Poverty and Wall St

“Don’t aim at success- the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one’s personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success.” Dr. Viktor E. Frankl

Working for the Office of Financial Empowerment within the Department of Consumer Affairs has thus far given me a new perspective of consumerism in America and the non-monetary value of money as well as the extent to which money is important and vital to modern life and yet can lead to undesirable outcomes.

The psychological and physiological effects of not only poverty but also of just not having enough money to meet expenses are what are most disconcerting. Not being able to afford food, shelter, clothing, etc. is not conducive to building a career or becoming educated or trained, nor does it lend to having healthy relationships with family or friends. As an observer of urban poverty in NYC, it is clear that making a good amount of money is essential to meeting a basic standard of living, particularly here in "the real estate capital of the world" as the lamp posts in the Financial District so blatantly claim.

Working in the Financial District I have noticed the culture to this neighborhood and other parts on NYC that is very unique as far as any talk about culture goes. I take the train to Wall St everyday and make the short walk to my office amongst the school of suits swimming across Broadway. Just being surrounded by the world’s biggest banks and most powerful businesses let alone by a volume of highly successful, educated and powerful individuals, causes a pressure to make it big here, to be successful. Race, religion, age, gender, do not matter. Money and the ability to make money matters. It is good to make money, to steer clear of the effects of poverty or financial instability. There is danger involved in such a pursuit, however. And this is now more than ever something that can be sensed around Wall St. One year after the Lehman Brothers collapse and the Wall St crash our economy continues to struggle and the unemployment rate continues to increase. The evolution of the pursuit of money and financial success into greed (both corporate on the part of the banks and investment firms and personal on the part of the homebuyer) which then caused such dramatic problems in the global market has taught a hard lesson.

Frankl’s quote helps me to put things into perspective. True success, even for those of us working in the Financial District, happens maybe not as a result of the direct pursuit of success but perhaps as a side effect of our pursuit of a greater cause, like our pursuit of being responsible citizens who act according to what is righteous. May we dedicate ourselves to such things and allow success to ensue.

The Beginning

After 2 days, 20 hours of driving, 1 night in a Virginia hotel, and hours of listening to Vampire Weekend on repeat, I finally arrived in NYC. As I gazed upon the Manhattan skyline from my position on the NJ interstate, I popped in my NYC roadtrip mix tape (CD actually) and cranked up Frank Sinatra:

"These little town blues, are melting away,

I’ll make a brand new start of it - in old New York.

If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere

It’s up to you - New York, New York"

It was rush hour. My google maps directions told me to enter the Lincoln tunnel to NYC. Before entering the tunnel you must pay a toll. Seems standard enough. The interstate opened up to about 15 or so lanes of traffic leading past various toll boths to pay the tunnel toll. After paying the toll, these lanes merged into the tunnel. The tunnel was only 3 lanes wide. I was driving my Toyota 4Runner and towing a U-Haul trailer. Slowly but surely I made it into the tunnel. I did not know where the tunnel led exactly. The directions said that I would be getting on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway (BQE) after exiting the tunnel. The tunnel led me to Times Square in midtown Manhattan. It was rush hour. I was driving my Toyota 4Runner and towing a U-Haul trailer.

This was my introduction to driving in NYC. I would later learn of the inevitable bumper damage as a result of parallel parking and the indifference to fender benders while in traffic (as I was just this past week while getting on the BQE rear ended by a Porshe whose driver just shrugged his sholders at me and did not even exit his vehicle).

I hit the ground running as they say. After two weeks of "training" (by which I mean 2 weeks spent discussing poverty and volunteers), a bbq at Gracie Mansion, and a short stay once again in the amazing hotel that is the Marriott, I began work at the Department of Consumer Affairs Office of Financial Empowerment, in the financial district just a min walk south of Wall St.

It seems that:

-banks are like wars

-the poor really want to improve their personal finances and the way they manage money

-Al Franken and his character Stuart Smalley had a son who has lived and still does live in

Brooklyn but works in the Financial District (why are you being so closed-minded this is

definitely possible and true).

It's been an interesting start. There is a culture to the financial district unlike any other culture you have ever experienced and I will explain this point further in future posts, but it must be said that there is no melting pot like that of big business and banking.