Are The Banksters Guilty Of Treason Against The Nation?

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

“Treason doth never prosper: what's the reason?

Why if it prosper, none dare call it treason.”

Ovid / Sir John Harrington

When I first though about this subject for a post on my blog, I had America mainly in my mind, I suppose because that is where the rot started to show. But when I though about it a little more I quickly realized that the same charge could equally be brought against banksters in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Spain, France and in fact the entire European Union. 

They took money that was not theirs, that was placed in trust with them for safe and responsible stewardship, and they gambled it and lost it.

Then they used their influence on stupid and greedy politicians to steal the honest taxpayer’s money to fill up their coffers again. They were apparently too big to fail – what an utter load of nonsense!

They promised when they were stealing OUR money that they would use it to make loans to businesses and thereby stimulate and reactivate the economy that they themselves had brought to a standstill when they lost OUR original cash in stupid and foolhardy deals that no one with any brains or any sense of responsibility to their clients would have dared to go near.

They lied.

They took OUR money for the second time and kept it for themselves. A lot of it went on bonuses, sometimes in the tens of millions of dollars. A reward to themselves for staggering incompetence.

In any other industry, if you were so bad at your job as to bankrupt your company, you would not only be fired but stand a good chance of being charged with fraud or negligence or something. But if you are a banker and have successfully sold the lie that you are “too big to fail”, then you get away with it. It doesn’t hurt if you have a few politicians in your pocket either!

And, apart from paying yourself huge bonuses for losing OUR money the first time, what do you do with the proceeds of stealing OUR money the second time? Well, of course, first you give yourself another big pay rise, and then you gamble again and lose even more of OUR money.

Remember the J P Morgan $2billion loss – er, make that a $9billion loss would you. Just as Hillary Clinton “mis-spoke” when she lied to the public, J P Morgan “mis-counted” the first time they declared the extent of their incompetence! We probably have not heard the truth yet.

And President Obama has the gall to tell the world that these morons and liars are “the best we have”! Seriously? Do you really expect the people to believe that? I don’t think so. I certainly hope not.

But the J P Morgan $2billion loss turning out to be a $9billion loss is just the tip of a colossal  iceberg. This one is a hell of a lot bigger than the one that sank the Titanic  -  it’s threatening to sink entire countries.

The public and even the various governments have not been made aware of the full extent of the catastrophic losses these idiots (remember the best we have) have made. All the big banks, whether in the US, or Britain, or Spain or France or wherever are furiously cooking their books and have been for the last five years. Their companies are insolvent, they are bankrupt, but they are hiding the truth from everyone.  

This is fraud.

In fact, because of the power that they have, and the impact their stupidity inevitably has on the entire national economy, what they have done and are continuing to do is commit treason.

In a country run by Joe Stalin or Saddam Hussein (perhaps proving that not everyone is all bad all of the time) these treacherous bankers would have been put up against a wall and shot. That may be a bit extreme for us, but at the very least they should lose their jobs, have their stashes of personal wealth confiscated, and be thrown into jail. If it was good enough for a thief like ponzi king, Madoff, it should be good enough for thieves like them.

End rant, cue a few videos on the subject.

Enjoy!

A view from Britain

A view from Ireland

The best government money can buy

Understanding The Financial Crisis--For Kids and Grownups

Furious Flabbergasted Facebook Fools Face Frightening Falls From Fanciful Flagging Financial Floatation Farce

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

First of all, well done if you were one of the people who tried out the quiz. I hope you enjoyed it.

Today’s blog, if the alliterated title full of “f” words hasn’t given it away already, is regarding financial matters. No, hang on, stick with it. It’s not that bad really.

Were you one of the “zuckers” who bought shares in Facebook? I hope the answer is no, because it is another example of the stupidity and madness that greed can provoke in people who should know better, but frequently don’t.

I can’t predict the future, but I knew that the Facebook IPO would cost a lot of idiots a lot of money.

The IPO launch price was tagged at $38 per share or something like 100 times the company’s earnings. It is easy to know why they priced it so. They set the price that high because they thought they could get away with it. Because the herd, unknowing and unthinking, would swallow the crazy hype about the company and buy, buy, buy!

