Charlotte Brontë, CFA

Dreadful to me is the discipline of finance in the raw twilight

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Even If Your Husband Manages All Your Finances I Will Ever Fail To See The Relevance To The Prospect Of Your Competent Execution Of The Office Of Chief Of Staff To The President Of The United States, Huma Abedin

September 9, 1835 London

Ms. Huma Mahmood Abedin Senior State Department Attaché Teneo Holdings LLC 601 Lexington Avenue New York, NY 10022 The United States

My Most Beautiful and Beleagured Humamah:

How could I have been but pleased to find the singular combination of letters which happens to frame the constellation of your singular name repeated over and over again in the society pages these many months? I am certain that you could not have wondered that I, ever longing to hear tell of your travels and tidings and reduced to looking for these signs among the stars or the remnant tea leaves from so many bitter brews, delighted in every mention no matter how depraved or irresponsible.

But I beg you, do not mistake me!  The glee I feel owing to my brushes with your sublime moniker could not ever be said to suggest endorsement of such text as may surround it.  It is quite beyond me how anyone might expect a proper young lady of our era to undertake to meddle in a household’s financial affairs (an exclusive realm better governed by our Lords and Masters then ourselves to be sure!)

Ignore the ignorant bleating of self-styled “modern, independent women” (a crude pseudonym for barren old maids if ever I heard one) I beseech you!  They know nothing of your domestic affairs and discredit themselves intrinsically the moment they claim such wisdom.

What, after all, could the duties of White House Chief of Staff possibly entail that would require of you some intricate facility in the arcane and profane arts of tabulation, calculation, and interaction with agents and agencies economic and financial?  Surely, as Chief of Staff your management of the domestics of the White House should not require you to lower yourself to address vulgar topics related to their pay or the provision of their pensions?  Could it ever be thought that your direction of the kitchens staff and the maids would somehow pale to the administrative abilities of an accountant?  They are such grey and drab little men!

And, in truth, what accountant might distinguish himself in the position of Chief of Staff through his in-depth mastery of fall foliage and floral arrangements appropriate to the state dinner hosting foreign dignitaries from the Far East?  (Poppies are always in season!)  Will he have the required social acumen to insist that the celestials among the dignitaries’ servants confine themselves to using the side entrance?  I think not.

Even so, and mindful of my promise to you not to broach the subject, I must implore you again to abandon your single-minded pursuit of the pinnacle of domestic profession.  The peak of the neighbourhood refuse heap (peak though it is!) offers little succour for the station conscious.

And, yes, I did truly promise I should never bring her up again, but I must confess that in this I have broken my vow in my heart with such frequency that to do it in print feels but a recitation of the forgone.  I ask you, could you ever be content with her?  Even should you, as it seems obvious to expect, eclipse William’s station and claim for yourself the title “First Lady,” will she ever be rid of him?  Will you?  Could she ever sit before that desk and dispel the dark spectre of his lust, a shade that lingers under it and permeates every pore and turn of fabric in that great oval?  Could you ever claim her as your own if forced to compete with the horrid, milky film that coats every surface therein?

So, I have done it and have breached the peace you weaved with my fragile promises.  And now I am prepared to pay the price.  And if you should decide it just that I endure the ignominy and chastisement of corporal punishment I do swear that I shall not protest your firm and just discipline.  Whatever they may call you two years hence, your claim to extract my penance through my body shall make you ever my Chief of Staff in the moment that you demand it.  Until then, I remain,

Yours Contritely Waiting For Even The Most Subtle Sign Of The Imminent Approach Of Your Messenger And Meanwhile Clad In Such Attire As Might Be Most Conducive To A Firm Switching Over Your Shapely And Most Alluring Knee,

Charlotte Brontë, CFA

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Your Selfless Giving Inspires In Me The Deepest Of Passions, George Stephanopoulos

May 18, 1835 London

Mr. George Stephanopoulos Chief Anchor and Chief Political Correspondent ABC News 47 West 66th Street New York, NY 10023 The United States

My Dearest, Most Wiley and Politically Nimble Ambassador of All Things Objective, Stephie:

My heart leaps on the occasion of your re-elevation to the pinnacle of the international spotlight where you most certainly and deservedly belong. Owing to the unending stream of my heartfelt and voluminous correspondence these last dozen months, you could not help but be aware of my unceasing adoration--enduring even the ignominy you faced while reduced to interviewing the lesser executives and governors of the wild and untamed central states and provinces amongst the colonies--and my hope for the promise of your brilliant and lucrative career as the de facto Dean (or indeed Earl) of the Fourth Estate.

But I must refrain, and avert my eyes from the gripping visage of your impeccable hairline, for it would be far too easy to unwittingly stray past the border of proprietary into a land of such adoration as might envelop a mostly proper young English lady in a fit of swooning of a dangerous intensity in the absence of a thoughtfully positioned fainting couch. Moreover, this would frustrate the central purpose of my correspondence--the relation of my limitless delight on the occasion of my discovery of your carefully concealed and hidden philanthropic goodness.

