Forever riding the financial roller-coaster

By Jenny Gardiner
Published: November 2, 2008

We may be in round four or five, or maybe 5,000, of the latest burst-economic-bubble drama, but I can barely get my head around this one since I’m still reeling from the tech-boom-gone-bust of eight years ago.

As if I needed a reminder of that debacle, several weeks ago we received yet another large white envelope in the mail from a company in whom we entrusted our investments. It was one of those corporations where CEOs had gold-encrusted dog houses and Lalique crystal fire hydrants for their pampered pets’ comfort.

So here it was, nearing a decade past, and what did we get in the mail? A fancy, expensive, large envelope, accompanied by a telltale yellow Post-it note telling us that we owed the U.S. Postal Service 41 cents for the mailing. The mailing that was sent according to some ridiculous legal mandate to notify us that nothing’s changed; sure, the company has still bilked its investors out of millions of dollars, and yep, no way are you ever getting any of your money back.  Thanks for your ever-so-precious retirement investment cash. We’ve enjoyed using it while hiding out at our tax-haven island retreat in Barbados. Hope you enjoy working your twilight years handing out smiley-face stickers at Wal-Mart, because that’s your fate at this point. If you’re lucky. Oh, and by the way: Would you mind paying the postage on this?

They’re like some cosmic Wimpy — that shyster from “Popeye” who mooched money off of everyone and promised he’d pay it back Tuesday for a wimpy burger today. Yet never seemed to get around to honoring his word.

I’m sick and tired of being stuck paying for the wimpy burger. I want the gilt doghouse, dammit.

Over the past decade or so, I watched with dismay as what seemed like the entire universe but for us advanced in the quest for vast financial remuneration, wondering why we weren’t reaping in the profits. Perhaps it was because we’re really lousy investors, afraid to chance our money on even low-risk investments, never even considering the risky ones.

Yet those very people who successfully put it all on black and won over the past 10 or 15 years are practically wearing black armbands now, so deeply in mourning are they for their now-lost fortunes.

Part of me wonders: If they were making so much money on the stock market, in real estate, in the tech boom, why didn’t they tuck away a healthy nest egg for that fabled rainy day? Sure, some folks did — in the stock market, which was assured to remain a safe place. And others did, in property — you can’t go wrong investing in real estate! And we all know what happened with those safe bets in Internet technology.

We are in an era of indignities being heaped upon indignities.

It should have come as no surprise last weekend, then, when we received a FedEx delivery. My curiosity was piqued: Who would spend the extra money to overnight a package to us on a weekend?

I excitedly tore open the envelope and pulled out the enclosure.

It was a statement from yet another company into which we’d foolishly tossed our savings those many years ago. A tech company that went belly-up while sending its executives on quail hunts in the English countryside, and whose principals probably fed their cats jumbo lump crabmeat while our retirement investment sank to nothing.

I couldn’t help but wonder whose money went toward overnighting — for weekend delivery, no less — a sheet of nothing to all empty-handed shareholders in this failed venture. Talk about rubbing salt in the wound. I mean, if they deducted the cost of the mass-mailing alone, each of us would at least get back a token buck or two.

Besides, given the barren financial state of our own government, couldn’t they have had the common decency to at least have bolstered the coffers of the U.S. Postal Service by sending it through them?

I should feel grateful that Federal Express didn’t try to bill us for the privilege of being reminded of our failures. Thank goodness for small mercies.
In the meantime, I’ll keep checking my mailbox for the next round of USPS IOU’s. I can hardly wait.

Jenny Gardiner is a writer and commentator who lives in Albemarle County. She is author of the recent novel “Sleeping with Ward Cleaver.”