supermen to scapegoats
Tuesday, November 18th, 2008The way that the media, governments and large sections of the public have handled the ongoing financial crisis continues to bemuse me.
The banks messed up. Big Time. In their seemingly insatiable greed for bigger and bigger profits, they allowed themselves to get into schemes (not, in hindsight, far removed from classic Pyramid or Ponzi’s) that promised never-ending profits, but which turned out to be Pass the parcel with a ticking bomb.
And now the music has stopped, and people - the same people who happily acquired six (or more) credit cards on top of their mortgages, personal loans, two cars, three holidays a year, private schools for the kids and widescreen TVs on average salaries, and who happily bought finance stocks (either directly or through their pensions), whilst near rioting when their Endowment policies failed to perform (thus fuelling the desire for stocks that went only in one direction, a direction which could only be fuelled by greater and greater ‘profits’) are blaming, in many cases, not the Banks - the amorphous theoretical capitalist system which they themselves are part of, and which they, themselves, have fuelled for many years through their own near insatiable greed and desire for risk-free profits and money-for-nothing schemes, but the Bankers.
I’ve been in this industry for over 20 years, and, in my time I have met some slimes who give a whole new meaning to the term “Capitalist Pig.” People who, if I weren’t already slightly left-leaning (Not always Champagne socialist; I’ll take a decent Cava if the French has run out), would have had me running, screaming, into the arms of the Socialist Workers (mind you, I’ve been in more than the arms of a few Socialist Workers, but that’s another manifesto, for another time).
But I’ve met far more of the other type of banker; the ones who do a good job, who work hard (whilst acknowledging that it’s not exactly coal mining), who are at their desks at 0730 and still there at 1900 (the hours, not the years); who support wives, children, parents, who have the four credit cards and two personal loans and the three foreign holidays a year, and who are paid on, if not slightly less than, market value.
A key word, folks: Market Value. When your favourite football team shells out over fifty million on a twenty two year old striker, you simply accept the fact that that’s the going rate. If you don’t pay it, someone else will. So, unless your club wants to be relegated next season, they cough up.
And if you don’t like it? If you feel that Cristiano Ronaldo is an overpaid spoiled prima Donna, and the thought of throwing that much money at someone who runs around a pitch for an hour of a Saturday when there are families existing on income support and living in the constant fear of not knowing where the next meal is coming from? Dump your team. Find one that doesn’t pay those numbers to its ‘staff.’ Locate one that gives more than lip service to the idea of social responsibility.
Don’t just sit there with a face like bitter lemons and then riot when the 50million kids’ failings lead you into the second division.
It’s basic human nature, I suppose; we ‘knew’ that bankers got paid loads of money (supposedly). But we didn’t complain too much as long as we were all floating like glossy new turds down a river of debt and false prosperity.
And now the bubble’s burst? Kill the Bankers!
True, nobody has actually called that one yet; but folks: I’m sick of it. I’m sick of hearing the sound of a world full of greedy voracious selfish stupid Fucks pointing the finger and saying the bankers did this to me. A big boy did NOT make you over extend your borrowing. The Bankers may have been throwing Credit at people, but people had the choice to, as Nancy and Ronald Reagan once put it: Just Say “NO!”
Folks, this just in: Bankers - the rank and file guys and girls employed to get up at the crack of dawn and spend their days pushing capital around the capitalist system - are employees of a system that you support. if you don’t like it, take your money out. Pay off your debt, and make the decision to never again spend more than you earn. Think: what’s more important? That HD Ready TV? Or teaching your kids that love and human compassion tops technological toys every day?
Nobody said “No.” No-one. And now Bankers – as opposed to Banks – have been turned from the people I have lived and worked amongst for over half my life; the greedy, caring, selfish, selfless, Normal, everyday people I count myself amongst, into scum; monsters.
Scapegoats.
And nobody cares when this happens:
Reuters reports that Paulo Sergio, a 36-year-old trader working for the brokerage arm of Brazilian banking giant Itau, shot himself Monday in an apparent suicide bid in the open outcry pit of San Paulo’s Commodities & Futures Exchange.
Trading was halted for around 15 minutes whilst Sergio was given first aid. He was then rushed to hospital, where he is said to remain in a critical condition with severe chest injuries. The sight of the gun is said to have caused panic on the trading floor, and there is now an investigation into how the weapon managed to get through the Exchange security metal detectors.
Brazil’s financial markets are in turmoil, with stocks down some 50% since May’s high. It is not known whether Sergio’s suicide attempt was related to a financial loss.
Some two years ago, a Credit Suisse FX dealer shot and killed himself after he left a trading floor in Zurich. There was speculation at the time that he had just been told that he was being laid-off.
London - Neil Ellerbeck, the Global CIO, Liquidity, over at HSBC Asset Management, has now been charged with murdering his wife.
Paramedics are said to have been called to the banker’s house early afternoon Friday, after reports that a person was taken unwell. Katie Ellerbeck, a housewife described by neighbours as ’slim’, ‘pretty’, but ‘loud’, was pronounced dead at the scene . According to Sky TV, a post mortem revealed that she died of asphyxiation and manual compression of the neck.
Mr Ellerbeck, 45, was taken into custody soon after police arrived at the house. The couple’s two young children, aged 10 and 13, were fortunately not thought to have been at home during the altercation. HSBC has denied reports that the banker had recently lost his job.
In the meantime, there’s no let-up on the job loss, stress and bonus anxiety disease front:
Citigroup announced an additional 50,000 jobs will go in the coming months (that’s in addition to the 23,000 already announced this year). The jobs will go as a result of lay-offs, unit sales and natural wastage. CEO Vikram Pandit now wants to reduce the firm’s cost base by around 20%. Overall, headcount will come down from 375,000 some 12 months ago, to around 300,000. Investors were not, however, overwhelmed by Pandit’s plan. Citigroup’s stock price continued to fall Monday.
Credit Suisse’s securities unit is said to have told many contractors that their services will not be required after 19th December.
Bloomberg reports that BlackRock is to tell its staff that jobs will be cut in the first cull since the firm was founded some 20 years ago. The firm said in a memo to staff: ‘These are extraordinary times. Times like these require fiscal discipline; we expect it of the companies in which we invest, and we must expect it of ourselves’. Specific details of the job losses will not be revealed until early 2009.
Associated Press reports that Putnam Investments confirmed Monday that it is to cut 47 jobs, including 12 money managers, as it merges six funds into larger ones. Most of the cuts will come in the firm’s Boston office. CEO Robert Reynolds said: ‘This whole move is being made to get rid of complexity, simplify processes, and provide ownership and accountability’.
Finally, The Wall Street Journal reports that HSBC is to cut 450 jobs in Hong Kong. The layoffs will come across all customer groups. Executive Director Peter Wong told staff in a memo: ‘Such decisions are always exceptionally difficult to make, and are a result of organizational changes in a number of areas, as well as the deteriorating economic conditions and our cautious outlook for 2009′.