I am not so naive to ignore the fact that many a modest grantor has desired to purvey their good works even while dodging the spotlight of public scrutiny. But the fervor with which you have safeguarded your own altruistic gifts, and the magnitude of the gifts themselves, sets my heart aflutter and even perhaps, if you will permit me a moment of vulgarity, afire. It would be difficult to overstate my awe and glee upon discovering that your personal gifts to the Emperor and Empress' own Benevolent Widows and Orphans Fund for the Abatement of Transportation, Sustenance, and Public Appearance Costs eclipses the comparatively underwhelming contributions proffered by such storied empires as the Hearst Corporation, The Washington Post Company, NBC Universal, Comcast, Twitter, Turner Broadcasting, Viacom, HBO, and AOL.

And certainly it had never occurred to me to imagine that your personal wealth was of such breadth and scope to permit you to grant it more liberally than many of the most expansive and corpulent corporate interests in the colonies. This is to say nothing of the remarkable company you must keep to be in the same giving bracket as Time Warner Inc., Bloomberg L.P., and Mort Zuckerman.

Dearest Stephie, I cannot imagine what circumstance could have rendered you unable to return my many, heartfelt letters or what might dissuade you from returning my most earnest affections. But please know I yearn to see your figure approaching my humble abode, silhouetted by the setting sun. Until then, I remain,

Most In Awe Of Your Altruistic Prowess In Selfless Expenditures,

Charlotte Brontë, CFA

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I Am Not In The Least Dissuaded By The Dark Visions Driven By Your Personal Demons And The Haunting Hell Of HSBC, Stephen King

May 13, 1835 London

Mr. Stephen King Group Chief Economist HSBC 8 Canada Square London E14 5HQ The United Kingdom

My Most Nefarious Scribe of Contemporary Horror and Economic Projection Fiction:

As you must most assuredly already be aware, and even in the absence of the barest of encouragement or reply to my many letters, I have followed even the most obscure of your many, trivial scribblings for more seasons than I can bear to count.

It is not even a fortnight past now that I huddled under my quilts enraptured with every word of last quarter’s HSBC macroeconomic assessments and your latest long-form work “Revival,” a purchase I was drawn to immediately upon reading Alison Flood’s recollection that you had, yourself, called it a “...nasty, dark piece of work.”  One cannot be expected to nay-say a reviewer so esteemed as to command a slot at the Guardian, I daresay!

As I imagine many of my contemporaries must also have been, I was instantly reminded by this apt description—and also by certain passages in the work itself—of your public pronouncements at the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2012 and 2014.  Referencing those may I call your attention to this bit of bone-chilling prose:

It would mean that all these terrible things—these horrors—were meant to happen. If that is so, then there is no such thing as light, and our belief in it is a foolish illusion. If that is so, we live in darkness like animals in a burrow, or ants deep in their hill. And not alone.

Electricity is one of God’s doorways to the infinite.

Others may not see this connection, but then they could not have read the text of your Davos remarks either:

...look at Portugal, it has done all the right things, it has stuck to austerity, it has stuck to the programs set by the EU and others and yet Portugal's bond yields are incredibly high. The expectation from austerity was that markets reward countries for delivering austerity in the form of much lower borrowing costs and that hasn't happened.

Oh, what misery! The thought that what Portugal has undertaken could be mistaken for “austerity,” and that it must be fated by its infantile electorate to eternally endure, as you so quaintly put it, “zero growth, possibly recession and interest rates which are painfully high,” is almost more than a proper, young English lady can be expected to bear in solitude.

How could you, a man so clearly marked by the darkest of demons, permit me to endure such a fate?  Can I not finally prevail upon you to undertake your own advice and permit me to avail myself of your “direct fiscal transfer mechanism” ‘ere I die in the grips of soul crushing solitude? May I wait expectantly by my windows and gaze unto the path awaiting the imminent arrival of the speediest of your messengers?  Until then, I beg to remain,

Yours Relieved To Learn That Debt-Financed Spending Is Fated Unto An Eternity Of A Duration Certainly No Shorter Than HSBC Might Itself Be Expected To Be Sustained By Interminable Direct Fiscal Transfers From The Many Taxpayers Held In Its Godless And Insidious Sway,

Charlotte Brontë, CFA

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Am I To Be Denied The Smack Of Stern Discipline In The Pursuit Of Feminine Financial Journalism Excellence, Michael Ballinger?

July 20, 1834 London

Mr. Michael Ballinger Publisher Ballinger Finishing School for Young Ladies with Financial Journalism Aspirations 27th Floor One State Street Plaza New York, New York 10004 The United States of America

My Most Esteemed Purveyor of Trivialities Slightly Relevant to Financial Events of Great Moment:

Please do regard this note as my formal application for entrance to the Ballinger Finishing School for Young Ladies with Financial Journalism Aspirations--I am reliably informed that use of the institution's informal title "The Bond Buyer" is considered in poor taste as actual buyers of bonds hold no positions of authority in the organisation.

After careful study of the many facets--complex, byzantine, or merely trivial--of feminine financial journalism it is quite obvious that I am uniquely suited to the affectation--for surely the likes of Virginia Woolf should never permit us the self-deception of calling it an "occupation." And who better than the bi-polar and suicidal Woolf might have been equipped to render astute counsel on the subject?

