Debacle Pros Wtd. S&L; Exper. a Must

Companies promoting security systems have for some time been hiring as experts the very people who made careers of breaking through them.

Ex-burglars advised 7-Eleven stores on anti-robbery measures; one even became a company spokesman and a Johnny Carson regular. A New York ex-thief promoted his door alarm system as the invention of a “crime expert.” A Los Angeles security firm offers consumers tips from its in-house “ex-con.”

Thus consumers benefit from a life misspent, and a former crook uses his expertise to finance a life gone straight. In a way, he returns some of what he took from consumers.

The gambit suggests wide application. Why draw on outside analysts when one can get an actual operator fresh from the action?

Take our savings and loan system, which has somehow been robbed blind. Right now, there are only suspects, not certified criminals, but it’s clear that there has been some pillage. The names scroll by, followed by big figures--how much it cost or could cost the government, and taxpayers, to settle things. Vernon Savings & Loan, Silverado, CenTrust Bank, Lincoln Savings. A billion dollars here, two billion there.

It’s clear also that there’s no other money available. Federal officials are starting to ask--for $41 million from former Lincoln chief Charles H. Keating Jr., $23 million from Columbia S&L;’s Thomas Spiegel and $31 million from CenTrust’s David L. Paul--and are suing Neil Bush and 10 Silverado colleagues for $200 million.

But nobody has any money. They had money, but they don’t have it now. Spiegel, who took $1 million-plus in salary and other compensation in 1989 while his institution lost almost $600 million, earns a token $1 a year. Keating had an estimated $100-million fortune; now his son-in-law says he’s “not worth 40 cents.” Even Neil Bush’s business associate Bill Walters, who defaulted on $100 million in Silverado loans, says his former estimated net worth of $100 million is now “a negative net worth.”

One thing’s for sure. Wherever the money went and whether these men are ultimately judged guilty of fraud and theft or exonerated as poor misguided naifs, guilty only of bad management, the government won’t get much from them.

But there may be a way. Like the ex-burglars, the ex-S&L; players have knowledge to share. They can consult. It’s not classy, but it’s a job.

With their intimate knowledge of how an S&L; looks when it is near failure--its last-throes marketing, its loan portfolio--they could serve both government and industry by fingering the next possible collapse. Given the number of their loans that went sour, they should instantly recognize other loans likely to default and guess the time it will take.

They can even serve consumers, who as customers, small investors and taxpayers are most hurt by these S&L; debacles. Ordinary folk might like to know where these people kept their own savings. Well aware of the deposit money draining away, they’d scarcely have chosen their own institution. Given their skill in hiding such leakage, they could cast a discerning eye on other institutions.

Inclined themselves to spend rather than save (or even lend), they could also teach the art of corporate purchase. Usually described as “high-fliers,” they did it with corporate planes, world travel, big cars, bigger parties.

Not that they eschewed collectibles. Several bought art. One bought a library of magic. Some bought gold and in forms that suggest innovative investment theories: CenTrust Chairman David Paul bought gold leaf, which he kept on his ceilings and walls, and gold plate, which he kept in the bathrooms, covering both fixtures and “waste pipes.” Spiegel had a gun collection, big on automatic assault weapons.

There is much to learn here, but these men are now revealing a more novel expertise--the ability to live on nothing, a kind of alchemy that will doubtless become familiar as the S&L; investigations progress. Keating still has property and a good life, though penniless; his children put up their homes as collateral for his bail. Walters, equally penniless, still enjoys three homes (town, beach and desert), at least two Mercedes and (a favorite news note) an $800-a-month gardener.

Their wives and families seem to be key: They are unusually wealthy and absolutely independent, even unsharing. Walters’s wife owns all those assets, alone. Even Neil Bush, a beginner at spinning gold from straw, has a wife with a $550,000 house in her own name.

Obviously, their penniless is not our penniless. If everyone can learn how to do this, no one will be hurt. Even the homeless problem will be solved.

If ex-burglars can share their expertise as consultants, so can S&L; insiders. They may profit, as usual, by doing so. But, at least, so would we.