Taken and The Mortgage Crisis

I was sitting at home this evening and watching TV - something that I do a little too frequently these days - when I noticed that Taken, Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen's utterly satisfying film, was playing on FX. Let me pause and admit that I have become, over the last few years, an unashamed fan of action movies. For whatever mysterious reason I find that predictable plot lines and gratuitous pyrotechnics soothe me, no matter how badly executed they may be (perhaps this is an appropriate time to admit that I have seen Prince of Persia: Sands of Time...and didn't really regret it). I generally don't pay close attention to action movies while watching them, and yet, they heavily reward my periodic glances. That being said, among the general category of action movies there are those that do actually deserve close attention, and I think that Taken is an example of this small subset.

The first time that I had the pleasure of watching Liam Neeson tear Paris apart in the search for his daughter, I was sitting in Pittsburgh's Schenley Park. Admittedly, my recollection of that viewing is a little clouded thanks to the brandy fortified red wine that was, inexplicably, my summer drink of choice (ah, 2009...), but subsequent opportunities afforded by cable television have allowed me to fill in the blanks. To summarize: in the film, Liam Neeson plays a retired CIA operative who is utterly devoted to his daughter. Patriotic, self-reliant, ruggedly handsome and a family man - how can you not root for this guy?! Liam's daughter goes on a vacation to Paris with a friend, and they end up being kidnapped and shuttled into a hellish underworld of drugs, prostitution and cliched eastern European villains. Liam jets to Paris and uses what appears to be the stamina and skill of a UFC champion combined with an uncanny ability to dodge bullets to ensure that the baddies reap what they have sown. I hardly need to point out that Taken's moral universe verges on the Manichean, which is exactly what makes it so gratifying. There is no nuance to good and bad, which is why things that might appear brutal in other films (e.g. a jerry-rigged electric chair where the current is conducted through a pair of nails that also serve to secure the victim) seem like prudent justice, and why the (do I even need to write spoiler alert here?) absolutely predictable ending is still so, so excellent.

To my mind, the most interesting aspect of the ethical world presented in Taken is precisely who falls on the wrong side of the tracks, and why they've landed there. Aside from the stock Euro peons and an Arab sheikh who represents the ultimate source of mammon, there are two notable villains. The first is Jean-Claude, Liam's French counterpart and an old friend from the Cold War. No longer a field agent, he now collects bribes and lets the Albanians do what they want. The second is Saint-Clair, the organizer of a high class auction - one that traffics in beautiful young women. These men are not simply thugs, nor are they evil in the same banal way as Arendt's Eichmann. They recognize that what they do is wrong; they're simply able to justify it to themselves with a higher purpose: a perverted form of pietas (familial devotion). Jean-Claude rationalizes his corruption by arguing that he uses his ill-gotten cash to care for his family. In fact, the only way in which Neeson is finally able to bend Jean-Claude to his will is by threatening Mrs. Jean-Claude's life. The audience's view of Saint-Clair's motivation is not so clear, as he is only alive for approximately 227 seconds, but within that brief time we are informed that he has two children, and that he views his auction as a business, nothing more. Ironically, pietas is the same value that fuels Liam's bonfire of retribution. Really, the flaw that marks Jean-Claude and Saint-Clair as evil is their selfish inability to consider the consequences of their actions (and hence, alter their behavior) in the course of their pursuit of money.

I think that to anyone who hasn't lived underground for the last three years this sounds very familiar. It serves as an analogy (intended or not) with financial professionals who, while angling for a slice of the good life (the good life being a Rolls Royce, yacht, helicopter, Learjet, hoverboat, etc.), sunk the economy. My best evidence for this comparison is an exchange between Saint-Clair and Neeson:

SAINT-CLAIR : You must understand, it was just business!

NEESON : It was all personal to me.

What two line dialogue could better encapsulate the economic turmoil of the last few years?! As many accounts have detailed (I am largely indebted to Michael Lewis' The Big Short and Charles Ferguson's Inside Job) the mortgage crisis was built upon irresponsible and foolish financial behavior - behavior that was incentivized by the unholy amount of cash that the people working mortgage desks could make. Before it became clear that many of the mortgages were rotten, traders at large banks bought billions of dollars worth of them. After it became clear, those same traders started hedging and salesmen at the same banks began to push the mortgages onto less savvy consumers. Not only did the mere whiff of lucre associated with mortgage backed securities, collateralized debt obligations repackaging those securities and credit default swaps betting against those CDOs blind people to the responsibility that they had to assess the real value of financial instruments, it obfuscated the deeper implications of the market’s movements: the effect that business had on the personal lives of millions of Americans. Despite the fact that many of us never chose to invest in mortgages or decided to take out NINJA ("no income, no job, no assets" - a short hand description of the borrower) loans for ourselves, we have all felt the effects of the economic downturn, whether they are manifested through the job market, diminished government programs, poor stock performance or frozen salaries and cut hours.

It would be nice if we could watch the demise of financial institutions like Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, Countrywide Financial and MF Global[1] with the same glee that Taken inspires in me, or at least some measure of schadenfreude. The truth is though, that, like it or not, our lives are all dramatically affected by what happens on the floors of stock markets across the world, on the desks of analysts in midtown Manhattan, on the screens of traders in bright, fluorescent offices.

If I may simultaneously paraphrase John Donne, and twist his words to my own ends: next time you walk by the NYSE, "never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

[1] Not of the same set, I know, but, in my opinion, just as blameworthy for being lax with customers' money and taking a highly leveraged, risky position.