Several particular character traits of mine have the general tendency to commend to me the pursuit of feminine financial journalism--

After years of observation I have built a deep understanding of the subtle distinctions between:

An "anonymous source," a noble and precious title imbued with a cornucopia of the most virtuous qualities and one to be protected at all costs from the harsh and blinding gaze of mindless public scrutiny or the ravages of "fact checking" by "third parties" who may wish to deliver to knavery the essential truth and goodness that is the essence of the precious and delicate narrative woven by the financial journalist, and...

An "anonymous source" a cowardly, honourless, and craven example of the worst sort of weaver of falsehoods, and one which must be subjected to the purifying and intensely brilliant light of public scrutiny and exposed to the general population at all costs so as to deliver to knavery the corrupt and inaccurate narratives woven by those pretenders to financial journalism not affiliated with the Ballinger Finishing School for Young Ladies with Financial Journalism Aspirations.

I have also recently discovered that the good former anonymous source (for instance, the astute fixed income commentator and onetime Bond Buyer source "Bond Girl") can transmute, as if by divine manipulation, into the latter evil anonymous source (for instance, the hateful, error-prone, lie spreading subject of Bond Buyer investigation "Bond Girl") at the whim of the intrepid financial journalist.

I have taken to heart the example of intrepid and honourable feminine financial journalist Cate Long, a Class of '32 alumni of the Reuters School for Otherwise Listless Ladies of Advancing Age and/or Experience, whose woven narrative was often unraveled by anonymous source "Bond Girl." The heartless persecution of Long demonstrates without doubt the importance of a firm hand when dealing with anonymous sources once they transform and become anonymous sources.

I have also discovered that anonymous sources, and the pursuit of converting them into "outed sources," is highly valuable during those languid summer weeks when one has exhausted material for critical financial news stories covering the activities of the wives of financiers in the South of France, or The Hamptons, or during the winter months when the snow in St. Moritz is falling too heavily.

Several times in the pursuit of my desired affectation I have received counsel to consider attending the Michael Bloomberg Academy for Young Ladies of at least Average Attractiveness but Possessed of No Particular Skills or Talents Whatsoever. Often the intrepid and valiant efforts of the Michael Bloomberg Academy for Young Ladies of at least Average Attractiveness but Possessed of No Particular Skills or Talents Whatsoever alumni Michelle Kaske (Class of 2015) are cited as shining examples of the sort of affectation arc I should aspire to--what with her amazing rise from financial journalist at the New York Post to Municipal Bond and Public-Finance Reporter.

But I must admit that other finishing institutions leave me uninspired. Who of them can claim a headmaster such as yourself, who rode narrative weaving positions during the salad days of monoline insurers MBIA and CIFG to eventually head an institution as esteemed as the Ballinger Finishing School for Young Ladies with Financial Journalism Aspirations?

I say to you now that I shall never waver from my undying efforts to use anonymous sources to expose the anonymous sources of the alumni of those other institutions, so as to be the first to reveal the Hamptons property line dispute between the wives of the men of the middle management corps of institutions of great financial moment. Until I am afforded that opportunity, I beg to remain,

Available In Every Sense To The Whims Of The Stern And Fair Discipline That I Am Certain You Personally Infuse Into The Ballinger Finishing School For Young Ladies With Financial Journalism Aspirations.

Charlotte Brontë, CFA

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May We Not Muse On Messy Complexities Together Over Artisanal Toast, As Post-Modern Minds Are Wont To Do, Felix Salmon?

February 6, 1834 London

Mr. Felix Salmon Financial Blogger Thomson Reuters 3 Times Square New York, New York 10036 The United States of America

My Most Introspective Purveyor of Post-Modern Thinking:

Think not that I lack sympathy for the challenges presented to the modern scribe endeavoring to deliver to the acid-washed masses the warm, comforting prose of financial journalism. There are so many nuances, and so little time. Yes, we may lament the ever-hastening pace of life, but specialization must be for insects alone, no?

Fear not, for I, at least, am heartened by the knowledge that at least one journalist excretes knowledge that falls on every sea and every shore, and coats every surface with a thin, oily film--even if only a molecule thick in places. In my private moments I am soothed by the knowledge that no unit of area (even in Puerto Rico) escapes the petrol-like touch of your smooth and viscous prose.

Will you not write of Interest Rate Swaps in future correspondence? On this topic I am certain that your fingerprints in the oily film of your prophylactic prose would but compliment the long, intertwined strands of hydrocarbons left behind in the churning wake of Bloomberg's Mark Whitehouse, Businessweek' Jim Efstathiou Jr., or anyone at all associated with The Financial Times.

Leave me not at length to wonder if your Neo-Keynesian literary distillates will mix with the water of truth. I await the moment I can absorb (transdermally) your next piece. Until then, I remain,

Yours Confident In The Belief That Journalistic Fracking Is Not Harmful To Babies No Matter What The Studies Say,

Charlotte Brontë, CFA

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With (Stephanie) Ruhle My Heart Is Laden

January 16, 1834 London

Mrs. Stephanie Ruhle Anchor Bloomberg Television Bloomberg Tower 731 Lexington Avenue New York, New York 10022 United States

My Most Dear And Unadulterated Friend:

As you might imagine, I was shocked to hear the news that you were in the company of Mr. Matt Damon, ardent anti-capitalist, lately of Cambridge, Massachusetts but more recently of TD Ameritrade. But between her howls of pain, and as I set about cleaning up the tea I had dumped onto my landlady (Mrs. Broodington) when she delivered the news, it was explained to me that your proximity was coincidence. That it was the mere fact that you had traveled to The Court of St. Schwab in Davos, Switzerland that should have brought it to pass that the two of you, quite independently, found yourselves under the same stars. (I am led to understand that Ted Danson was unavailable).

