The Fury - Jason Pinter [75]
"That's what my business card says."
"So you've got a job. And even though everyone's
saying newspapers are going in the tank, you're still
getting paid, right?"
I wondered where this was going, but nodded.
"I had my life planned out. I was gonna have my
MBA by twenty-six," Scotty said. "So much for that.
Three-point-nines all the way through college. Paid my
own way through school because my parents could
barely afford to buy the clothes I took with me. And
right before I graduated, I got a six-figure job with
Deutsche Bank structuring CDOs. That's the American
dream, right"
"CDOs?" I said.
"Collateralized debt obligations. Basically you have
a lot of banks giving out hundreds of thousands of loans.
These loans are packaged into what's called a security.
Then a bunch of securities are piled into what's called
a CDO. Then when the crisis hit, we all got screwed."
"Still not quite sure I follow."
"Think about it like you were selling eggs," Scotty
said. "There are dozens of chickens laying hundreds of
eggs. Those eggs are taken from all different chickens
and put into one carton, which is then sold. But what
happens if the whole coop was diseased? Every egg in
the carton is basically worthless. That's pretty much
what happened. We ended up with a bunch of packaged
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loans that were in essence worthless. And once the
economy got turned upside down, everyone who
worked in that branch got the ticket out of there. I was
at Deutsche Bank less than a year when I got canned."
"I'm guessing you didn't live with your parents
while you were working."
"No way. Bought me a sweet two-bedroom for threequarters of a mil. Between salary and bonus, I could
afford the payments while paying off my student loans.
But then I lost my job, couldn't make the payments, and
took a hundred-thousand-dollar loss selling the apart
ment."
"Wow," I said. "I think you lost more on that pad than
my apartment is worth."
"Don't be too sure. There's always someone willing
to overpay for Manhattan real estate. If I could have
waited six months I would have found a good buyer, but
I couldn't afford my mortgage anymore and it was
either that or live on the street for a while."
"And now?"
"And now what? I live with my parents. They still
think I'm gonna be some financial genius. Warren
Buffett or something. That's why you gotta keep this
quiet, man. They can't know. It'd kill them." Scotty was
starting to breathe harder, red flaring up under his collar.
He was getting angry just talking about this. "You know
what that feels like? You work your ass off for ten years,
you pour every penny you have into your future. And
then just when things seem like they're going your way,
the rug is pulled out from under you and you're left with
nothing but debt, bad credit and a crappy old bedroom
that wasn't big enough when you were in high school."
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"So you start dealing. To make ends meet."
"It's not permanent," Scotty said. "Things will turn
around. There are peaks and valleys in every time cycle.
In a year or so I'll have the job of my choice, back in a
sweet-ass apartment. Living the dream."
"You tell that to all the people you're poisoning?"
"Screw yourself, Mr. High-and-Mighty. I'm doing
what I need to do to survive. I owe fifty grand on my
tuition, and even if I do get another job, who knows how
long that'll last. You're a reporter, right? You ever think
about all those people you feed bull to day in and day out?
All those magazines telling women how they can doll
themselves up, get sliced open just to be prettier? So
maybe they can look like whatever anorexic slut you
shove on your cover? Don't tell me about poison, man.
You think I'm any worse than you are, you're deluding
yourself."
"I don't need to defend myself. I know what I do, and
I know what you do. If you can even compare the two,
you're the delusional one, Scotty."
A waiter came over. He took a notepad from his
pocket, licked his thumb and turned to a fresh page.
"Can I get ya?"
"Pastrami and rye,"