the “Bernanke Blow Job.”

As good as it feels at the time, however, eventually we cum through it, Ben’s bubble pops, and we start blaming whoever’s having the hardest time getting the gum out of their collective hair as we once again sink towards Geithner’s Peak once again.

The good news is that from stump to flummox, the whole cycle can take fewer than five years, although it can take linger, depending on the GOP’s use of the filibuster, and the degree to which House Democrats can remain insipid.

 Follow my new plan, and join the 1%… 

Here’s what you probably haven’t realized yet… we can all be in the 1%.  All it takes is making the commitment to consistently take unfair advantage of each other… and an unchecked willingness to exploit any and all opportunities as they present themselves.

Just one look at the new Forbes 400 Richest List reinforces this point.  The list won’t be made public for a few months, but I have it on good authority that seventeen of the new elites making the list all come from the fastest growing segment of the emerging Nebulous Benefit Products industry, which we all know as, “Forensic Loan Audit Producers,” or FLAP.

It’s probably too late to get in on the ground floor of this maturing field, but there are still plenty of people out there FLAPPING their gums about one report or another… and all it takes is one hot report and within months you can be a One Percenter.

But, that’s not the news I’m talking about… what my plan is based on is a new emerging form of financial innovation… the brand new red hot, “Whistleblowing Futures” market.

Here’s how you get in and there’s no time to lose, so you might want to get a pencil and start taking some notes.  Starting the next available business day, work up a resume designed to make you appear as qualified as possible for any job working within a financial services company.  Obviously, the high up the better, but there’s no need to be too concerned… even low level employees are eligible for Whistleblowing Futures.

Next get to work applying for every single position available at every single financial institution you can find.  Don’t worry that others will be doing the same thing, or that the job is hundreds of miles away… because even if you get it, you’ll only be working there for a week or two, and turnover at these places is so high that thousands of people can all hold the same job over the course of only a handful of weeks or months.

With my new plan, scarcity is a thing of the past… there’s room for everyone at the top, but be sure to check with a lawyer in each state where you’ll be “employed” to make sure you’re aware of any state employment law restrictions that could limit future awards.

After that, just answer your cell and emails… interview well, and you’ll be a part of the family at any number of the titans the financial services industry.  Once on the job, grab that whistle and just like you’ve seen Bernanke do on countless occasions… start blowing your ass off.

Report the company for whom you’re now working for everything you can think of… it doesn’t matter whether you know for sure if they did it or not, settlements don’t admit or deny guilt anyway… and besides… they ALL did it… because they ALL did everything.

So, if you’re working for a credit card company like Capitol One, report them for every conceivable predatory violation of federal law you can find in the statutes… systemic misapplication of payments, fraudulent credit score schemes, failure to comply with whatever they were supposed to comply with… it doesn’t matter… as long as it’s a way for them to take advantage and make money.

So, be creative… even if they haven’t done it yet, so what?  Who’s going to know?  You can bet your boots they will do it before too long and when they do… Ka-Ching… and that whistle you’ll hear will be your train coming into the station.

Make a list of potential individuals or group of individuals that a bank or brokerage could potentially lie to in order to reap some sort of reward or unfair advantage… it doesn’t matter how large or small in monetary terms it seems to you.

Remember… what looks to you like petty theft, to the CEO of Wells Fargo, could exceed the GDP of most European countries.  Once you have your list of the potentially affected… no matter how remote the possibility… blow, blow, blow the whistle.

I envision a secondary market forming for the trading of Whistleblowing Futures, for those that have secured positions that could take years to mature and show their true worth.

For instance, tomorrow, I’m turning in Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein for insider trading, securities fraud, bank robbery, collusion, and a whole list of other very serious legal sounding things.  I realize some are long-shots and others may pay off next week, but I’ve already got interested parties making offers to take over my positions in years 2016-2018 and 2020-2024.

But, I’m no dummy.  I’m not going to sell my entire future whistle blowing position outright.  Nor sir.  I’m already arranging to pool my positions and securitize them using tranches, which I’m confident will get ratings from AAA all the way down to the NIM.  My first issue has 27 tranches, and I’m retaining the servicing rights, so there’s a very nice revenue stream right there from day one.