Remembering our friendship as young girls--I recall now with such warm fondness, but not a little mournful sadness those many nights talking and laughing when you were still but a student in Italy--I resolved to write to you in the hopes that the bonds of old could persuade you in favor of a small errand on my behalf.

Though I have dispatched footmen in pursuit of another Davos attendee, one Mr. Andrew Ross Sorkin of New York, I fear the snowy passes or the difficulty in spotting Mr. Sorkin amongst the crowds of the famously tall Swiss--surely your extensive education in International Relations has not neglected the many tales of the Guardia Svizzera--have rebuked my efforts thus far. Though he is perhaps not particularly notable, it seems clear he is not absent from Davos. Might I trouble you to convey to him a message over my signature?

I see from the photograph that Mrs. Broodington has brought me that you are making the best of the snow and harsh conditions in Switzerland. And yet, your company looks so chipper and full of glee. I would so enjoy trouncing about in those wonderfully fashionable looking fur-lined boots. Pray tell, where might a proper, young English lady find such accouterments? Must one travel to Switzerland?

How I miss the company of like minded young women bound together in the feminine camaraderie of shared anguish and frustrated passion. These bonds--so evident and plain amidst the to-do and import of your Swiss setting--stir up in me the greatest feelings, even for suchlike as worked with so many German financiers at such length. Even their reputation for exploitative monetary policy cannot blunt the trembling... shiver that... now....

I fear I must urgently away, but be certain nonetheless that I crave receiving news of you. Until then, I beg to remain,

Infatuated By The Allure Of The Not Entirely Chaste Promise Of Many Hands Clutching Me From All Sides At Once In The Midst Of Alpine Snows And The Presence Of Many Persons Of Fame And Renown Preaching The Gospel Of Sustainability And The Evils Of Income Inequality Before Becoming Suddenly Overcome By Their Urgent Need To Ensconce Themselves In Private, Flying Carriages For The Argeous And Urgent Journey Back To Los Angeles In Time For The Grammy Awards,

Charlotte Brontë, CFA

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With Premier Cru My Heart Is Laden, Andrew Ross Sorkin

January 21, 1834 London

Mr. Andrew Ross Sorkin Founder DealB%k The New York Times 620 8th Avenue New York, New York 10018 United States

My Most Florid, Demurely Statured, And Undeniably Humble Scribe:

Never let it be said that I did not defend you in the moment--really the many, recurring moments over the last several years--when your innumerable detractors, critics, former associates, acquaintances, "friends," large swaths of both the financial community and the developed world, and the wait staff on duty in any period during which you dined, leveled unfeeling and harsh criticisms against the gentle visage of your soft and delicate countenance.

Do not permit any to naysay my devotion, or fail to acknowledge that I defended you when your courage and honor was maligned, and it was suggested that you were too cowardly to make the long journey to Sochi, or that the reception food in Davos was more important to you than "real reporting."

Such was my visceral reaction to hearing you so badly abused that my hand acted almost of its own accord and threw a glass of suitably expensive red wine (I believe it was a Syrah) right in the culprit's face. Do not fret after such uninformed adversaries, my love. And, in any event, who ever listens to gossip that issues forth from a couple senior reporters from the Washington Post that one then hears independently repeated by only a few of the many reporters on the Guardian's staff, and Alastair Campbell? In fact, I will have you know that I have heard it said with all earnestness that Mr. Campbell is "a Scottish hack," and while the nuance of reporting dialect is somewhat beyond the world experience of a proper English lady, I am certain that the comment was not offered in a favorable spirit.

Did you not hear that I denied the accusation that you were overheard yelling "Non-partisan not-for-profit foundation! Non-partisan not-for-profit foundation!" over and over again from the Goldman Sachs WC, eyes-closed, ears stubbornly plugged with both forefingers, when confronted with some alleged political leanings by the World Economic Forum?

Without even a semblance of delay I disabused the critic with a sharp "If you knew him at all you would know that he never closes his eyes when making a non-partisan non-denial denial," and she quickly retreated, back into the seething, bulge-bracket, structured products lair from whence she came.

When they laughed at your bold and entirely under-appreciated attempt to finally show the African National Congress for the closeted, free-market, liberty-minded men and (not quite as many) women of the Enlightenment they really were (merely mistaken for fellow travelers by despots worldwide because their shining, unalloyed lust for freedom and democracy had been inconveniently and inadvertently dusted with a thin layer of communist-appearing rust) I pointed out to the throngs of your accusers that they were not the Founder, or the Editor at Large, or, indeed, in any way related to the thirty three thousand nine hundred and thirty fifth busiest website in the world. And did the general public see fit to call them by three whole names all the time, and anyway when had they ever been to Davos? Or even out of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, or the Oval Office?

