Monday
Pamela Vortex, our inside trader, got wind of Lehman Brothers' collapse about two months ago, via her love affair with the oldest living Lehman Brother, Percy Boisenberry Lehman, who lives in a nursing home in Stanmore.
The family excommunicated Percy in 1929, when he had the temerity to predict the Great Crash; they refused to believe him and they lost a great deal. Disgraced and shocked, he moved to Australia in 1931 after spending months in a trailer park in Kentucky.
Pamela's brief, if tempestuous, liaison with Percy also yielded a few scraps about other investment banks.
"Oh yes, I knew Lehman Brothers was finished months ago," she said, unfazed by the astonished looks on the faces of the Phantom Day Traders Syndicate.
"Pamela, um, why didn't you tell us?" wondered Doomsday, our bear market analyst.
"I didn't think it was important."
A shocked silence.
"Pam," said Bluesky, our stockbroker, sternly. "Lehman is - or was - America's oldest and most influential investment bank. We could've made a fortune on the way down."
"Sorry. I was busy. I ran out of clothes. I had to fly to Paris to buy a new wardrobe."
We digested this intelligence with the ruminant gaze of a herd of cows being assembled for execution.
"But if you really want to know," Pamela continued, "I reckon I could've cranked up Percy a little harder. But the nurse interfered, just when he was about to tell me the next investment banks ready for the chop. I reckon you ought visit him."
Tuesday
The Stanmore Retirement Village is not a village; it's a sort of untenanted shopping mall, in the walls of which some thoughtful architect has inserted vault-like rooms, like over-sized coffins.
Fastcash, our head of research, Yogi, our senior chartist, and myself were in attendance on the great man.
"P.B. Lehman? Ahh … yes," said a chirpy sister who bore a frightening resemblance to Nurse Ratchet in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. "Third suite on the right. But go easy on him. He had a terrible scare a while ago when this dreadful blonde eastern suburbs gold-digger almost persuaded him that she was his seventh wife … " ("Good old Pam," whispered Yogi") " … and you can guess what that meant to an old boy within a sparrow's fart of a bottle of Viagra? Ha ha!"
We tentatively advanced, and found Old Percy Lehman propped up in bed with several drips running from him and a copy of Smith's Interest Rate Monitor on his quivering knees.
"Mr Lehman?" Yogi began.
"Not today, thank you, not today," croaked the oldest Lehman Brother. "The world's going to end today. Come back tomorrow. Did you hear me? It's going to end. Just like yesterday, as I foretold. They're all doomed, you know . .. those banks. All doomed. Just as I said."
We were in uncharted waters, and excused ourselves.
Wednesday
We returned to the bedside of the great man and waited.
Pamela warned us to expect more guff about the end of the world etc. After that, Percy Lehman might offer a few tips about which companies were, in fact, doomed.
"Don't expect to survive tomorrow," he burbled. "It's over. Finished. Kaput. Zilch."
Then he paused and whispered something. We strained forward, and in a terrible, saliva-flecked voice Mr Lehman intoned: "Lehman Brothers is finished. Just as I said. I warned my brothers 30 years ago that it would end like this. Never a lender nor a borrower be, I said. Well, what I actually said was: never promise a cash flow on a bundle of collateralised debt obligations whose underlying securities are mortgage-backed scraps of worthless paper stapled to the face of a Kentucky hillbilly with 11 fingers, a banjo, and a girlfriend from Alaska. But did they listen? No way. And here we are."
We excused ourselves as he proceeded to regale us with stories of his trailer park days.
Thursday
Once again we journeyed to the bedside of Australia's very own Lehman Brother.
"The Government won't save them," he was saying. "And why should they? Taxpayers lose everything on the sharemarket. It stinks. Let 'em fail, throw 'em to the wolves."
"Er, who, Mr Lehman, throw who to the wolves?" wondered FastCash, deftly pressing for names. But Mr Lehman went all silent again, then whispered, "Buy banks!"
Friday
So we did. Our Irresponsible Investment Portfolio contains the Big Four - obvious inclusions. We hope to add many more, pending a few tips from Percy Lehman.
