1

Once upon a time, in the land of Wall Street, Sir Bernie Belford, Knight of Banking,

traveled home to Castle Lehman Brothers. With a suit of cotton armor and Ray-Ban visor, Sir

Belford walked among the serfs that dotted the concrete plains and steel mountains, giving no

thought to any but his own.

The high walls of Bear-Sterns, Merrill Lynch, Goldman-Sachs and others stood neutrally

along the path, their kingdom’s own seen acquiring and protecting treasure through slits in the

ramparts. Sir Belford thought nothing about their ventures for there was plenty of gold to go

around in Wall Street.

As Sir Belford reached the castle gates, a ragged hag called across the moat.

“Sir Belford, any gold to spare? I’ve had naught to eat for days.” She hobbled forward on

her cane with a bowed head.

“I’m not traveling with any on my person.” Sir Belford’s reply was anything but

improvised and truthful.

“Sir Belford, please. Your noble status is praised throughout the land. I only beg of you

such an inconsequential portion; you could drop it on the ground and not think twice.”

Sir Belford ignored the polite request and joined his fellow knights crossing the

threshold, but not before his ears caught the frail hag’s screeching farewell.

“All rock is sand shifting through the glass. Solid will break. Your House will fall!” A

shaking finger pointed and disappeared with its host in the crowd.

The hag’s haunting vision bore no weight on the knight. House Belford was a noble

lineage that stood as solid as the Houses in the mortgage-backed securities he sold.

Sir Belford sat at the Round Table of the conference room. Discourse between knights

concerned CDOs, both real and synthetic, and the sub-prime adjustable rate loans that poured
 2

more gold into the castle than a dragon could ever hoard in its hollow. At night, every night, the

castle walls could hardly contain the celebratory sounds of men singing and drinking and

snorting to their fortunes in the great hall, retiring only to lay with the SEC whores on retainer.

Trapped in pleasure, the knights thought nothing of the Houses they shoved into the

tranches of AAA mortgage bonds with no income verification and FICO scores deeper than the

darkest dungeon. Default rates rose. The last grains of sand fell through the glass. Not even

Greenspan the Wise foretold the calamity that ensued.

With all its wealth stored in falling Houses, the Kingdom of Lehman Brothers collapsed

with them. Gold magically disappeared from 401(k)’s, pensions, and assorted treasure troves.

Other kingdoms reaped the profitless harvest of greed and myopic thinking. Chaos consumed

Wall Street. House Belford was left with nothing on the side of the road with the rest of the serfs.

But the lords of the larger crumbling kingdoms conspired with Bernanke the Cruel and

taxed their subjects to cover the debts of apathetic fraud. And so a few lived happily ever after,

while many could hardly live.