The Bubble
While Justin was undergoing the traumatic experience of his life, the financial world was busy creating another tower of Babel at that time. The money managers had come together with singleness of mind, which was not witnessed in recent times and were busy blowing a financial bubble, by raising the stakes to unprecedented levels and in uncharted territory. These investment portfolio builders and hedge fund managers working with big financial institutions were like puppeteers sitting atop the bubble—throwing down lines to the people standing below, exhorting all and sundry to hold the line and climb to the top of the world. Well, many took the bait with dreams of making it big in the financial world and now there was an ecstatic multitude of hopefuls sitting atop the financial bubble. Literally, the whole world was drawn unto this bubble, which could not be contained by geographical boundaries of the nations of the world. Justin was no exception to the euphoria.
A bubble cannot withstand pressure, neither from the inside nor the outside. The money managers with their suaveness were raising the stakes which kept bloating the bubble to dangerous dimensions. The stock values were touching sky high and real estate was taking the property value to dizzy heights. At any given time, stretch limousines could be seen making rounds of Manhattan, the city that was the showpiece on the earth. The crazed occupants in those limousines were enjoying the sights of the famed Broadway and Times Square by popping their heads out of the moon-roof. They were busy clicking away at nothing and everything with their compact digital cameras, hollering at the same time to attract attention of the passerby to show that they could afford the luxury.
The streetwalkers—the lesser mortals—were amazed, walking wide-eyed as if in a stupor at the show of this affluence on their streets. Wine and food was in abundance in the hotels that were bursting at the seams with patrons at all hours of the day. Garbage trucks feverishly worked overtime during night shifts to remove the huge black garbage bags that piled up on the sidewalk due to great consumption and leftovers that were generated by the indulgence of the rich and the famous. Construction activity was at its crescendo and one could see huge construction cranes propped up everywhere, with quite a few malfunctioning every now and then, causing accidents and even deaths.
A ‘bubble’ is something which has virtual mass inside. No real mass, no real substance—‘Nada’. One day, all of a sudden because of the great pressure that built up, the ‘bubble’ burst and the multitude of people sitting atop and enjoying the worldview fell to the ground with a great thud. The fall was so great that the earth shook and the ripple effect traveled like a ‘tsunami’, far and beyond touching the lives of all and sundry in the nations of the world.
The affluence, the surplus, the tower of Babel, everything that identified with riches vanished overnight. Cash flow stopped, aptly replaced by the deluge of the financial tsunami that encompassed all, rich and poor. From financial institutions to the man on the main street, everyone turned debtors overnight. The times became a classic case of debtors asking their debtors to repay. The sudden turn of events in the financial world made the small but hard-earned investment of Justin take a nosedive. His plan of working hard and be able to repay the bulk of his loans as soon as possible went ‘kaput’, and he ended up working harder to repay his loans.
In the times when the bubble was at its peak, Justin was not denied any loan by any of the financial institutions. Every loan enhancement application was positively entertained by the banks. There were credit bureaus to monitor the credit worthiness of clients but probably in that upward trend, the savvy money managers consigned the credit reports to the trash bins. Justin remembered that in India, loans were advanced by the banks for productive purposes only. Personal loans were far and few, always attracting a very high rate of interest as a deterrent. However, here banks were vying with each other to oblige the masses with lines of credit. They would come out with various terminologies to accommodate people while granting loans or increasing line of credit, encouraging people to refinance their houses to take that dream cruise to the Bahamas or the Caribbean. ‘Take a loan, to pay the other loan’ was the order of the day. The only criterion was the pay stub, the W2, form 1099 and the like.
Along with the bubble burst of 2008, the heavyweight financial institutions, the banks, and the hedge funds, which were on the top and affected the financial health of ‘nations’, tumbled down, in the process crushing the ordinary people who were otherwise clamoring to become the next millionaire. The financial tsunami vanquished the high and the mighty in a single day while the fate of the ordinary did not matter in the count.
Before the waves of the financial tsunami that invaded the system self-retracted, it was propagated that, to save the whole system from collapse, the big names among the fallen needed to be redeemed. The small or the proverbial ‘Main Street’ was left high and dry with an important piece of advice handed to them: undergo credit management sessions. The assets of none of the bigwigs were attached, whereas the dwelling places, the dream of the ordinary from the ‘Main Street’ went into foreclosure in hordes.
Jobs on Wall Street dried up, construction activity came to a grinding halt, and the big construction cranes that were standing on every nook and corner, now stood idle making whistling sounds due to the gusty December winds. In no time, even the hard-working people were forced to apply for unemployment benefits. Initially, many were hesitant to approach the social centers, but gradually, the need to pay utility bills and put food on the table for their children surpassed all inhibitions.
Justin waited for hours at a stretch in his car to get a job from his company. The crackling of the company radio in the car became such a rarity. Before the financial tsunami hit the city of Manhattan, Justin would see the yellow cabs and the black limousines, of which he was a part, racing feverishly across the city. Together, they would come to a screeching halt at the next red light, with their engines revving feverishly, so that the vehicles may zoom forward at the turn of green. There was work, more work and work for everyone.
Now, with the winter fast approaching and fall taking its leave, the bitter cold winds blew stronger. Justin, sitting in his car while waiting hours on end for a job, witnessed the fallen leaves being blown raucously across the road; the only difference being, the leaves did not stop at the red light and the NYPD cars with their sirens wailing did not ticket them.
Vanity of Vanities
‘Vanity of vanities’, says the Preacher; ‘Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.’ (Ecclesiastes 1: 2)
King Solomon, the probable writer of the above saying, was considered to be the wisest of all. Still, he found his own life experiences to be vain as a whole. Ever wondered why Solomon found his life experience to be vain?
The scripture says:
‘He that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind’. (Proverbs 11: 29)
With so many wives and concubines, he definitely troubled not one, but hundreds in his household. Therefore, in spite of being the richest and the wisest man in the world, his experience of life was vain. Proverbs, written by him, are a great source of wisdom to the simple but Solomon wrote these proverbs after experimenting with all the don’ts found in the Word of God. His own words of wisdom penned in two different books of the Bible did not benefit his own life.
That day, sitting in his car, Justin contemplated upon his own life. He was approaching his sixties and found truth in the word ‘vanity’ as repeatedly emphasised by the wise king. Spiritually, Justin had become bankrupt, socially, he did not have four shoulders to carry him if ever the need arose, and financially, he was a pauper in this land of opportunities, a non-entity in this land of promise.
Earlier, he knew the Bible like the back of his hand, now he knew the roads of this city like the back of his hand. Earlier, he gently led people to spiritual destination, now he drove them to their physical destinations.
Somewhere, the book of life says,
‘…Repent and do the first works, or else I will come to you
quickly and remove your lamp stand from its place—unless you repent’.
By the path that he followed, Justin had placed his lamp stand under the bushel, his life was heading towards the dark alleys of obscurity.