Does that show more than a little contempt for the people you want to invest in your company?  Sadly I think that it does. Not that it is all down to the greed of Zuckerberg. The advising and underwriting banks had a lot to do with it and we know for a fact that they have nothing but contempt for ordinary mortals like ourselves. We are the marks, they are the conmen!

Usually they take the time to milk us dry before abandoning the market and leaving the ordinary investor to lick their wounds. But this time it happened fast. Within hours in fact!

Those who were not in the “loop” and couldn’t buy pre-launch, waded in on launch day and bought, bought, bought from $38 right up to $45 which the shares reached for a couple of minutes.

The poor fools got whacked almost straight away.

The market very quickly began to realize it had been conned, that this was not a LinkedIn IPO and the issue price had been set far, far too high to ever double on launch. An element of sanity crept in. Facebook  promptly started to fall, by about 11%.

In other words if you’d invested $1000 in the morning you would have turned it into $868 in the space of a few hours. If you were unfortunate to buy at the peak price, your $1000 would now be worth just a little over $700. OUCH!

But it wasn’t just individual investors that got caught. Almost every large mutual fund etc., most of whom are run by, let’s be kind and say, poorer quality managers, felt compelled to purchase Facebook shares, not because they though they were a good buy but because they saw other idiots doing the same and they were frightened about the possibility of missing out “the next Big Thing”.

Little do most investors realize, but the situation could have been even worse had the price not been artificially propped up for a while by the investment bank underwriters.

For the benefit of those who aren’t investors and/or who don’t know how the market works in things like this, here is a quick summary. IPOs are unwritten by investment banks like Morgan Stanley. The investment banks therefore have their reputations on the line. If the IPO goes really bad so does their reputation and their chances of being asked to underwrite future IPOs (and they get huge gigantic enormous fees for this work so they don’t want to lose it.)

Thus, in the case of Facebook, when the share price stopped climbing and quickly fell back to the $38 launch price, the investment bank underwriters stepped in and bought heavily. Without their intervention Facebook could have fallen catastrophically on its first day of trading.

Facebook does generate cash, mainly from advertising revenue. It has a vast following and that advertising revenue should rise substantially over time, so the company may one day be worth the $38 and even more. Google launched at $85 and is now worth $600, but it is a proven quantity revenue-wise and the price rise took time.

But, and it’s a big BUT, Facebook would need to be a hell of a lot better managed than at its market launch.   

But for now, I’m with my other “mad” friend Jim Cramer of Mad Money fame who rightly and sensibly advised a pass on the Facebook IPO. There may be a time to buy into Facebook, but the writing on my wall says “not today thanks”. Booyah Jim!

There’s an obvious question that I haven’t addressed. It is, “So what do I think Facebook is worth?” Well for what my opinion on these matters is worth (i.e. probably not much) I would peg the value at a lot closer to $18 than $38. I may be right, or I may be wrong, but I really don’t care because I haven’t bought any. I might reconsider if it the price comes a bit closer to my valuation, but it’s only a might.

The small print.
Fasab disclaimer: this blog post does not constitute professional advice as regards investments on the stock exchange, such advice would only be given and indicated thus if an outrageous fee were being charged and this blog is being given to you for free. Also any investor should always be aware that shares can fall as well as plummet and should act accordingly by not investing any money they can not afford to lose.

Drained Of Life - Almost

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

The last couple of blog post have concerned people featured in the Darwin Awards, “Never Hitch Your Wagon” about someone who wasn’t eligible because he survived his and his wife’s stupidity, and “Little Dumb And Large Dumber” because their dumbness did make them successful Darwin Award winners.

I had a friend who almost featured in the Darwin Awards too. The only reason he didn’t was because they didn’t exist in those days and probably none of us would have had the presence of mind to nominate him anyway.

I won’t tell you his real name, have to expose the innocent and protect the guilty and all that, but his nickname was “Goners” pronounced “Gone-ers”. It was a nickname he gained after the incident I am now going to tell you about, and for most of his friends he’s still stuck with it to this day.

