The Sorrows Of The Rich
Mayer, Milton
THE SORROWS OF THE RICH by MILTON MAYER London Where was Moses when the lights went out?— Down in the basement eating sauerkraut. —Ancient chantey The lights went out the...
...All finance is low finance...
...I couldn't imagine what the fellow in Switzer- land would do if he did use his judg- ment...
...I asked him to buy yen—if the yen hadn't been revalued by the time he got to the bank...
...The gnomes of Zurich, Frankfurt, Paris, and London had been at their gnomework all weekend...
...Shed a tear or two—no more than that...
...Mouse-trapped...
...Monday morning—August 16—the Word came...
...Flash from the breakfast table: American Express would still sell Eng- lish pounds, if you had their traveler's checks, at the now "old" rate of $2.42...
...Too late: The $2500 in the bank at home was worth $2250 and fading fast...
...there is no lower occupation, and no meaner preoccupation, than making (or los- ing) money by buying and selling mon- ey...
...Sold the 600 iron men to the bank at $2.52 plus...
...About time to come home to stay— and to savor the bitter aloes of the Profligate Society, and to knock off the gnomes who sanctified the prof- ligacy...
...I had asked an American publisher who owed me $2500 to put it into my bank, but I had asked via surface mail—the Mayers didn't get rich using air mail—and the Word had not come back that the money was in the bank...
...She stood in line all day—every American in Europe was unloading the junk—and paid $2.52 for pounds...
...Baby Mayer had 600 of the iron men which for so many decades had ruled the world...
...No wages coming in...
...I was the American abroad...
...Was there, said Baby, really a Bourse in Tokyo, and did they call it a Bourse...
...Dead...
...I was overdue to buy another month, but, so weak a reed is man, and so manly I, that I've decided to breathe the additional brimstone and keep the money "for a while...
...The Mayers didn't get rich reading the financial pages...
...By the end of the day the London banks were charging $2.70, $2.80, $2.90...
...End of the week...
...Americans abroad might find themselves paying "slightly higher prices...
...Ancient chantey The lights went out the evening of August 15—a Sunday—the usual hour of the usual day for dirty govern- ment tricks...
...The Americans abroad are the rich —every one of them, except for the old age pensioners who went back to Ire- land or Italy to live cheap...
...For fifty years the Americans have had it cheap in Europe and every- where else abroad, because the rest of the world was poor and America rich...
...The Jap- anese cabinet was meeting...
...The yen...
...Clutched to her maternal bosom Mrs...
...The Mayers didn't get rich calling Chicago from London...
...Well," I said, clutching her maternal bosom, "I'd rather make no comment at the moment, given the effect my words would have on the Tokyo Bourse...
...I dropped my pretense of being a scholar, author, prophet, and patri- arch, and leaped into my natural medi- um, which is international finance...
...Brother Howard, in Chicago, $1.25 per minute away by telephone and go- ing up all the time...
...At $1.25 per minute, Brother How- ard told me all the Chicago news and wanted to know how London was...
...And that, my rent-and-wage-frozen friends, is where I stand, or, rather, roll with the punches, which keep coming...
...I couldn't write home to get somebody to buy the yen there, be- cause it might have been revalued be- fore the letter got there...
...He said he could get it...
...London Times: "Anybody with dollars to convert would be a fool"—the word was the Times9—"not to buy the yen before it is revalued...
...In the past ten years of Vietnam, NATO, and the moondoggling, Amer- ica has been growing poor, Europe rich, and the gap closing...
...The gnomes of Washington had locked themselves in at Camp David, from which the head gnome emerged to tell "the American people," i.e., the gnomes of Zurich, etc., that the United States was in such great shape that the dollar was hereby devalued...
...I hung up...
...I'm sorry," I said, "but no comment...
...Nothing coming in...
...THE SORROWS OF THE RICH by MILTON MAYER London Where was Moses when the lights went out?— Down in the basement eating sauerkraut...
...Aristotle classed it with sodomy as "an unnatural practice...
...Beginning of the next week...
...For the summer tourists it meant an extra $50 or $100 and a souvenior or two less...
...Borrowed a visitor's $300 checks and sent her scurrying to American Ex- press...
...Any moolah I ever got went into Baby's bosom, from which, when I felt the need of another month off purga- tory, I extracted enough to send to my intercessor, the American Friends Serv- ice Committee...
...Now it has snapped shut—with your correspon- dent's hand in the till...
...I've never "played" the stock, or any other mar- ket...
...Sent checks for $1500, out of the $2500, to a fellow in Switzerland, where we had to live for the next six months, telling him to use his judgment...
...The Mayers didn't get rich paying one per cent to buy traveler's checks...
...Panic...
...This morning I ignored Page 1— murder, war, fire, and flood—and turned to the financial page to study the yen...
...Communism is a bust, but cap- italism, unless you have yen this morning, is busted...
...The Swiss franc (al- ready revalued by five per cent in May) was skyrocketing...
...The two winners of World War II were now obvious: the inventors of the yen and the Deutschmark, the two mighty cur- rencies that had toppled the dollar...
...Is that a good or bad sign...
...I asked him if he had $1,000...
...Baby Mayer, clutching her maternal bosom...
...said Mrs...
...no percentage there...
...I couldn't buy yen in Europe be- cause I'd have to change my devalued dollars for the currency of the country I'd be buying the yen in...
...Broth- er Howard, the best of the gute schnuckely said o.k., concealing his be- musement...
...Wiped out in Eu- rope...
...Still had $1,000 (now worth about $850 in Europe) in the bank at home...
...For the rest, with their sabbaticals, their royalties, or their uniforms (and PX's), it meant an extra few hundred...
...No word from the fellow in Switzerland...
...It would be a great thing, said the head gnome, for Americans who stayed in America and bought American goods...
Vol. 35 • August 1971 • No. 10