Americorps Speech

A version of the speech I gave at my "graduation" this August:

Congratulations! How y'all doing this morning?

It's funny to be back in this same room, 11 months later, having finished our
year of service. To be honest, I thought that our last "graduation" - the
swearing in and pin ceremony - was a little premature. It didn't seem that
there was too much to celebrate, aside from us surviving orientation, which
had consisted mostly of awkward ice breakers and justifying where we were
standing with respect to post-it notes on the walls. That being said, I was
very grateful for all the free lunches.

This graduation feels more deserved. Sometimes, it seems like only
yesterday we were drawing pigs that revealed how good our sex lives were.
But when I remember all the things we’ve done since August – the retreat,
the conference in Pittsburgh, the service projects and, most importantly, the
work we’ve done at our sites, I’m filled with a tremendous sense of
accomplishment. We’ve spent almost an entire year in service of others, and
that is worth being proud of.

Y’all will have to excuse me, I'm about to do something obnoxious. Before
I do it, I ask you to please remember that this is literally the only thing that
my high school Latin is good for.

Graduation comes from gradus, the Latin word for step. When you consider
that graduations can also be called commencements - that is, the start of
something - it is hard not to imagine yourself clambering up a sort of endless
staircase - definitely a depressing image. The interesting thing about the
etymologies of those two words is the focus that they imply. Graduations
and commencements, in the context of school, are all about the graduating
individuals. They’re obsessively concerned with two things, what the
people receiving degrees have done at school - the skills they’ve learned, the
grades they’ve earned, the extracurricular achievements they’ve racked up –
and what the graduates will do once they’ve been released into the world.

As we’re all well aware of by now, Americorps is very different from any
college or high school. We’ve had some member development, but the
organization’s focus is on serving. And so, I, too, would like to focus on the
idea of service – specifically, what we’ve done for others over the course of
these 11 months.

I’d also like to emphasize the best of this year. There are many unpleasant
things that I could speak about: adjusting to two different supervisors,
weathering an audit, switching sites, and the difficulty of holding down two
jobs.

I could speak about those things, but I won’t. The good we’ve done this
year far outweighs the difficulties we’ve encountered and surmounted.

As a secular Jew – a concept that, as I learned the hard way, you should not
try to explain to a proselytizing student – I’m not normally one to quote
religious texts, but I thought it was appropriate here. One of the Talmud’s
most famous passages reads: "Whoever saves a life, it is considered as if he
saved an entire world."

I won’t go so far as to say that we’ve saved lives through our work, but I do
think it’s possible, and maybe even probable, that we’ve changed them.

Brandon, Britni, Catherine, Adrienne and Abby have all provided students
with the knowledge and skills they need to pass the GED test. While
mastering fractions may not help people in their day to day lives, having a
GED can make all the difference when it comes to employment or a
promotion.

Toiling at New Orleans’ public libraries, Gail, Heather and Amy have taught
students how to use computers and the Internet. It’s hard to imagine a more
essential and empowering tool in this age of information.

Meanwhile, at YES in Orleans Parish and Even Start on the Westbank,
Rebekah, Julia, Kimberly, Michelle and Annie have worked to give their
students basic literacy and math skills - abilities that are indispensable in day
to day life.

Finally, there is Anthony, who, while stationed at Urban League College
Track helped to develop the character of the students in his care by
coordinating service projects and teaching a workshop entitled
“Brotherhood.”

Beyond these concrete accomplishments there is something else, which is
just as important. There is value in the act of serving itself, outside of any
quantifiable results. All of our students, even those who haven’t passed the

GED yet, or mastered a Google search, or learned how to sound out two-
syllable words, gained something from our service.

To explain exactly what I mean, I’ll need to tell a short story. During the
summer of 2003, I went on a four-week backpacking trip in Wyoming. One
day, about half-way through the trip, a boy named Chandler started having
difficulty breathing, and our instructors decided that he needed to be
evacuated. Stacy, the lead instructor, took him, along with two other
students (Braden and me) down a dry riverbed to the nearest campsite. Even
with our lightened packs, it was a long 8 mile hike through falling snow.
We reached the campsite by nightfall, and Stacy left to find a phone.
Braden, Chandler and I were sitting miserably by our tent, contemplating our
empty stomachs, when a man approached us. He was the leader of a group
of older teenagers who were camped a few hundred yards away, and he
invited us to come eat dinner with them.

It was such a small thing – black bean soup, twizzlers and companionship –
but it meant the world that night. We were complete strangers without
anything to offer, and yet this man freely gave what hospitality he could. I
cannot remember his name or anything about him, yet I doubt that I’ll ever
forget what he did. On that evening I felt valued simply because I was
another human being, and I also caught a glimpse of the incredible altruistic
kindness that men and women are capable of.

Clearly, feeding a few hungry teenagers one dinner and spending a whole 11
months teaching adults are two very different things, but I think that both
actions carry the same message. Through the act of serving we
communicate to our students that they are worthy of our efforts, and we also
demonstrate the best in human nature.

There is one more thing that I’d like to point out about service. Though
Americorps may have decided to call us ‘volunteers’ in order to justify our
meager living stipend, there is some wisdom in separating what we do from
normal employment. Service can certainly be a career, but at its base it is
action inspired by kindness and empathy. As corny as it may sound, I think
that service is more a way of life than type of work.

So, for those of you who have decided to spend another year with
Americorps, I commend you, and hope that you find it as rewarding as this

one. For those of us who are moving on, I hope that we retain our desire to
serve, and find fruitful outlets for it in the future.

Once again, congratulations.