Iceberg Ahead

Let’s pretend, for a moment, that you’re the CEO of Countrywide Financial. Which of the following famous events in American history would you most want the name of your company to be associated with? A) The signing of the Declaration of Independence B) The moon landing C) The invention of Pancakes & Sausage on a Stick D) The sinking [...]

Let’s pretend, for a moment, that you’re the CEO of Countrywide Financial. Which of the following famous events in American history would you most want the name of your company to be associated with?

A) The signing of the Declaration of Independence
B) The moon landing
C) The invention of Pancakes & Sausage on a Stick
D) The sinking of the Titanic.

The answer, weirdly enough, is D — and that’s roughly the grade I’d have to give Countrywide’s just-launched “Titanic: Treasures From The Deep” publicity campaign.

I’ve always had a certain fascination with the Titanic, in part because of a weird family connection with the disaster: my great grandfather, mystery writer Jacques Futrelle, was one of the unlucky ones who went down with the ship. (Happily, his wife, also on the boat, survived, as did their children, who weren’t on the trip at all — lucky for them, and also lucky for me, as I wouldn’t exist if they too had ended up on the bottom of the sea.) So I appreciate the fact that Countrywide is bankrolling a multi-city tour of recovered Titanic treasures. (Not including, alas, the manuscripts that sank with Jacques to the ocean floor.)

There is a certain logic to Countrywide’s campaign. “Titanic’s story,” the website proclaims, “has taught us how important it is to plan for anything that life might bring.” The site offers an interactive “Lifeboat Challenge” designed to test how ready you are to deal with disaster — though no matter what answers you give, the site always recommends you call up Countrywide’s experts for help. (The rest of the site is scanty both on history and on financial advice, and big on commercial come-ons.)

But it still seems more than a little strange that a financial services company would want to associate itself with a disaster that left 1,517 dead — especially given that one of the main lesson of the Titanic’s sinking is that experts may have no real idea how much risk they’re taking on, or, more to the point, exposing you to.

In 1912, the White Star Line was so confident that its ship was unsinkable that it sent it on its maiden voyage with far too few lifeboats. In the past year, we’ve seen pretty clearly what a similar philosophy did to our nation’s financial system. We don’t need to take a “Lifeboat Challenge.” We’re already in the lifeboats, furiously bailing.

–David Futrelle