Using pillowcases for money safekeeping

Using pillowcases for money safekeeping

JAKARTA (JP): Looking at pillowcases to keep your money in. Or
gunnysacks, strongboxes, tiles that hide a hole in the floor, the
mattress you lie on -- in short, anywhere safe and secure to put
your hard-earned lolly in.

That, according to legend, used to be the only way in the days
of yore to safeguard your money, although you wouldn't get any
interest on it, of course.

Well, I don't think I will ever resort to pillowcases or the
like, although I couldn't help feeling a tiny bit uneasy when the
news broke about 16 banks going down the drain. How trustworthy
are banks? Is your money secure in them? Would the list include
my bank, or rather, the bank that houses my meager savings? (I
don't own the thing).

Fortunately, it wasn't among them, but then came the news of
some 26 other banks which could go the way of all flesh unless
they pulled up their socks.

Again I heaved a sigh of relief at the absence of my bank on
that unofficial -- but officially denounced -- list.

Was that the end of furrowed brows? No way, mate. Things like
bank liquidations touch everybody, including yours truly who for
some weeks now has been facing price increases, some of them
quite hefty, in supermarkets.

Anyway, I gritted my teeth and started reading a little more
seriously about everything concerning monetary matters, attention
to which had hitherto been confined only to foreign exchange
rates. Not that it made me any wiser.

What I usually get when reading such reports is a headache to
end all headaches, and things didn't get any better when I came
across an article titled Cultural Aspects and the Politics of
Bank Liquidation. Eeeeek! Need I tell you that it might as well
have been written in Swahili for all I was able to grasp of it?

But I did learn something, and not from the news publications
or economic pundits, no sir! It was my hairdresser who suddenly
popped a question the gist of it was something like this: if a
bank owner dies, does that spell the end of the bank, too?
"Whatever gave you that idea," I asked.

It appeared that he entrusted his money with the bank whose
owner was rumored to have kicked the bucket. To withdraw or not
to withdraw, that was the hairdresser's question.

It wasn't much, really, but some time afterwards I began to
wonder whether he, the hairdresser, could be right thinking that
a bank is only as healthy as its owner. True, I have never come
across any news about Barclay's, Deutsche Bank, Chase Manhattan,
whatever, going kaput because their owners or CEOs had gone to
reside with the morning star. What if Manny was right?

After all, two owners whose banks had gone under created no
end of a fuss and have even gone so far as suing poor Mr. Mar'ie
Muhammad, who was only doing the job he was instructed to do.

Even then it struck me, a total ignoramus when it comes to
financial matters, that there appears to exist a considerably
wide perception among the public that owner and corporation are
one, hence Manny's worry about the bank where he deposits his
pay. In a way it was Manny who, with his question, made me
realize that the man is the institution, something like l'etat
c'est moi.

So if a bank owner sneezes, you can expect the bank to end up
with a cold. I told Manny that he was safe, but still the worm of
uncertainty kept gnawing at my conscience.

Things seem to be all right so far. That is, if the glowing
reports about the position of the rupiah are correct. They may
well be right, but I still have this gut feeling that they're
not, IMF or no IMF, and that one had better wait and see how
things develop. But even if clouds were to lift, I don't think
I'd be able to dispel this rather large dollop of doubt; after
all, this is the land of opaqueness.

Of course, I'm not about to move into the poorhouse, but you
know what I did? Went around and sort of casually, discreetly,
asked here and there about the owner or at least the CEO of my
bank. It appears that he is a model of integrity, dependability,
incorruptibility -- in short, he possesses all the qualities
you'd expect of a bank owner.

However, lately I've been scanning obituaries first before
reading other articles in the news, because the man will never
see 70 again. Maybe pillowcases are worth considering, after
all.

-- Jak Jaunt