Banking bandits !
Posted by Big John on September 20, 2008
‘Short-selling’ … I’d never heard of it until the other day, but now I understand that it is the way a few very rich financial ‘whizz-kids’ became even richer by undermining the western banking system, which itself seems to be run by some very stupid, greedy and immoral people whose own actions led to all the current turmoil.
So will all those involved at the top be pawning their Rolexes ? … Will we see Porches and ‘Rollers’ parked at the kerbside with ‘For Sale’ signs offering knock-down prices ? … Will anyone be jumping off the Canary Wharf tower ? … Will their barefoot children be selling apples in the street ?
Of course not ! … All those lovely bonuses will be stashed away somewhere safe and many will simply shuffle themselves around into new positions and continue with their ‘Champagne lifestyles’ as if nothing had happened.
The other day a small number of the original residents of the Isle of Dogs jeered at the staff of Lehman Brothers as they left their offices after clearing their desks. Not a very nice thing to do, but I suppose understandable to some degree, for when Canary Wharf and other office blocks where built walls and barriers where constructed to separate the City ‘high-flyers’ from the locals, many of whom had lost their homes to make way for the massive re-development which began in the late 1980′s. The sad part of this story is that these not too bright ’Eastenders’ were probably jeering at the wrong people, for I suspect that most of those ’dumped’ that day were the ordinary office staff, cleaners, caterers and lower grade traders. I doubt if the ‘fat cats’ were anywhere to be seen.
I see that short-selling has now been banned in a bid to bring stability and rationality back to the equity markets. It’s only a temporary measure, but with a bit of luck it could catch some of these speculating sharks with their pants down.
Still one thing you can be sure of is that the greedy bastards of ‘Wall Street’ and ‘The City’ will soon be ‘wheeling and dealing’ themselves to greater fortunes, and I expect some of them will be spending obscene amounts of cash on another type of shark and similar works of art crap.
I’m not keen on either type of shark, but at least ’Jaws’ is easy to spot, unlike …
… the ‘bottom feeders’ in pin-stripes.
Terri said
Everything you said here was spot-on.
Nothing seemed to matter when these sharks were reeling in their “catch.”
Nor did it matter in this country if you had no decent income with your job, terrible credit and no potential, etc. You want a loan for a $300,000 home? NOT a problem, said they!
Now the problem has come back to bite us. Big time! And we watch the ripple effect globally.
John-Ward Leighton said
Don’t expect any of the so called “movers and shakers” to end up on the street over this it will be the lowly office workers that hit the “mean streets”.
JWL