John Robb wrote an interesting post about running web sites to target corporations such as Goldman Sachs [1] (such as tracking where it’s employees live).
Naked Capitalism has an interesting post about US investment banks getting preferential access to vaccines [2]. In the comments section some people state an intention to deliberately infect Goldman employees if they get sick.
Rob Blackwell at American Banker writes about a popular iPhone game based around the idea of defending the White House from attacking bankers who try and steal money [3]. The game features a number of ways of killing bankers.
It seems to me that the US bankers have gone way beyond the level of greed that will actually benefit themselves and their actions seem to indicate a death-wish.
As the banks are supposedly too big to fail they should also be too big to be allowed to kill themselves, so maybe we need some sort of corporate suicide-watch. According to a blog post I read when someone is admitted to a psychiatric hospital after a suicide attempt they are watched by video at all times, inspected every 15 minutes, and regularly searched for sharp objects. Maybe part of the bail-out package should have included the US government inspecting the offices of bankers every 15 minutes, watching them at all times by video, and regularly searching them for toxic assets, derivatives that no-one understands, etc. It seems that the TSA employees would rather search for money than weapons [4], so they could be redeployed in searching bank offices. TSA employees never were much good at searching for bombs anyway [5].
- [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satire
- [1] http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2009/11/community-through-software-tools.html
- [2] http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2009/11/goldman-fed-citi-getting-preferential-allotments-of-h1n1-vaccine.html
- [3] http://www.americanbanker.com/bankthink/kill_game-1003698-1.html
- [4] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steve-bierfeldt/how-my-lawsuit-against-th_b_352660.html
- [5] http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/10/new_tsa_report.html
The ABC have just finished a series called ‘Addicted to Money’, which amongst other things broke down how the financial meltdown occurred, and the lead up to it.
Many of the relaxed laws in the US Banking system came about by the Banks pleading with congress to loosen the reigns.
Much like a 6-yo pleading with daddy to drive the car, then coming home crying after they wrap it around a power pole.
I just want to know… just what do the bankers need to do to be placed over the knee and spanked?
If the ordinary layman was as reckless as what we’ve seen by the bankers — I’m sure war would break out!
Matt: In one online discussion of the banking problems one neo-con advocated 20 year prison sentences for individuals who can’t repay their loans. Apparently it’s entirely the fault of homeowners who accept bank offers of large loans with interest-only repayments, and that someone who accepts such an offer and later becomes bankrupt is regarded as worse than someone who commits rape, manslaughter, and basically every crime other than first degree murder.
As long as a significant portion of the population believe that it’s not the fault of the bankers this sort of thing will continue. But I think that the support for bankers is starting to wane.
I bet that some people will soon start wishing that they had not advocated both lax gun control and financial deregulation…
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=ahD2WoDAL9h0
It seems that Goldman employees are applying for pistol permits. Not that having a gun will help someone if they are hated by a significant number of gun owners – which seems to be the situation for bankers.