Prime Rate

Wake up, Richard Cory. The revenue officers are coming.

"The public be damned. My loyalty is to my stockholders."

 -- William H. Vanderbilt

   Time was, we often heard references to the prime rate for borrowing at interest. For corporate borrowers, it was something devoutly to be wished, and the aspiration of many borrowers to be rated so financially secure as to be eligible for such a preferential rate.
   That was then. This is now. The old bankers' 3-4-5 dictum (Borrow at 3, lend at 4, be home by 5) no longer applies.
   Banks borrow from depositors, the open market or government at near zero percent, then make few loans as they use the funds to shore up balance sheets and boost the company's stock price.
   Fees became more important to financial executives than the safety and growth of client investments, whether in homes or in stocks and bonds. By emphasizing "loan products" and collecting fees each time they processed a financial "product," execs got rich, and glittered when they walked. They appeared to be gentlemen from sole to crown, well spoken, and imperiously trim in their acts and expectations.
   In the end, the general public thought being ultra-rich was everything, the prime directive.

   The fallacy was that many believed that what was good for Richard Cory was good for the country. In reality, what was good for Cory and his political allies was good only for them.
   Soon, however, a young Lochinvar lawyer came out of the west, and of all the ambitious prosecutors, his case was best suited to capture media attention and public admiration.

   Will he triumph against the moneyed class, with all their high-powered financial and legal resources able to perpetrate their message and manipulate print and broadcast venues -- paid and otherwise?

   Stay tuned. Metaphorically, of course.

   (With apologies to poets and folk singers worldwide.)