It happened when we were all young guys, in our teens and spending a leisurely summer messing around and generally enjoying life the way you can before you get older and wiser and burden yourself with responsibilities and debt and so forth. Then the Dads were paying the mortgage and bringing home the bacon (sometimes literally) and we were carefree and happy.

This day we decided to go for a walk along a nearby river. None of us were keen fishermen but we liked the river and walks along the riverbanks and the little stony beaches that the river’s meanders had left here and there. That particular summer was hot and a bit of bathing in the cool clear unpolluted water was also on the agenda.

It wasn’t a big river, no Amazon that’s for sure. Just about 50 feet across, or thereabouts, and maybe four or five feet deep towards the middle. There were a few deeper holes that serious fishermen tended to use, but we were always content messing around in the shallower water. It was fun and safe. In fact thinking and writing about it, I wish I was back there right now.

But I’m not, so on with the story.

Part of the river bank was relatively flat with only a slightly sloping bank down to the water. Other parts were a straight drop. And yet others consisted of a fairly steep slope down to the water’s edge.  

Local farmers had dug drains at intervals to let rainwater run off their fields into the river, and between where the man-made drains ended and the river began, the water flow had over the years dug its own ‘V’ and then ‘U’ type trenches by eroding the top soil.

These had to be negotiated when one was walking along the riverbank, but it wasn’t a problem. That was how things were and everybody just accepted it and got on with it. I’m sure nowadays there would be a bureaucratic do-gooding group wanting all sorts of rules and regulations both to disrupt the farmer’s lives and to spoil the nature walk for the rest of us. In those days some interfering busybody was more likely to end up in the river and they knew it so they stayed away.

Of course, when I said the drains weren’t a problem, what I meant was they weren’t a problem for most of the people most of the time. But there’s always one idiot who will find a way to mess up even a nice summer’s day stroll along the riverbank.

Enter “Goners” into the story.

Although the day I am recounting was idyllic weather wise, during the previous night there had been a thunderstorm and some furious rain for a little while. The result of that was that the following morning there was considerable run-off of rainwater from the fields, via the farmer’s drains into the river. This made the areas close to the drains a little wet and slippery, not to mention mucky.

We had been walking for a few miles, successfully crossing all the open drains we had encountered. And then it happened!

“Goners” tripped or lost is concentration or something, but his balance went and he headed over the side of the riverbank.

At first this caused unbridled hilarity amongst the rest of us. We were laughing and pointing and cheering. If we had had pens and paper with us, no doubt we would have held up makeshift score cards critiquing the ‘dive’. But we hadn’t so we just laughed and laughed, not only at the dive but at the frantic wriggling and gurgling of “Goners” in the trench.   

Then somebody twigged on what was happening and said, “OMG I think he’s drowning!”

“How can you drown in three inches of water?”, came a chorus of incredulous replies.  

But he was.

“Goners” was in BIG trouble.

He WAS actually drowning in probably less then three inches of water.

“Goners” had fallen into the drain nature had made with the water erosion. Obviously he didn’t intend to, and, unprepared, he fell head first, with his arms by his sides, as opposed to being in a normal diving position with his arms outstretched in front of him and slightly raised.

As he had slid down the riverbank towards the water he had embedded himself farther and farther into the drain, trapping his arms by his side.

And when he reached the water, which was indeed barely three inches deep at the edge, his face including his nose and mouth were submerged under the level of the water.

The frantic wriggling wasn’t just to try to free his arms, but to try to get his mouth and nose out of the water to grab some much needed air. And he clearly wasn’t having much success.  

Once we realized that he was in real trouble, of course it was all hands on deck so to speak and everyone rushed to his assistance. Two of us each grabbed one of his feet and pulled him back up the bank a little so that his head came out of the water. Much to his relief, and ours, “Goners” made a few huge grabs for air and the crisis seemed to be over.

Now I don’t know to this day whether what happened next was a deliberate act, something sub-conscious, or just another minor accident, but with his movement and gasping for air his feet, which like the rest of him were slippery with the muck from the drain, managed to slip out of our hands and he slid back into the water again. Gurgle, gurgle, wriggle, splutter, gurgle….