And when that ghastly scold suggested that it had been your bout of nocturnal enuresis that had so dampened the mood of her Davos trip in 2013, after claiming to have been attending to you in your private room at inappropriate hours, you can only imagine how proud I was to straighten my back, to elevate my chin and to announce loudly to the entire room and the many ambassadors present "I will have you know that I know that is a lie. Andrew Ross Sorkin is married, to Ms. Pilar Jenny Queen of New York."

The haunting silence in the room was my burning vindication.

Must I beg you to rid yourself of these humorless and hideous members of your public? Will you not finally acknowledge my generally unrelenting and undistracted devotion? (And if it wouldn't trouble you overly, while you are in Davos could you see your way to asking Marissa Mayer if she has been receiving my correspondence?)

I cannot bear much longer to be without word of your next bold journey to bring the world to what remains of the financial pretenders to Hillary Clinton's creaking entourage (or news of Mrs. Mayer). Do please send most urgent word. Until then, I beg to remain,

Yours Prepared To Defend The Vanguard Of Such Remnants Of Your Tattered Dignity As Are Currently Supported Only By The Ability Of Your Dubious Press Credentials To Propel You Into The Company Of Name-Drop-Augmenting Events From Which I Must See You Tweet Repeatedly Ere I Die,

Charlotte Brontë, CFA

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You Need Never Fear of Detecting a Wilting Enthusiasm in my Adoring Gaze, Marissa Mayer

January 16, 1834 London

Mrs. Marissa Ann Mayer Chief Executive Officer Yahoo Inc. 701 1st Avenue Sunnyvale, California 94089 United States

My Most Fair and Fair Haired Mistress Mayer:

Though news travels but slowly among the footman of England during the cold and wet of this quarter first, I have not failed to take note of the word that your relationship with sometime friend, frequent correspondent, and close confidant The Most Excellent Dom Henrique de Castro, lately of your inner circle and the Kingdom of Portugal and the Algarves, has run aground as surely as if upon the rocky shores our unforgiving coasts. Little wonder, for are the seas of commerce not as treacherous as those that once swallowed The Armada?

You can perhaps take some comfort in the knowledge that it was Philip II of Spain who sat on the Portuguese Throne in the year that The Protestant Wind did lash The Great Armada which sailed not from Spain, but Lisbon for the English Channel followed by the Duke of Parma's men. Could it not be said to be as much an armada of the Kingdom of Portugal and the Algarves that found itself thrown against Scottish rock? And if there is to be an Iberian look seeded about the halls of Yahoo Inc. in the wake of the recent storms there, take heart that the handsomeness of the dark-haired and blue-eyed among the Irish and Scottish (but less so among the Scottish) are oft spoken of in hushed tones of awe even among proper young English ladies.

Of course, the many pretenders to excellence that monthly emit from the House of Google rarely sate the needs of women like us. Their betrayals are as common as those of other men, but their maintenance far more expensive.

But then I forget myself. Surely, you know all too well the travails of the Court of Google!

It would be offensively trite to attempt to put to words the depth of my sorrow and concern for you in light of these events. I long to be by your side as you struggle with a loss so great.

I imagine you alone, amidst the cold and wet without, a small fire cracking and burning. I would be there with you, so that in feminine solidity we might together endure the long delays in correspondence and news occasioned by those many of your footmen possessed of great self-satisfication, and little motivation, and the ill-fed, antiquated horses they ride, or the holed and ruined boots they wear.

Please believe that I would leave all else in my life by the wayside to be there to make sure you are kept warm, and to fastidiously comb the knots out of the long, wet locks of your soft, flaxen blond hair. I do urge you most earnestly to send for me without delay. (Perhaps you can borrow a footman from the His Grace the Duke of Landerdale--they are famous for their speed and efficiency). Until then, I beg to remain,

Yours Expectantly Waiting The Arrival Of Your Notes Of Affection And Invitation, But Ever Mindful Of The Inevitable Delays Caused By The Many Challenges You Face From Among Your Listless And Inferior Domestic Staff,

Charlotte Brontë, CFA

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I Am But Immune to the Cruel Bite of Political Necessity, My Lord Bernanke

January 10, 1834 London

Ben Shalom Bernanke Chairman Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System 20th Street and Constitution Avenue N.W. Washington, D.C. 20551 United States

My Most Dear and Illustrious Lord and Master:

Dear Mistress Brontë: The madness and chaos of the capital city eclipses any descriptions I might have attempted to absorb prior to my journey. On the streets the denizens here scurry to and fro in a great show of industry and excitement. They are carried about in large and sinister looking black carriages attended to by stern looking footmen in dark livery of a type I have never before seen, entirely devoid of knee breeches or stockings.  Instead these servants swim in voluminous trousers and jackets into which they reach so often that the ornate buttons we would so readily expect have been forgone in favor of much fewer and far more subdued black buttons that lack any luster or sheen.  Even in the early morning their powdered hair has already taken on a shiny, wet looking appearance.  It is possible that the climate is very wet in the outskirts of the capital where they live (as no one of importance remains after the setting of the sun). I am certain that they, much as the French, carry on in this way as a manner of show for foreigners and the naive, for when one enters any of the great marble halls in the city the pace of things slows to a sudden halting crawl.

