The collapse of the credit markets has left some surprising victims
Adjusting to being out of work will be hard for the rest of them, adjusting to being out of luck even harder. Their self-esteem may now be lower than their net worth. They have no place to go but home, to tell the family.
And when they do get home, how long can they afford to stay if the rent is high or a mortgage outstanding? What about the builders remodelling the kitchen? The nanny and the cleaner? How will they pay for the private school? The private health insurance? The car, the clubs, the tennis lessons? Dining out, theatre, opera? Christmas presents, holidays, charities? The accumulating pile, which to a banker serves as a report card, means many different things to those who help to spend it and to those on whom it is spent.
Well, quite. This is meant to be a serious article, too. Hardly the Battle of Orgreave, is it? I must admit as I was watching the collapse of one international corporation after another, my concern truly was for the lack of posh cars and tennis lessons of the ultra-wealthy. Think of all those uncorrected backhands.
