this whole subprime thing (part 2 of 2)

so fast-forward to late 2003: l.a. real estate is now appreciating at an insane rate, everybody's orgiastically buying and flipping left and right--it's all anybody's talking about--and i'm starting to get nervous because i've foolishly got not one but two houses in differing states of being ripped apart and i'm strapped for cash and in over my head (contractor says to me one memorable day: "hey adolf, where we workin this week--normandy or the russian front?"), and i'm figuring i've got maybe six months at the most before the market peaks.

why six months? i dunno--maybe it was because, to date--and counter to any logic and good sense i could discern--the older of my little houses (i.e., normandy) had more than tripled in value in eight years while the the russian front had doubled in four; far as i was concerned, we were way overdue for a correction as it was but as there wasn't even a hint of a slowdown on the horizon--hell, the frenzy was still building--i figured i had at least that long to focus on and finish up the one i was gonna sell and still get out on top.

so i abandoned for the moment the russian front, worked all day at my day job and then every other waking hour on normandy, maxed out all my credit cards, stretched to the limit and finished in july '04, held out for what i considered to be the best possible price--a ridiculous amount of money, to my mind--closed in september, congratulated myself on getting out at what had to--just fucking had to--be the absolute peak of the craziest real estate boom i had ever witnessed or could ever hope to.

[and then watched, slack-jawed, as the little house i'd just sold for what i'd only apparently thought to be a killer profit--875 square feet and no garage, mind you--against all reason appreciated another two hundred grand in the following year--but that's not the point of this story, it's just something i kick myself over sometimes.]

so what is the point of this story? that's simple: if an amateur like me could see the crash coming three years before it finally, inevitably did and act accordingly, why did all the so-called experts running the mortgage companies, banks, homebuilders and hedge funds continue their march into oblivion, taking not only their companies and their stockholders but the entire country over the cliff with them?

well, i have an answer for you, and it's probably not one you'll hear on fox or MSNBC: thanks to the laws governing corporations in this country, all the aforementioned CEOs and managers had to do once the cliff appeared was pull the cords on their built-in golden parachutes and float magically outta harm's way as the people who entrusted them with the stewardship of their capital crashed into the abyss.

and just in case the above metaphor flies over anybody's head, allow me to restate in somewhat more prosaic and straightforward language: it's because, once you become the CEO of a publicly-traded company in america today, you are beyond accountability--you can fuck up as freely and as often as you want, secure in the knowledge that not only will there be no consequences to your failure, you'll make out like a goddam motherfucking bandit on the way out the door.

makes me crazy sometimes, i swear to god.