No. 35 The Big Con Perpetuated by a Shower of Merchant Bankers

If you’ve arrived here expecting to find a well-researched and informative article on the modern banking system and the current mire within which it is sinking ever deeper and deeper, I would turn back now, my friend. You won’t find anything in the next few paragraphs that’s backed up by a single shred of researched evidence.

To be honest, I couldn’t be arsed, as I didn’t particularly wish to sully myself any further by peering into the festering pit populated by the scum, the Flash Harrys, and the hooray Henrys that make up the world of banking. Plus, any attempts at reading more than one line of information regarding the world of banking veers me ever closer toward that coma I promised myself in No. 29 So Bored my Eyes Bled.

If however, like me, you don’t need evidence and just go on instinct, then read on. After all, isn’t that how real journalists work?

Anyway, Jeffman was reading an article by the late, great Hunter S. Thompson entitled “The Hellfire Club” where he discussed the phenomena of ‘Rake’s Clubs’ in 18th Century England in relation to the disgraced 1980’s evangelist and vile hypocrite, Jimmy Swaggart.

These ‘Rake’s Clubs’ were made up of the sons of the aristocracy, who after getting mortally drunk would pile out onto the streets beneath the cover of darkness and rape, maim, and beat any other human being unfortunate enough to cross their path, regardless of sex or age. They got away with it for so long, because back then only the rich were allowed to carry swords, meaning they wouldn’t meet with any opposition, not even from the Watch (pre-cursor to the police force), who were also fair game for a right royal rogering.

Eventually the law of the land did catch up with these loathsome lords and banned the forming and membership of such clubs…

… But it would seem that they are very much alive and well in this day and age. Where the son’s of the aristocracy carry on this tradition of rape, maiming and beating with equal disregard and arrogance, albeit at a hypothetical club called the stock exchange where the unfortunate victims have been the savings of you and I.

So having nearly bankrupted themselves by milking this savings cash cow dry, we now have a situation where there’s a bunch of complete and utter merchant bankers rubbing their hands with glee at the prospect of getting said sweaty appendages on taxpayer’s money, so they can secure their bonuses and settlements in good time for the inevitable moment when everybody realises what a complete and utter con the stocks and shares markets are and the worldwide banking system collapses beneath this revelation’s weight.

They’re essentially using other people’s money to gamble on thin air. Nice work if you can get it.

Jeffman chooses to carry on regardless. Amidst an unprecedented display of scaremongering by the media at large, he hopes that the Government will be just as willing to throw taxpayer’s money in his direction when it all goes tits up.

Now, as you well know, Jeffman is no authority on the global banking system, or the whole stock market swizzle thing, but when people use terms such as “Talking up the markets” or “Talking down the markets”, he suspects that there is very little substance to either.

A case in point would be fact that on Tuesday morning a BBC financial journalist named Robert Peston managed to put the savings of millions in jeopardy, just by mentioning on his blog that he’d been informed by another – unnamed – merchant banker of an approach by Barclays, RBS, and Lloyds TSB to the Chancellor of the Exchequer to hurry up and throw some taxpayer’s money their way. This resulted in £10bn being wiped off the value of RBS’s shares.

Now let’s just clarify that, shall we. There was no terrorist attack wiping out the greater part of Scotland. There wasn’t a raging inferno erupting in the bank vaults of every branch of RBS and Natwest simultaneously across the country. There was no catastrophic event, the likes of which will be burned into our memories for the remainder of our lives.

Nothing disappeared. Everything was exactly the same at the end of the day as it had been at the start. Except the Royal Bank of Scotland had lost ten billion pounds!

All because of some hearsay mentioned in some BBC nancy’s blog.

How can so much power that has a direct effect on normal people’s livelihoods and ability to live, resonate from rumour-mongering and a few words on the internet? Is that all these markets are built on?

Jeffman calls out a con of gargantuan proportions. A con perpetrated by Hooray Henrys and chinless wonders in red braces and stripy shirts. It’s nothing more than a playground to give the rich boy’s something to do during the day whilst daddy is nobbing the maid. A playground where a souped-up version of Top Trumps is the game of choice and the consequences are dealt out to real people, as the merchant bankers and traders drive home in gold-plated Porsches to platinum-plated penthouse castles at the close of trading.

And because none of the ‘real people’ understand it, it’s allowed to go on. The wool is well and truly pulled over our eyes.

You ask your average trilby-sporting gent or gentlelady on the street to explain the banking system and the stocks and shares markets upon which it balances, and I’ll wager they won’t be able to. I can’t, and I’m about as average as they come.

But then, as all good conjurers and illusionists will tell you, so long as the smoke and mirrors are positioned correctly, nobody will ever find out.

On a more serious note, if there is anybody worried about the present economic shindiggery and the collapse of more banks they’ve never heard of, Jeffman is more than happy to look after their money for them. He has a drawer beneath his bed built specifically for the purpose. He also promises to invest it wisely in sound commodities such as booze, easy women, and this Saturday’s card at Chepstow. It can’t be any riskier than leaving it in the grubby mitts of whoever it’s entrusted to at the moment.

Whoops! Did that last statement just wipe $500 billion off the value of the HSBC?

You have been warned!

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