Larry Fink, a real person

Not all news is bad, some of it's worse.

Watched Janet Yellen ex-Fed Chief interviewed on PBS last night by the grande dame of tv news, Judy Woodruff. (Full disclosure: I'm not a big Judy Woodruff fan, an anchorwoman who always seems to leave the BIG QUESTIONS unasked).

Yellen's kind of likable though, in a mischevious elfin way. As I half-watched and half-listened I couldn't help but notice that the bookshelf, the very visible backdrop of the 'interview'--Skyped or Zoomed or FaceTimed from the Yellen residence---featured several of those inside-the-Trump Whitehouse books, most notably Fear by Bob Woodward.

There's some good news there I thought, a subtle bit of coded propaganda beamed to Supreme Court justices, a US Senator or two, treasury officials, the Poet Laureate of the United States, maybe even Barack Obama.

Yellen assured me that everything's hunky-dory i.e. there's plenty of money in the coffer to cover unemployment claims, make forgiveable loans to small business, bail out Boeing, keep Wall St. happy and so forth. Her words made me feel so good that I switched to The Golf Channel and watched old Master's highlights for an hour or so.

(btw, the definition of the word "coffer" is a box or chest, especially one for valuables, derived from both the Middle English and the Old French 13th c, and sounds very similar to the word "coffin", which is also a box.)

Fast forward to this morning, April 10, 2020. After staying in bed as long as I possibly could, giving new meaning to the cliche, "he pulled the covers over his head", I finally emerged at 9 a.m. or therabouts. My partner had made coffee and baked some beautiful date muffins. Everything was indeed hunky-dory, that is until I opened the Business Section of The New York Times and read yet another bulletin of heartbreaking economic news, as pictured below. Weeping uncontrollably, I staggered toward the bathroom.

 

The unfortunate Mr. Fink is going to have to cut back on some essential luxuries this year, after taking an 8% pay cut. Photo by author.