Here, shielded from the eyes of the foreign public, all motive, industry, efficiency is extinguished by the marble facades even more readily than the sun from the sky.  From the lowest to the highest functionary the central objective of everyone one meets in these halls seems to be to provide as little service as possible in so quick a time as the visitor in front of them can be dispatched with.  If these Americans work towards shared purpose I must say that even they do not know what it is. Reaching your fellow correspondent (whom I will certainly not name in writing against the possibility that I will be captured or that my report will be intercepted prior to reaching you) was impossible by any traditional means.  I was repeatedly informed that he had absconded from the city and could no longer be found in his offices. At one point, after identifying myself as a Swiss attorney handling a matter for a private client, I was forcibly removed from the premises by several footmen. Convinced that I was being deceived, I undertook a plan to surveil your fellow correspondent's offices.  While as a Swiss attorney I could gain no purchase in these halls of deceit and chicanery in furtherance of my task, by disguising myself as a Moorish food merchant and setting up a small stand immediately outside the offices in question I was able to linger near the entrance unmolested for many days.

As I had no wares to sell I discouraged potential patrons by lapsing into hurried and flourished French--a language beyond the capacity of any I met during those dark days--until they, tired of attempting to conclude a transaction solely by pantomime, slowly wandered off.  If any had been disposed to wonder why a Moorish street merchant spoke only French none shared their skepticism with me. It was on the third day of such surveillance that I caught my first hint of your fellow correspondent.  Several functionaries lingered near the doors of the offices smoking foul smelling tobacco and it was a simple matter to overhear them as they discussed your fellow correspondent's (referred to constantly as "The Chairman") schedule.  Making careful note, I was able to attend two events where your correspondent spoke in person in front of audiences of curious footmen, unlettered foreigners, and prostitutes dressed in faux versions of a footman's livery. It is here, my dear, that I must relay the most shocking and surprising information.

Your fellow correspondent has undertaken to assume the style, dress, and manner of a graying and rotund, Dutch women. I convey this news with all sincerity and certainty.  Truely, the disguise almost fooled me for it is quite adeptly made, but after a lengthy comparison of manner of speech and political affectations it is entirely obvious to me that this is the same exact person.  I have no doubts whatsoever. I beseech you not to react too violently to this news.  Though not common in history, it is not unheard of for foreign political figures to assume the style of a woman in times of political turmoil or trouble.  The Emperor Caligula often assumed the visage of Venus during his reign, after all. Of course, on learning this information I immediately ceased my efforts to deliver your message preferring instead to report to you in order to receive further instructions considering this dramatic change in material conditions. I eagerly await your instructions, Martin T. Müller, Esquire Wenger, Frey, Lenz & Müller

Oh, Dearest Ben-Bern!  You know that such political necessities mean little to me.  It is far more important to me that I would be by your side (or at a respectful and discrete distance in public but by your side in private ) during your times of trial.  Don't face the coming years this way alone.  I will board the next ship to the Americas to give you the solace needed to endure.  Until then, I beg to remain,

Expectantly Waiting For Your Messenger Bearing Imminent News Of My Passage To The Americas,

Charlotte Brontë, CFA

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Won't You Whisk Me Away to the Malawi of Your Birth, Nicholas Shaxson?

July 10, 1833 London

Mr. Nicholas Shaxson Associate Fellow Royal Institute of International Affairs Chatham House 10 St James's Square London SW1Y 4LE

My Dearest and Most Erudite Shaxie:

Countless are the times I have bid you forget the unfortunate prefix "Associate" on your most prominent and daunting title. What, after all, do words mean to the newest of New Statesmen like yourself? Can your many critics find their words next to yours, together gracing the hallowed pages of a financial journal of such substance as can readily be found in the visage of Vanity Fair--and on multiple occasions to boot? I think not.

Please understand, it matters not to me that "Internal Rate of Return" is but a mystery to you. I have not a care that your financial literacy is bounded somewhat punitively by your understanding of the word "leverage." Your somewhat miasmic view of mathematics may alarm members of the financial community, and may shock those who must be disabused of the notion that one cannot write about economics without a mastery of addition, or find outlet for their frustrated lust by phonetically repurposing the metaphors of Stoker to assault the pulsing veins of high finance. But I, my dearest leftist love, am not one such.

I long only to feel the cool touch of your bony fingers on my skin as you clutch me to your scowling, huddled form belowdecks as we brave the wild ocean in search of the mysteries of the Africa of your birth. True, there are those who would cower at the thought of prevalent disease, dysentery, and death, but I feel a great certainty in the very center of my heart that your efforts for the venerable and independent Tax Justice Network will free the Dark Continent from the grips of poverty before our timely arrival.

Oh! won't you tear me from this awful First World so that we can embrace the abject poverty and despair of the Third? And in embracing it together our love will be as pure as the Schistosoma strains of Lake Malawi!

Let us decry modern finance together, my dearest! I know not what I might do if there were any cause that you could not love a humble and proper English lady such as myself. Do not forsake my unbridled passion, I beg you. Even now I dote over pictures of Blantyre, anxiously waiting for your urgent reply; though until then I beg to remain,

Doubtless That Your Messenger Or Agent Approaches Even Now From Just Beyond The Far Rise Presently In My View,

Charlotte Brontë, CFA

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But Surely, Dividends Have All The Romance Of A Reader's Digest Subscription

April 23, 1833 London

Mr. Timothy D. Cook Chief Executive Officer Apple 1 Infinite Loop Cupertino, California 95014 The United States

Sir--

Owing to the ongoing silence that haunts my humble abode, in that I have not received your response to my letter of two months ago ("Does Your Cursed Avarice Yet Blind You To My Faithful And Most Dedicated Love, Timothy D. Cook?") it has become abundantly clear that the mail services in California and--like as not--the United States at large leave much to be desired. It is perhaps just as well, as I have recently found cause to revise the roots of my critique of what I once called your "avidity for manna from consumer heavens" and "cares of trivial wealth and unclean power."

