Confessions of a Self-Deluded TARP Wife

Forget the opera, darling. Cancel the preposterously pricey dinner at Bouley. Oh my goodness ... How my life has changed since my CEO husband received hundreds of millions of dollars in bail-out funds from our handsome new black president.

I am a TARP wife.  No dear, I don't have to wear a canvas ground cloth ... heaven forbid!  The fabric is far too course to rest against my spa-toned alabaster skin.

In keeping with the unwritten code of this new penny-pinching sisterhood, I am pretending to take a vow of financial abstinence in a transparent effort to show the little people how much we empathize with their economic plight. I returned the presents [you could never possibly afford] my husband gave me for Christmas (but didn’t tell him, since he’s already using the TARP cash to dry off his sweaty scrotum) and am using my credit balances at all the major department stores for important political bribes and other extra-legal pay-offs.

I haven’t even looked at spring clothes; God forbid someone catches me out in a pink skirt from Old Navy. Keeping up with fashion seems somehow decadent in this new era of faux compassion, like getting a virus injected into my face to look younger or catered gourmet dinners every night - I am sorry we had to let our personal chef go.  He was a nice Mexican man, but he didn't have a green card.  Like so many other people of my impeccable social status, I’m shopping in my 1000 square foot walk-in closet. I’ve bought exactly two things this year—makeup that costs $450 for a 4oz jar and custom-made panty hose from my favorite little hosiery in France. I packed my authentic Luis Vuitton trunk and took the Leer over to Paris for the weekend to buy them using our gift from Uncle Sam. If I buy an expensive present for someone, I have the package wrapped in custom-designed wrapping paper emblazoned with our family initials and sent to their home via our private valet. I would not dare take the chance of being spotted by papparazzi while climbing into a taxi, laden with Bergdorf Goodman shopping bags.

/images/uploads/art-tarp.jpgAs you can see, being a TARP wife means, in short, creating a false reality based on a pre-school algorithm adjusted for self-delusion that I just fabricated: balancing the need to look like your world hasn’t crumbled beneath you—because, let's face it ... we are still filthy stinking rich—with the need to appear duly repentant for our subprime sins while we gratefully accept millions of dollars from tax-payers. It also means we’re part of the community of more than 400 greedy companies that screwed the US economy, world economy, and common-folk out of tens of trillions of dollars. Yes, we have received millions in government bailout funds, but our collective fall from grace has been swifter and harsher than any since Mao frog-marched intellectuals into China’s countryside to build the lavish luxury retreats we like to send our executives to once per year. 

Hitting the perfect note isn’t always easy. Did I mention that I was able to buy my daughter a spot on American Idol? For instance, for the past 15 years or so, I have thrown my husband a birthday party fit for the gods. We traditionally celebrate with about 30 awesomely rich friends, mostly New York pals we have worked with to bilk millions of people out of billions of dollars over past few decades. We’re not talking an end-of-an-era Stephen Schwarzman-type $10 million blowout. Nope, ours is a pretty sedate affair. We typically fly everyone on our private jet to our private estate in the Caribbean for a romp on our private beach.

This year, of course, entertaining our pompous crowd at our usual multi-star Michelin hotspots would simply not be possible without making an attempt to seem less "frivolous". Extravagant is out; faux conservative is in. I love the word "faux". But not hosting an all-expenses paid birthday dinner would have spurred rumors that we were broke, not a welcome thought either. Juggling these conflicting self-important impulses, I decided on a slimmed-down party and made the difficult decision to buy a single bottle of Crystal for everyone to share. Choosing Versailles to host World War I peace negotiations could not have been more complicated than my attempt to select the perfect spot for our annual dinner ... because I have no idea how silly my stupid analogy will seem to a moderately educated product of the public school system.  Naturally, every restaurant I contacted was willing to kiss my fabulously toned ass in an effort to meet my barely-reduced budget; now that Wall Street firms are no longer entertaining clients or hosting events, New York eateries are struggling to put up with astonishingly self-absorbed, entitled gentry who expect people to bow down to their obvious superiority.