Who knows… I’m told that Blankfein himself may be interested in buying the NIM if the returns on my Power Point slides look right… and since I’m making color slides, I’d say my chances for a quick sale are excellent.  (I happen to know he is partial to orange bar charts, but let’s keep that between us, okay?)

Fun for the whole family!

To really maximize the potential of your family’s future fortune, don’t forget to get your children involved.  Teach them how a career in Whistleblowing beats the heck out of dying from friendly fire while working as a receptionist-in-uniform for some one-star General in charge of Recreation Rhetoric & Trash Removal on some make-shift Air Force base in Afghanistan… or working for RiteAid where everyone hopes for raises that come in amounts past the decimal point to the right.

Even the younger ones are getting into the act these days… so what are you waiting for?  If you’re old enough to BLOW, you’re old enough to KNOW about Whistleblowing!

There’s no reason to wait another day to begin building your Whislteblowing Futures Empire.  It requires the smallest if investments, and the leverage involved can turn out to be off the charts… I mean, we’re talking tens of thousands to one.

I’ve also expanded my thinking and now am looking around to acquire minority interests in Whistleblowing Futures held by the children of today’s banking CEOs, and I’ve got a call into Kyle Bass to see if he’ll issue a WhistleStop Default Swap on certain positions.

Laugh all you want, but I’ve already had several exploratory conversations with the ex-boyfriend of Jamie Dinon’s daughter’s cousin.  I can’t say anything more about that at the moment, as we’re in the quiet period, but let’s just say that things are looking up around the Mandelman Mansion.

Hey, and if I make what I think I will on that deal… I might even consider not strategically defaulting on my mortgage, how about that?  Why not?  No sense in getting greedy… and in fact, just to show you what kind if guy I am… I’ve already decided… let’s say I make $10 million on my own bank’s future malfeasance… you know what I’m going to do?

I’m going to go ahead and pay off my $70,000 underwater second.  I’m not kidding, I’m really going to do it.

I mean, maybe not at 100 cents on the dollar… but if they’d agree to a reasonable modification to say 1 percent with a principal reduction, recapitalization, waiving of all late fees and interest, a term extension and, of course, they’d have to agree to fix my credit report to erase the fact that I didn’t make a payment for those 38 months after I took the cash out… and maybe back rubs by the CEO’s wife for a year… but yeppers… if they’re willing to be reasonable, then why not?  I’ll go ahead and throw them a bone.

Well, and maybe not right away, but let’s say within five years, depending on LIBOR trending… I’m still working out the details with my attorney, but the point is… my heart’s in the right place… I do want to do the responsible thing and pay my bills.

 I WANT YOU

IN MY WHISTLEBLOWER ARMY!

Plus, the beauty of whistleblowing is that none gets hurt.  It’s a true win-win-win proposition.  Stay with me here… I blow the whistle… Chase has to pay me $20 million, which it gets at zero percent interest loan from the Fed that it doesn’t have to ever pay back. Or, Chase’s insurance company pays the claim, goes under, but is too big too fail, so gets bailed out by Treasury, and everybody’s happy again.

I’m telling you… it’s practically bullet proof people… it’s the answer we’ve been waiting for and it’s all set and ready to go.  And let’s face it… this is a market that’s not going anywhere.  It’s likely to be around as long as we have malfeasance among Wall Street’s bankers and banking institutions… and you’ve got to think that’ll be around longer than fossil fuels.

Of course, I could be wrong I suppose… maybe the bankers will all go straight and stop committing even the slightest of violations of any kind… start running pristine institutions for the benefit of their shareholders and humanity…

I mean… that could happen, right?  Anything is possible.

And on the “anything is possible scale,” I’d have to say that the possibility of “pristine banks and bankers” would be listed right after the possibility of monkeys flying out of your ass.

Hahahahahahahahaha!  Yes, well… it may seem like they may be wining and we may be losing, but they can’t take away our ability to laugh at them… and he who laughs last… laughs best.

Right?  Damn right.

Mandelman out.