I have seen the error of my ways and feel not a little remorseful that my counsel to you has clearly caused you to realign certain policies of your many enterprises to solicit the interest of the most harrowing, greedy, fickle, and intrusive collection of spinsters and scolds that the sponsor of a speculative venture might have the misfortune to attract. I trust you will know at once and for certain that by this I mean: income investors.

Your response to my prudent prose was rational but I fear my counsel was faulty. While it is not the place of a proper, young English ladies to opine on the affairs of gentlemen, I must remark that I hold in some reverence the speed and decisiveness with which you sought to prune from the books your massive hoard of ill-gotten gains and otherwise discourage the rational, un-hysterical share of investing public from attending to your speculations. But I would be dangerously remiss if I did not point out that our plans to flee together to the exotic orient--I have not, by the by, yet received your reply to my proposed itinerary--would be badly scuttled.

Be this as it may, I rest with the comfortable thought that, being now in receipt of my most humbly offered self-admonitions, you will work to rescind your arguably puritanical redistributive urges and reform them into the energies and capital needed to sustain our budding romance and world travel schedules. Until then, I plead with you to allow me to remain,

A Welcoming Hostess Expectantly Awaiting The Arrival Of Your Carriage To Bear Me Away,

Charlotte Brontë, CFA

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The Clock Ticks Ever On

Oh!-- despair! There is but no salve for the passage of years.

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Might We Avoid Italy In Our Travels This Time, My Beloved Elon?

Mr. Elon Musk c/o Private Client Accounts Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena S.p.A.  Piazza Salimbeni, 3 53100 Siena Italy

My Most Beloved Musky:

On account of this letter please do not feel that you have any cause to doubt my deepest affections for you or my undying loyalty to the many memories of our many joint affections, but I feel, alas, that I can no longer keep silent.

It is hardly the place of a proper young English lady to interpose herself in the business affairs of gentlemen, but given the sudden attention occasioned by the rather large withdrawals you have made in support of your latest brilliant and inspired business venture, mightn't it be wise for us this solstice to consider pursuing the furtherance of our growing affections in a locale more friendly to your efforts than Siena?

In answer to your correspondence of last week I implore you to remember that I have before and will evermore refuse the affections of Monsieur Frédéric Saint-Geours. I cannot abide even the most steadfast member of the rising merchant class if he cannot be bothered to entertain my affections by providing me with safe and effective transportation.

Please know that it is only the deepest warmth and affection that flows through me and to the nib of my pen, and that I beg to remain,

Yours Most Earnestly And Without Any Particular Disposition To Carriages Drawn By The Power Of Magic,

Charlotte Brontë, CFA

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I Would Bear Your Undeclared Monetary Instruments Anywhere, Jérôme Cahuzac (Well, Except Maybe Cyprus)

April 2, 1833 London

Monsieur Jérôme Cahuzac Ministre délégué au Budget c/o Ministère du Budget 139 rue de Bercy 75012 Paris France

My Dearest Jer Jer:

Please hear my distant pleas and know them at once for true: I never doubted you. Even as my heart threatens to beat itself through the strained bounds of my heaving bosom I swear to you, not for a moment from earnest fidelity to you did my faith waver. Not in the midst of the reign of tax terror. Not over a decade ago when we first met in Geneva--Ah! but I was such an innocent at seven years old... still, you were so handsome, so gentle, and so French--and that American tourist mistook you for Paul Gleason. Not in 2010 during the last minute business trip to Singapore you invited me on--I was so scared when I had to lie to the Air France gate agent after she asked me if I had packed that awfully heavy briefcase you asked me to carry to the airport for you!

No, I always knew you were only playing to the crowd--and well understood the deadly consequences in France for those who found themselves in ill favor. Even as I read the news from Paris I was ever certain you would not seize a man's hard earned fortune from him with ought but a tip of a cap to the bloody French state but for the life or death necessity of political station. I knew you for a valiant smuggler of royals from the awful and blood soaked revolution from the start. A hero among men. A scarlet tax rebel. A man of taste and elegance. A connoisseur of the finest in life and able at a moment's pause to rattle of a long list of the finest Swiss hotels. An explorer of the exotic orient

The truth--that the bloody revolution against wealth is but a farce even among the revolutionaries--kept my heart ever warm through the coldest, blackest days of "seventy five percent," of "Le Scandal Gérard Xavier Marcel Depardieu," of the early reign of awful man that reminds us that some French parents are possessed of such pure spite as to name their son after a horrid, fattening, egg-yoke based sauce, and some Frenchmen bitter enough to elect him to high office and pervert the word by calling it "Justice."

