Thanks to THEGRUBSPOT.com, form submitting this post:
No new clothes. Enter the black-tie affair after photographers have already gone home. So is the life of a wife of a man who is CEO of a financial institution that accepted TARP funds.
According to Portfolio.com: ” I haven’t even looked at spring clothes; God forbid someone catches me out in something new. Keeping up with fashion seems somehow decadent in this new era, like getting Botox injections or catered dinners. Like so many others, I’m shopping in my closet. I’ve bought exactly two things this year—makeup and panty hose. If I buy a present for someone, I have the package sent to their home. I don’t want to be spotted climbing into a taxi, laden with Bergdorf Goodman shopping bags.
As you can see, being a TARP wife means, in short, making decisions according to a complex algorithm: balancing the need to look like your world hasn’t crumbled beneath you-let’s not alarm the investors!—with the need to appear duly repentant for your subprime sins. It also means we’re part of the community of more than 400 companies that have received government bailout funds, whose fall from grace has been swifter and harsher than any since Mao frog-marched intellectuals into China’s countryside.”
She clearly has a point. After all in just 3-4 months we no longer applaud success, instead, successful people have become demonized.
She goes on to say: “Here is the reality: TARP managers are scared to death. The executives of these companies are desperately trying to hold their businesses together while complying with a slew of damaging bills flooding out of Congress. My husband has battled the shutdown of the credit markets and a deteriorating business environment for two endless years without respite. He’s exhausted, terrified of losing the company, and beaten down by the constant criticism hurled at him.
I’m trying to buck him up and not complicate his life. The last thing he needs is unpleasant publicity, so I’m learning to fly so far below the radar that I have perpetually skinned knees. We’ve picked up new habits, like making donations anonymously and sneaking in late to black-tie galas after society photographer Patrick McMullan has packed up his camera and gone home. We now regularly turn down the invitations we receive from museums and arts organizations that will inevitably be followed by a request for funds. No point in getting their hopes up. “
Let’s hope we get back to encouraging success, and stop taking out our frustrations on innocent CEO’s.