We knew he was in no danger this time and yes, we did laugh again. It was funny for everyone but “Goners”. Some of us – not me you understand, no definitely not me, of course not, don’t be silly, how could you think such a thing – could have played that game all day, pulling him out of the river and then letting him slide back in. Thinking about it now, we probably invented a new water-boarding technique, to us at the time it was just fun.

But we must have thought better of it after a couple of ‘dunks’ because the we pulled “Goners” out of the drain completely and back up on to dry land.

When he got his wits about him once again he said, “Thanks guys. I was nearly a goner.”

And that was his nickname for ever more, “Goners”.

It shows you just how easily and innocently things can happen that under different circumstances would have had a lot more tragic results.

Postscript:

Strangely enough, many years later, in the very same river as it happens, a guy called Willy (the same as featured in my blog post “Willy And Woof”) did the very same thing while walking back home from a bar, very, very drunk. That time however there was no one around to help.

Now he could have been a Darwin Award winner!

  

All Men Are Created Equal – Really?

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

There was always something wrong with the phrase “All men are created equal”.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s a wonderful aspiration but it’s just not true. Yes everyone should have an equal chance to do what they want to do and have equal rights, which I think is really what the phrase is meant to say.

But for better or worse people are not created equal. Some are academically gifted, but they couldn’t screw in a light bulb! Other people can wire up an entire house or building effortlessly, but academically don’t perform. There are people with natural practical skills and people who are exam passing machines. One one isn’t better than the other – just different.

Sadly western society’s answer to the fact that we are different is to try to make us all the same and that just does not work. In Britain for example, the government’s answer was comprehensive education. Piling everyone in to the same classes, where no one could learn faster than the dumbest person in the room. In the US there is little financial incentive to attract talented teaching staff, without which the standards in schools cannot progress, quite the reverse in fact.

On the other hand, for many years in communist regimes where everyone was supposed to be the same, those who had a talent, whether athletically and otherwise, were given far greater encouragement to development than the rest.

If you have a gift or talent for playing a musical instrument like the violin or piano you should be allowed to study in a specialist music school. If you have a gift or talent for academia you should be allowed to progress through university, get your PhD and cloister yourself away doing research that may or may not have practical applications that you will never realize. If you have practical skills you should be encouraged to learn a trade to enable you to earn a good living doing something you are good at and enjoy. And if you have an entrepreneurial flare you should be assisted and encouraged to create companies and employ people, not hampered by stupid bureaucrats who try to enforce even stupider and unnecessary government regulations and restrictions on you.

And so on, and so on.

All this can be illustrated, as can most things, with a graph called a normal distribution curve (sometimes also referred to as a “standard deviation curve”). This is just a fancy name for a graph that shows that the vast majority of people are relatively close to “normal” in that they conform more or less to a standard, whether that be IQ, height, weight or whatever.

Take intelligence for example. At one extreme end of the IQ scale (say less than 1% of the population) you have the Einsteins and Mozarts whose gifts in their respective categories are well beyond the norm. And at the other end of the scale you have the people who do not express a talent for anything. Certainly not anything productive and useful.

These are the people who invariably are employed by the government and big corporations and who quite often unnecessarily make our lives a misery. We have already looked at some examples of these people in this blog, and will no doubt do so again.

On the other hand there are people like the painter on the scaffolding whose dumbness serves, perhaps to frustrate a little, but mostly to entertain.

Our late friend from yesterday, George Carlin, expressed the problem very well. George said, “Just think of how stupid the average person is, and then realize half of them are even stupider!” 

Here are a few other examples.

There was the guy, identity unknown, who in 1976 made the most unsuccessful hijack attempt ever. On a flight across America, he rose from his seat, drew a gun and took the stewardess hostage.

"Take me to Detroit," he demanded.

"We're already going to Detroit," she replied.

"Oh... good," he said, and sat down again.

Or the three British men who, in August 1975, were on their way in to rob the Royal Bank of

Scotland at Rothesay, when they got stuck in the revolving doors. They had to be helped free by the staff and, after thanking everyone, sheepishly left the building.

A few minutes later they returned and announced their intention of robbing the bank, but none of the staff believed them. When they demanded 5,000 pounds in cash, the head cashier laughed at them, convinced that it was a practical joke.

