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The 200th Post: The Corner Accountant

Published: May 01, 2009

 Finance       
For this, In the Black’s 200th post, which nearly coincides with President Obama’s 100th day in office, I initially thought of listing 200 predictions for the commander in chief’s next 1,350 days in office (the balance of his term), but beyond Bank of America CEO Kenny Lewis retiring to the south of France (not by his own volition) and Goldman Sachs losing its No. 1 M&A advisor status to J.P. Morgan in the waning quarters of Obama’s first term (on the eve of his second), my crystal ball blurred before becoming a blizzard-like glass globe, and the only thing I could see was more Americans dying from crossing the street to mail a letter in 2009 than from any swine aka H1-something-or-other flu (does H stand for hog?). Then I thought: a ranking might be appropriate. So I decided I'd list the top 100 stories since In the Black began back in September 2007. But after several minutes of pondering writing yet again about Lehman Brothers’s bankruptcy, Bear Stearns’ crumbling, AIG’s bonus fiasco, Citi’s umpteen rounds of layoffs, and Bernie Beelzebub Madoff’s scam of the century, I became a bit depressed, as you can imagine, and wanted to write about something uplifting rather than scandalous. And luckily, fulfilling my wish, this morning Henry Reininger showed up on my stoopstep (aka my computer monitor), serving as a reminder that you don’t have to be big-time bulge-bracket banking Big Four accounting master of the universe to have a long-lasting and fulfilling finance job. All you need is a small office, a strong worth ethic, an honest desk side manner, and a helluva lot of hope.

Thanks, Hank. Godspeed.

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