Determined to send somebody—anybody—a message about our nation's subpar economic performance, a St. Louis investment banker and single mom named Lucy Nobbe hired a small plane to fly by the Financial District around lunchtime with a banner that read, "THANKS FOR THE DOWNGRADE. YOU SHOULD ALL BE FIRED." Nobbe's intended target wasn't the offices of the S&P, which are by the East River, but rather the politicians in Washington. Close enough!
"I originally wanted to fly it over Washington, D.C., but learned that you can't do that," Nobbe, a vice president with Wedbush Morgan Securities, tells Fortune. "So I chose Wall Street instead, but didn't specifically intend to fly over S&P. I'm just a mother from St. Louis who feels the only reason we got downgraded was people in politics." Here's a somewhat better look at the banner:
A friend of Nobbe's tells The Observer, "She called me up to have me talk her out of it, and of course, I didn’t, because I think it’s funny. [She] does not have a lot of discretionary cash as others are saying. She’s a single mother of two. She’s been working and paying taxes since she was 16 years old."
At press time, it was still unclear what impact the message has had on Wall Street brokers and Washington politicians, but you can bet they're slinking into work today with heads hung low in shame! They'll probably all take the rest of the day off just to think about the consequences of their actions on the golf course.
