From A Concerned Mother: Restore those bonuses!

April 14, 2009

Dear Board Members,

How can you freeze our wonderful Investment Counselor Associates' bonuses? You must restore them immediately! I am personally acquainted with some of these superb individuals and you have no idea of the harm you are causing, the grief and hopelessness you are creating, the families you are tearing apart. Have you no warm spot in your heart for those struggling to maintain a semblance of family life in these terrible times? Listen to the horrible suffering your heartless and cruel policy is causing. Do you have eyes but do not see?

My friend Matilda. Do you know Matilda? Do you know she had to take her two children out of their super-expensive private academy? And, even worse, she had to let go of their chauffeur-security guard and now her children are totally unprotected. Any common criminal could kidnap them, or hurt them, but what do you care? You just want to save a few bucks. Those poor innocents will have to attend common public schools now. PUBLIC SCHOOLS! OH MY GOD. What did these children ever do to you? And be exposed to the lower classes EVERYDAY. Public schools! They could catch contagious diseases or be beat up by bullies or hear bad words in the corridors. Terrible, filthy language from the unwashed masses. How could you force such sweet darlings into those disgusting circumstances? Do you care? Noooo...you would sell your sainted grandmother for a few coins, you black-hearted villains.

And, take Frank. How is Frank going to pay his $35,000 per month mortgage? Hunh? How about that? How's he going to pay his $6,000 per month property taxes on his $1.7 million house? What have you got to say about that? Nothing, I thought so. He'll have to move to some sleazy, low-rent area where the homes are hardly worth even a million. It probably won't even be gated and protected by a security guard. And that cheap, chintzy bonus you used to give him of barely $100,000 didn't even cover his entertainment costs. How can you be a mover and a shaker with a tiny quarter-million dollar salary? Chump change. He'd be laughed out of his club and he'll lose his share of the executive jet. Do you have some justification for this punishment you are torturing him with? Of course not, you're probably stealing his bonus as we speak. We know you're worthless because in the real world, you're worth what you're paid, and you're paid nothing. Worthless. That's what Wall Street says and Wall Street is never wrong. Restore those bonuses immediately, and maybe real important people will let you wash their dirty hankies, a chore simple enough maybe you can get it right.

Do you have an excuse for Mary and her husband? They were scheduled to go on HGTV's "House Hunters" program. They were supposed to be searching for another vacation home in Tuscany. Every hear of Tuscany? It's in Italy, although you're all so nearsighted you probably couldn't even find Europe on a ten foot by ten foot map of the world. They told that Whang women their price range was $2.2 to $2.5 million. Now, phashaw! They'd be lucky to find some squalid, festering slum behind the village garbage dump. How's that going to look on TV? They'll be crawling around on TV in the garbage looking for someplace to plug in their 60" flatscreen, thanks to you. What will that Whang woman say when they tell her they've got to downgrade to $1.5 to $2.0 million? The shame of it all. They'll never recover their self-esteem or respect. Are you proud of humiliating such fine people? I bet you enjoy it.

And what is this nonsense and noise about making these people pay something toward their own health care? Only little people pay for health care. Like your members; you should raise their rates so the really valuable people can be supported as they should, the elite of the investment world. Do you have any idea how much "value added" these counselors bring to your paltry little investment business? Without them, you'd be nothing. Do you hear me, nothing. I happen to know these brilliant investors beat the market standard by ONE-THIRD OF A PERCENT. That's huge! And you continue to blame them for the stock market going down. They are victims, just like the rest of us. Why are you punishing the victims? They wanted the market to go up; so did I; so did you. But, it went down. Why whip the dog because of what the horse did? Your actions are totally irrational.

And there's my Junnie. What a wonderful daughter. Everything a mother could ask for. Every year she trades in her Jaguar for a new one. But, not this year. No, you couldn't be bothered to give her the bonus she earned. Now, she'll have to drive her Jaguar another year. It's practically junk. It's got over 12,000 miles on it. She's ashamed to be seen in such a worthless hunk of metal. Are you happy humiliating her like that? Do you get pleasure grinding the intellectual elite into dirt?

I hear 95% of your members don't like the bonuses. So? What do the little people have to do with superior intellects? They lead their insignificant meaningless gray lives, fornicating and drinking beer like animals. They have no reason to exist except to honor and support their intelligent superiors like my little Junnie. What are you, Bolsheviks? Dedicated to eliminating the better classes until all are equally inferior. No doubt you would have happily murdered the Tsar and his beautiful children. All I can say is restore the bonuses immediately, if not sooner; your betters deserve no less.

A Concerned Mother