Dear friend,

Jumbo salaries, stock options, golden parachutes, power, limos and private jets — I’m sure even the most generous-spirited amongst us sometimes envy our top CEOs, don’t we?

But on a day like today — for example when the firm has just lost $7.8bn in a single quarter — we probably don’t envy them one little bit.

Such is the nature of the beast — it really is a tough and lonely job — and someone really does have to do it.

It’s amazing how a jumbo salary can swiftly mutate into a jumbo liability, stock options can become worthless, golden parachutes sometimes fail to open, power turns out to be an illusion, limos break down and private jets fall out of the sky, killing all occupants!

It really depends on your point of view, doesn’t it?

**********

And from one Alt-A woe to another — here’s a funny little sub-prime story for you.

Despite the ongoing credit crunch, which has been particularly virulent of late in the previously bubble-ridden UK mortgage market, my lender still seems keen for me to indebt myself still further.

Hardly a month goes by when my mortgage provider doesn’t try to entice me still deeper into monetary peonage with the promise of ready cash (or ‘equity withdrawal’ as they love to call it) for “a holiday of a lifetime, or a dream kitchen” or whatever other nonsense I may want to fritter their money away on and take 25 years to pay back.

This month was no different. How many world cruises and new kitchens have I now declined? I really have lost count.

The funny thing is that the letter is always signed off by a jovial character whose job title is ‘Head of lending quality’

And this fellow’s name?

Richard Lax !!!!

Truth is always, always, stranger than fiction.