At the end of this very very difficult day, it came down to a choice between an especially accommodating (and well-known) high-end restaurant and a less expensive, clubbier spot. We ultimately picked the cozier restaurant—even though it ended up costing us more (again, we aren't really suffering at all), so eager was the more chic outfit to host the party (I lost track of this sentence). Why spend the extra bucks? Because our chosen place is distinctly low-profile and rarely mentioned in the press and I wrote this sentence in a deliberate effort to confuse the two restaurants so you wouldn't be able to guess that we actually picked the more expensive choice. We did not need a legitimate, snarky story about a “Wall Street bigwig living it up while taxpayers wonder where their money went.” Seriously, we spent tax-payer money and didn't feel an ounce of regret while we ate our imported 14oz. Kobe beef steaks. Really, not even President Obama spends this much time looking after his image.  I mean, have you seen Michelle's arms?

It wasn’t long ago that America celebrated successful companies and the people who run them.  Gosh, I miss the days when we were worshipped simply for being rich.  I loved being a useless socialite who had nothing to offer society but my withering contempt and passing disregard.  My husband, CEO of one of the biggest TARP recipients, has received more than his share of accolades (in my opinion, well deserved) for being a crook and a thieving louse. But because a few dozen scheming masterminds like my husband worked tirelessly to place their industry under siege, the entire country now thinks that TARP bankers are greedy incompetents dedicated to ripping off taxpayers. Fancy wastebaskets, under-the-rug bonuses, lavish junkets, massive golden parachutes (who would make a parachute out of gold anyway!)—these are Exhibits A, B, and C in the people’s case against Wall Street. Even the Octomom gets better press.  Not really, but I hated the idea of donating my diamond-studded Tiffany waste basket to Goodwill, so I sent it her.

Here is the reality: TARP managers are laughing all the way to the bank with your money. The executives of these companies are desperately trying to protect their well-deserved bonuses while complying with a slew of regulatory bills flooding out of Congress. My husband has battled his erectile disfunction for two endless years without respite while watching CNN coverage of the credit markets he helped shut down and laughing while he funneled millions in stock options to off-shore accounts all while the business environment continued to deteriorate.  He’s exhausted from six-hour erections, terrified of the SEC filing charges against him, and beaten down by the constant, but true, criticism hurled at him by the little people.

I’m trying to fluff him up and not complicate his life. The last thing he needs is unpleasant publicity about his "man problem", so I’m learning to fly so far below the radar that I have perpetually skinned knees. We’ve picked up new habits to throw off the dogs, like making donations anonymously and sneaking in late to black-tie galas (you aren't invited to) after high society photographer Patrick McMullan has packed up his camera and gone home. He's such an ass.  We now regularly tell the press when we turn down an invitation we receive from a museum or an arts organization that will inevitably be followed by a request for funds. No point in getting their hopes up ... I mean, we ARE giving anonymously.

I get it that my unbridled self-importance and complete lack of empathy for people whose lives have been ruined by the actions of my husband and his industry may not win much sympathy. Why should I? I'm a windbag who is not pleading poverty. We still live in relative luxury compared to commoners, we can afford almost everything we need because we have more money than we know how to spend, and we aren’t facing the prospect of losing our home or having to turn to our families to support us. But we are getting squeezed. Remember, I haven't even looked at spring clothes.

Like most Americans, we are worried about money. Not really.  But, I need to attempt to sound like I give two fake pearl earrings about anyone but myself and my family.  Our net worth is tied up in stock that is down 95 percent. Again, not really, but I thought if I picked a really really high percentage I could make our financial situation sound so much worse than it actually is.  Last year, before it became fashionable to do so, my husband refused a bonus because the president basically made him give it back.  Because of the new restrictions, his pay this year will be a fraction of what it was, but don't worry, TARP will cover the balance. The combined swoon in our income has caused us to pretend to cut spending drastically, in hopes that we can make a grand show to the New York press about how hard it will be to hang on to some remnant of our "former" lifestyle. Excuse me whilst I chuckle.

In an effort to pretend to conserve cash, we are eating out less frequently, meaning that I’ve been turning out some pretty dreadful lasagna. I never learned to cook. We had a house-Mexican for that mundane chore.  Actually, staying home and counting our TARP cash while watching Law & Order reruns has become our new guilty pleasure. It’s a far cry from opening night at the Metropolitan Opera, but it’s not bad.  I've been forced to hire a less prominent photographer to come to one of our private homes and photograph us doing "normal" things to send to the tabloids.  I drive the family crazy by switching off the lights every time we leave a room.  I "went green" last week. Needless to say, we fly first-class commercial. Using the company plane is now out of bounds for a few months until this ridiculous mess blows over; we’ve heard there are reporters staking out the private airports.

