Out Of Poverty: Good Thing I Didn’t Kill Myself

To Grunt and Sweat Under a Weary Life

So . . . when I came home that night in the spring of 2013, after deciding not to kill myself, I pulled a handful of mail from my box — mostly junk; it’s always mostly junk — and sorted through it to determine which parcels got dropped right there in the foyer wastebucket. I mean, why haul more junk up to my junk ridden apartment?

I almost tossed the lot, but stopped for one small nondescript folded mailer. You know, the kind with perforated strips on the sides, like a W-2. I’m not sure why I even bothered. Perhaps I thought it might contain something about my application for SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program).

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I have to assume that the banks intended for those cheap-looking mailers to be perceived by their recipients as worthless.

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I ripped off the sides, fully expecting a come on. Turns out, it was a cheque for three thousand dollars. Part of a variety of settlements banks paid after a bunch o’ civil suits.

The DOJ and the SEC didn’t do squat, as you know. But several advocacy groups took up the cause of the tens of millions of us who got sucked into the black hole of the real estate bubble. The result was a slap on the wrist for the banks — several multi-billion-dollar settlements, and no admission of wrongdoing.

No executives went to jail. In fact, a large part of the taxpayer financed bailout went directly to the execs’ annual bonuses. Heaven forbid they should go without their goddamn bonuses!

I have to assume that the banks intended for those cheap-looking mailers to be perceived by their recipients as worthless. [Here’s your damn money, if you’re lucky enough to find it!] And I can’t help but wonder how many of those cheques got tossed by the millions of people like me who had no idea even that they were being offered.