Then one of the men jumped over the counter, but fell to the floor clutching his ankle. The other two tried to make their getaway, but got trapped in the revolving doors again.

And just in case you think I’m just picking on the unfortunates in the US and UK, what about 52-year-old Walter Schoegl, the drunk bank robber in Mainz, Germany, who tried to hold up his local bank armed with a water pistol and a potato peeler, and with a stocking over his head?

He demanded cash, but left with nothing after the bank teller told him that the bank had run out of money.

When he was arrested about five minutes later he was still wearing the stocking on his head.

And finally, a short scene showing a similar kind of bank raid. It's from a 1989 movie called "Three Fugitives", if you haven't seen it or heard of it, it's well worth a look. 

More On Banks! (Get It, Eh?)

"Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy"

We talked before about banks. I have a feeling they will feature from time to time in a blog like this because nothing and no one has done more to mess up the lives of ordinary decent people.

On a national scale they have lost fortunes, used their political influence to make even stupider politicians bale them out with OUR money and without our permission, and are now proceeding to lose another fortune, whilst at all times paying themselves huge bonuses for their incompetence.

On this occasion I was in my local branch. The branch where I set up my accounts. The branch where they know me, and have done for years. The branch where I visit, maybe once a month now, it used to be a lot more frequently but what with internet banking nowadays there isn’t so much need to go there in person.

But that day I’m in the bank, in person. I have two accounts, a current account with check book and debit card and a savings account also with a debit card. Both debit cards are identical except for the numbers.

First order of business that day was to lodge a couple of checks into my current account. Somebody had actually paid me for doing something. Hurrah!

I handed over the current account debit card and the checks and the girl behind the teller’s counter logged everything in, I signed a deposit slip and she gave me the card and receipt. Easy-peezy!! (Not sure how to spell that, but never mind.)

I wanted a little bit of cash too. So I took my savings account debit card out of my wallet, set it down on the counter and told the girl, the exact same girl, what I wanted.

“Do you have any I.D. ?” she asked.

“What do you mean?” I replied.

“I need to see some form of identification,” she said matter-of-factly.

“Hello,” I said. “H-E-L-L-O!!! It’s me. I’m here in front of you and have been for a while. You remember I’m the guy who just deposited those checks into my account?”

Thankfully she remembered. We were getting somewhere.

Or were we???

Nope, I guess not. She still couldn’t give me my money without some ID. And of course I hadn’t any on me, never thought it would be needed for a little job like this.

There were other customers waiting to be served, but I didn’t care. I felt compelled to try to expose the absurdity of what was happening as best I could.

I took a small step back from the counter.

Then I took my current account debit card out of my wallet again and placed it in my left hand. I did the same with my savings account debit card, only placing it in my right hand.

I held up my left hand clutching the current account card, explaining what it was, and said to the girl,

“Now you know who I am, right?”

She agreed. She couldn’t see what was coming next, dear help her.

Then I put my left hand down by my side and held up my right hand, this time clutching the savings account debit card, and explaining to her what it was.

“Now you don’t know who I am, and I need ID before you can do anything, right?”

They may have been eager to get on with their own business, but most of the customers seemed to enjoy the demonstration. Even the guy at the other teller’s window stopped what he was doing and watched, smiling. I think he’d been through a similar experience.

I had brought the whole bank to a standstill.

“Sorry, I don’t understand,” the girl behind the counter said.

A few of the other customers could be heard giggling.

That got her flustered, but she tried to go on, by way of attempting to explain this totally pointless and idiotic supposedly security procedure.

I interrupted her.

“Look,” I said. “I have been a customer of this bank, in this branch for more years than I really care to remember. You know who I am and you’ve known who I am for years. But now, because some half-wit in your head office has sent you a sheet of paper with an “I need to see ID” box on it that has to be ticked, all of a sudden you don’t know who I am. Have I got that about right?”

She didn’t answer. She didn’t know the answer. In fact she didn’t even know there was a problem that needed an answer.

The morons they put in these jobs nowadays are only trained and capable of ticking a box, not thinking outside one, to apply a little common sense to a situation.

