(Photo:fr.wikipedia.org)

This recession has put the proverbial shackles on the aspirations of people both rich and poor. The availability of credit is still moving at the pace of a slow crawl, while consumer spending is still searching for a way to pick itself up off the floor. But of course, it won’t truly be able to do that until the question of job security becomes less a hot button and more background scenery. Until money and credit begin flow as they did 10 years ago, the stock market will continue to show only modest gains at best. People are looking for help, whether it is the temporary assistance of cash advance loans or the more permanent change in which wages actually begin to keep pace with inflation.

Most of know just how the recession has taken a bit out of our finances. But did you know just how much even those who would have been “untouchable” have been hurt by the downturn? A recently New York Times articles takes a look at John McAfee, founder of the software company that produces McAfee Antivirus. His $100 million fortune has dwindled by an astounding 96 percent. Sure, that still means that he’s worth about $4 million and won’t need a cash advance, but what a drop!

“Horrific news”

Yes, Gawker jests when they call this “horrific news,” brought to us by “those tireless chroniclers of the plight of the rich, the New York Times,” but this cautionary tale does give us some idea of just how far America’s economic dealings have run aground. The number of super-rich in the United States may just be at its ebb tide. Yes, there are those who have already recovered to their pre-recession salaries, but there are many more that have not.

John McAfee is certainly not one of those who have recovered. He founded his company in the late 1980, and then sold his stock a couple of years after the antivirus giant had its initial public offering on Wall Street. He made $100 million in the deal, and he went on to invest much of it in real estate and bonds through the Lehman Brothers brokerage. At the time, it seemed like a great way to keep his fortune safe. Everyone in his income tax bracket was doing it.

Then the bubble burst

And John McAfee’s real estate holdings dropped in value like crazy. A 10,000-square-foot home in Colorado with a view of Pike’s Peak cost him $25 million to buy and build. In 2007, it sold for only $5.7 million. Then Lehman Brothers went belly up and his bonds were suddenly worth pennies on the dollar. Other stock investments cost him millions more in lost revenue.

Wait, there’s more. John McAfee has sold his 10-passenger Cessna and now flies like the rest of us. I wonder if he used the JetBlue unlimited pass when he went to visit his Hawaii oceanfront estate for the last time. That estate is gone too. It sold at auction for $1.5 million (much less than he paid for it), and there were only a handful of bidders. Apparently the former antivirus software mogul is going to high-tail it to Belize, where tax laws are more favorable to sinking millionaires like him.

What’s in store for John McAfee?

Let’s be realistic. I’m sure he’s going to land on his feet in Belize just fine. However, he’ll have to make do with much less than before. We who get cash advance loans when we need a cash advance will surely weep for him, particularly after ANOTHER estate (this one in New Mexico) goes up for a no-floor auction. In other words, no matter how low the top bid is, John McAfee has agreed to accept.

(Photo: glyphjockey.com)

I bring all of this to your attention not because John McAfee deserves a pity party. I’m sure he was aware that he was taking some risks with his money, and he certainly isn’t hurting with $4 million left over and likely a nice home in Belize. What I’m saying is that we can no longer allow the game players who manipulated the levers and knobs of the U.S. economy to carelessly speculate with our money. They walk away with something left over, but what of the less sophisticated investors? Like Tommy Wilhelm in Saul Bellow’s “Seize the Day,” they’re left with nothing. Financially, it’s a perpetual funeral.

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Jim Cramer bobblehead from the TV show Mad Money (photo by flickr)

Jim Cramer admits he and CNBC could do a better job of reporting investing news in a manner that is honest and balanced. But the beat goes on. People have lost most of their 401(k)s and are looking to cash advance loans in a jam. Check out parts ONE, TWO and THREE to follow the whole story.

Cramer (on Daily Show): “Don’t you want experienced guys like me to expose that?”

Stewart: “No, no… I want that desperately, but that’s not what we’re getting. You knew what the banks were doing – and now to pretend that this was some crazy, once-in-a-lifetime tsunami you couldn’t see coming is disingenuous at best and criminal at worst.”

Cramer: “I’ve known the CEO of Lehman Brothers, Dick Fuld, for 20 years. He brings me in, (I ask him how Lehman is doing) and he lies to me, lies to me, lies to me… I have called for indictments… we’ve not seen any… where are they?”

Stewart: “It’s very easy to get on this after the fact… Whose side (is CNBC) on? Wall Street traders were on a ‘Sherman’s March’ through their companies, financed by our 401(k)s, and all the incentives of their companies was for short-term profit. They burned the fu*&ing house down with our money, then they walked away rich as he&^! And you guys knew that was going on.”

Cramer: “We have reporters that try really hard. The market had been going up for a while, we thought it could continue despite the shenanigans. I didn’t think  Bear Stearns would evaporate overnight. I knew the people who ran it, I always thought they were honest. Did I get taken in? Maybe, to some degree.”

Stewart: “Selling the idea that you can sit back and get 10-20 percent return, selling this idea that you don’t have to do anything. Don’t you always know that that’s going to be a lie? How is saying ‘I’m going to teach you to be rich!’ different than an infomercial?”

It isn’t. We’ve been had. CLICK HERE for part five, where Cramer admits that – like Stewart – he’s a “snake oil salesman.”

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Accountability is a burden that has to be shouldered by every responsible adult, whether it is handling your finances well through payday loans or keeping up with your budget.  You also have to be accountable in the workplace.  If you don’t discharge your duties correctly and in the manner prescribed by policy, then you will be held accountable for your actions, just like in any other area of your life, like getting a ticket for speeding.

However much that your average person may be an upright individual that will do the right thing as often as not, there are some that seem to think that the rules just don’t apply to them, and a lot of them are the heads of the companies that so many Americans work for.

Bank of America holding up the standard

The banking and finance industries were hit hard in the past few months, with some of the largest banks and finance and investment firms collapsing.  One of the biggest shockers was the closing of Washington Mutual, later picked up by JP Morgan Chase, and then the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the investment and finance powerhouse.  One of Lehman’s competitors narrowly avoided the same fate by quickly arranging a buyout by Bank of America, Merrill Lynch.

Merrill Lynch’s takeover was put together by the CEO, John Thain, in a quick effort to keep the company going in one way or another and keep it out of bankruptcy.  He asked for a bonus of $10 million right after the buyout, claiming that it was his efforts that kept the company from closing, which he withdrew when it was made known that selling the company is not the same as actually running it well enough to make a profit, and the company could have used some payday loans to keep it from being sold.

After the takeover, Bank of America announced that Merrill Lynch had not disclosed just how heavy their losses had been.  Despite the $20 billion in bailout funds that Bank of America received, it was discovered that Merrill Lynch, which had been a finance and investment powerhouse, had lost over $15 billion in the last quarter alone, and was over $100 billion in debt.  After the takeover was completed, there was a mutual agreement between Thain and Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis that he should resign, which he did.

Accountability is Key for anyone

Look at it this way – if you have a $100,000 mortgage on your home, and you stop paying on it but take out payday loans to cover your credit cards instead, you are going to get hit with a foreclosure or seizure.  Not taking care of your finances leads to disaster, which having to sell an enormous firm such as Merrill Lynch is, and the fact that the books were somewhat fudged so he could pull a fast one is some highly dishonest stuff.

However, resignation is still preferable to what happens in other places – two people in China who were convicted of adding a dangerous chemical to watered down milk to make it seem quality were sentenced to death for the offense.  Just remember, if you come up a bit short due to a sudden turn of events, you don’t have to sell your home off – you can get payday loans to cover a temporary gap.