No! dearest Jer Jer! I did not, could not ever, forget thee! Even today does your lightest whisper command my unfaltering obedience. Won't you permit me to perjure myself once more by bearing your stylish, Gucci attache case abroad? Until then, I beg to remain,

Yours Anxiously Awaiting Word From Your Agents In Geneva, Liechtenstein, Macau, Hong Kong, The Cayman Islands, Bermuda, or Singapore,

Charlotte Brontë, CFA

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Won't You Whisper Your Weighty Secrets To Me, Neel Kashkari?

March 21, 1833 London

Mr. Neel T. Kashkari c/o PIMCO 840 Newport Center Drive, Suite 100 Newport Beach, CA 92660 United States 

My Dearest Neellie,

Time passes with all the spirit of a horseless carriage in your absence--and please do forgive me, for I know how that metaphor irks you given its frequent use by your many detractors as a descriptor of your enlightened stewardship of the Financial Crisis. I wile away the hours gazing at the profile of your noble countenance in one of those many pictures where you are gazing off into the distance as if over the frontier of some distant horizon with light bending sight. Some cold nights I slowly flip through my vast collection of these photos, absorbing the full measure of your strong brow, your confident and inspiring gaze, or the entirely authentic scene you present with unbuttoned blue dress shirt, tennis shoes and jeans--except not, of course, the one where your expression suggests that you might smell something foul off-camera. There are so many to choose from, I can spend hours and not see the same portrait twice!

Oh! Neelie, won't you finally shed your Wikipedia reputation as a man "...known to keep a low profile and lead a simple life"? It would take but several months to double the list of media appearances on your personal website to eight, and expand the roster of your interviewers beyond CNN, Bloomberg, and CNBC. Really, my dear, your appearance on Charlie Rose was not even 58 minutes! Hardly even a full hour!--isn't Charlie handsome though? Could you not retain solicitors to compel publications beyond the New York Times, and the Washington Post--how I loved the juxtaposition of your rustic mountain cottage with their "$700 Billion Man" headline--to include more mainstream less subdued papers with more of a national and international reputation? How is it that you have only three editorials in the Washington Post and only one in Fortune? Why are you so media shy, my sweet?

My Lord Neel, how I long for those late nights in the wilds of California, those precious moments when you indulgently regaled me with tales of the great and sage Henry Paulson--of course you cannot hide from me the fact that you were lovers, but your secrets are ever safe with me, my dear! Or--Joy! Bliss!--those few times you deigned to permit me to fondle your Alexander Hamilton Award, or mused nostalgically on the drinking habits of students of Wharton, or joked about the Human Resources department at PIMCO--and what awful luck you seem to have had in all your financial endeavors! Even now I can hear echoes of the sweet nothings you used to whisper to me in your sleep.

My wonderful secret-teller, can I not find myself awake to the sound of your chopping wood? I beg for you to send for me once more and until then remain,

Consumed By A Level Of Agony That No Proper English Lady Should Be Forced To Endure And Eagerly Keeping Continuous Watch Over The Path To My Front Door For The Subtlest Signs Of Your Messenger Or Agent,

Charlotte Brontë, CFA  

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The Horror Of Mary Jo White's Mistaken Identity

March 12, 1833 London

Mrs. Mary Jo White Partner Debevoise & Plimpton LLP 919 Third Avenue New York, NY 10022  United States

My Dear Mrs. White:

I do so hope you do not think me dreadfully rude, Mrs. White, but I would be horribly remiss if I failed to point out that I once served Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr. in a public house. I knew Lord Kennedy--only, of course, in a strictly platonic sense. Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr. was a dear, dear friend of mine. The dearest and most gracious gentleman friend that a proper young woman could have. Madam, and do again please forgive me for the frankness I am about to engage in, you are no Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr.

Most Affectionately Yours,

Charlotte Brontë, CFA

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Won't You Carry Me Away With Your Carried Interest, John Paulson?

March 12, 1833 London

Mr. John Alfred Paulson President Paulson & Co. 1251 Avenue of the Americas 50th Floor New York, NY 10020 United States

Most Astute and Prescient Sir-

I must admit to having never considered the possibility of living amongst the dark and exotic lands of the Spanish Main! Now, I confess, I confess it freely!--it has always been my secret heart's desire, lurking quietly and waiting to be awakened in a fierce burst of passionate awakening akin to the sudden volatility in credit default swap prices during a crisis of faith and confidence--though rooted, of course, in sager and more noble cause and purpose. Truly, my heart leaps at the thought of attending the Governor's Ball by your side--or arriving discretely somewhat later and accompanied by a young officer rented for the occasion, and saying nothing at all to the Spanish Ambassador, his eyes only glitter for your gold after all--flexibility in such matters and a modern outlook being key features that should commend me to your attentions. You must know that I would brave the harsh seas, the awful company aboard English sailing vessels and--yes, even--pirates to know even your most hesitant affections and affectations in the midst of the Puerto Rician Arabica bean fields.

Indeed, under the tropical stars and inside the walls of San Felipe del Morro there may be moments--on certain days, during the correct tides, with the weather just right, and during the correct moon phases--when I could refuse you nothing!

My secret love, do not forsake me now! I eagerly await news that I should join you and until then I remain,

Certain That There Are At Least Two Dates While The Comet PanSTARRS Is Visible That Tide And Time Align In Such A Manner As Would Permit Our Coupling,

Charlotte Brontë, CFA