I commend Tim O’Shea for writing about the devastation caused by Wall Street and agree that The Big Short was excellent (Monitor A&E, March 24).
But Tim forgets that it was he who actually recommended Harry the Mortgage Guy to me after Fidelity colleagues gave him the thumbs-up, underscoring the fact that even the white upper middle class Fidelity workforce was duped by one of their own.
In 2000 I bought my first place in a hardscrabble Boston neighborhood, dismissing reservations expressed by Cambridge friends. I enjoyed the place and sold it in 2004 for twice as much as I had bought it for – a lucky outcome for a clinical social worker without a rich uncle.
Because I’ve fallen for the skies of New Mexico, I’ve been looking at properties, several of which were bank-owned, neglected with frozen pipes and rotting beams. An adobe farmhouse I loved, but lost to a rich Texan paying cash, felt like a once-beautiful dog, fatally injured by a reckless driver, sad to be alone and no chance of a bailout.
Because scenarios like this are common, it is no wonder we have a historically angry electorate on both sides of the aisle. Anger veils the sadness of losing a job or home, distracts us from the fears of rising deductibles, and disrupts anxieties that financial security is an urban myth.
The car is not coming back for the dog, the banks are still too big to regulate, and incessant anger is devolving into racism, sexism and classism.
Angry judgment requires no insight, energy or intelligence, while helping the dog requires action, tolerance and courage.
SARAH MURPHY
Medford, Mass.