I have become oddly superstitious. On some level, I feel I’m being punished for too many thoughtless years of assuming that the trappings of success were earned and not given. I consciously looked the other way while my husband and other's like him worked their fingers to the bone devising clever ways to steal other people's money.  I’m constantly knocking on polished cherry wood or offering little good-citizen sacrifices in an effort to appear like I care, such as manically laundering our cash or chatting with annoying telemarketers who make minimum wage.

I’m struggling with how to tell our children that their husband is a greedy cheat and their mother is a superficial rag who approved of all the deceit that paid for the golden teat from which they suckled. We’re thankful that they’re intent on making their own way in the world using their ridiculously generous inheritances, but at the same time, they confidently rely on us to continue to teach them how to behave like the spoiled rich brats we raised them to be. One daughter recently mused about going back to business school. I hope she didn’t notice my instantly negative reaction, stemming completely from concern about the cost and the fact that it would look really bad if we pulled strings to get her accepted into Harvard or Stanford.  I cannot bring myself to shake the foundation of her entitlement. Our own culpability in the collapse of the world economy has already crushed the confidence of so many young people just starting out.  Meanwhile, retirement is now like a rainbow for most of you pathetic souls, a beautiful mirage that we'll be sure to send you a postcard from. To some people, these may seem like luxury problems, but to us they are painful and strangely empowering symbols of our status as uber-wealthy business celebrities.

I’ve watched the skin under my husband’s eyes take on a yellowish hue from repeated spa treatments, and his hair turn from gray to grayer from bad salon colorings, as he tries to lead his company through the mess he helped create. He’s up every night for hours at a stretch trying to get his little man to salute, and for the first time, he has health issues.  We have a fantastic health insurance policy only rich people can afford and a private doctor.  For a person whose life has been punctuated mainly by inherited success—from perennial class president and high-school sports star to Ivy League MBA—failure is the worst of all nightmares. He seems off balance, as though his sexual self-confidence were a physical ballast that he is slowly losing. It’s heartbreaking how often he apologizes to me for losing so much of our money on hookers and Viagra, for making so many mistakes, like participating in the destruction of the world economy.

I know people are angry—angry at those they rightly view as responsible for the subprime crisis and the subsequent economic meltdown. I don’t blame them. I thank Jesus every night because I am not one of them, but I’m angry too because I can't go out and buy spring clothes without getting blasted in the press. But my pretend fury extends to any number of culprits: to Alan Greenspan, who encouraged the loose-money policies promoted by the Republican Congress and the Bush Administration that undermined the pricing of risk; to that blasphemous [expletive] Barney Frank, who cudgeled Fannie Mae into supporting loans to unfit homebuyers (I love repeating this blatant lie); to the rating agencies that had the misfortune of getting caught; to the subprime-mortgage brokers who chased fees and ignored any accountability because Republican policies made it easy for them to find legal loopholes to waltz through; to the investors who did their homework and absurdly leveraged up their balance sheets and walked away filthy rich. I’m an equal-opportunity blamer as long as those people I blame are Democrats and voted to start regulating the industry that ushered us onto a gilded easy street.  Do you have any idea how much money we made scamming people just like you?

And yes, I blame those who were in charge of the big banks—including my husband—for not seeing the default tsunami coming.  We like to tell people that almost no one did.  Now, everyone believes this nonsense, yet financial CEOs have replaced the Mob as the most despised group in the country.  Who am I kidding?  I blame my husband for not doing a better job of hiding our assets.

The good news is that Americans have short attention spans!  I am not sure I could possibly write a more insensitive and egregiously insulting put down of the American middle class.  Permit me to take a moment to applaud myself.  Before long, we will manufacture some other [expletive] to absorb all the frustration and anger you are wrongly directing at us.  Get it?  You are supposed to worship rich people. Remember to keep believing you could be one of us too someday. I mean, we have to keep peddling the American Dream in order to keep you people pinned under our exquisitely manicured thumbs.

Meanwhile, I’m off to the tailors to get some clothes altered. Shopping your closet is great unless you’ve put on a few pounds over the years or lost your home.  I don't like fat people either.  I’ve been holding out hope that fewer nights out could shrink me to fit back into some of the past warhorses of my wardrobe.  I've still got a great rack.  Unfortunately, our appetite for comfort food from our neighborhood gourmet grocer has risen in proportion to the Dow’s decline; the selloff this past month has upped our mac-and-cheese intake and created a sinecure for my seamstress because I am a giver and she really needs my charity.  Yes, I still have a seamstress ... because I never did need to learn how to sew.  I'm still rich.
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