The only place I was heading with this girl was smack dab into one of those stupidity loops I talk about from time to time. “I need to see ID. I haven’t got ID with me but you know me. But I need to see ID. No you don’t. Yes I do…..”

I shook my head, put my cards away and turned round to apologize to the folks in the queue I had kept waiting. They were all fine about it. There were even a few mumbles of “It’s fine”, “no problem”, one guy even said, “forget it they’re stupid in here anyway”, and away I went.

I didn’t go very far. Outside the bank I found an ATM and stuck my savings account debit card into it. Thankfully the ATM machine knew me without ID. I smiled into the camera, pointed at my face and mouthed the words “It knows me”. I pressed a few buttons and hey presto, got my cash. 

I think the world is a poorer place when the only sensible things you get to talk to are machines, but sometimes you just don’t have a choice!

Have you had similar experiences? Send them along. Let the world know what is happening before it is too late.

Cancel Your Credit Cards Before You Die

"Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy"

The bureaucrats and the morons who help to run the absurd show in which we all unfortunately star at times, can and often do make one’s life a completely and unnecessary misery. Hence my blog. We need to start to fight back!

But the trouble is these idiots don’t even stop hassling you after you are dead – well, not you, of course, but your loved ones that you have left behind.

If you haven’t made a will and keep finding excuses not to, stop with the excuses and make one today. You can always change it later if your circumstances change (lottery winners contact me immediately!). If you don’t leave instructions as to how your estate is to be split up, what is to be done with you possessions, etc., then it will just be leaving a mess for your relatives to sort out. There will be a multitude of morons waiting to pounce to make their lives difficult. And it will mean increased lawyer’s fees too.

Oh yes, and cancel your credit card as well – before you die if you get the chance!

Why do I say that? Well read this story. It didn’t happen to me (well, of course, not I’m still alive and writing this blog for goodness sake!). What I mean is it didn’t happen to anyone I know, and unfortunately I don’t know the origin of the story otherwise I would happily source it. But here it is anyhow.

In January 2007 an elderly lady died. Her bank, a world renowned bank, (Citibank it was) however decided to bill her for February and March for their annual service charges on her credit card. Naturally, being a greedy bank, they added late fee penalties and interest on the monthly charge. The balance, which was $0.00 at the time of the old lady’s death, now became somewhere in the region of $60.00USD.

A family member telephoned Citibank and what follows is a transcript of the conversation. It may make you smile at the inefficiency, stupidity and intransigence of the employees at the bank. On the other hand it will probably make you cringe.

Family Member: “I am calling to tell you that she died in January.”

Bank: “The account was never closed and the late fees and charges still apply.”

Family Member: “Maybe you should turn it over to collections.”

Bank: “Since it is two months past due, it already has been.”

Family Member: “So what will they do when they find out she is dead?”

Bank: “Either report her account to the frauds division or report her to the credit bureau, maybe both!”

Family Member: “Do you think God will be mad at her?”

Bank: “Excuse me?”

Family Member: “Did you just get what I was telling you - the part about her being dead?”

Bank: “Sir, you'll have to speak to my supervisor.”

Supervisor comes to the phone:

Family Member: “I'm calling to tell you, she died in January.”

Bank: “The account was never closed and the late fees and charges still apply.”

Family Member: “You mean you want to collect from her estate?”

Bank: “Are you her lawyer?”

Family Member: “No, I'm her great nephew.”

(Lawyer information given)

Bank: “Could you fax us a death certificate?”

Family Member: “Sure.”

(fax number is given)

After they get the fax:

Bank: “Our system just isn't set up for death. I don't know what more I can do to help.”

Family Member: “Well, if you figure it out, great! If not, you could just keep billing her. I don't think she will care.”

Bank: “Well, the late fees and charges do still apply.”

Family Member: “Would you like her new billing address?”

Bank: “That might help.”

Family Member: “Odessa Memorial Cemetery, Highway 129, Plot Number 69.”

Bank: “Sir, that's a cemetery!”

Family Member: “What do you do with dead people on your planet?”

Have you had similar experiences? Send them along. Let the world know what is happening before it is too late.