Gangster Bankers: Too Big to Jail – Rolling Stone
Roger never got tired of the view his 54th floor office suite offered him of Central Park. He was a man who would sometimes make a conscious effort to remind himself of the beautiful things he was lucky enough to experience, even if they had been subjected to his eyes so often they ran the risk of becoming mundane nowadays. He fulfilled this credo quite successfully when it came to the panorama he could enjoy from the penthouse office of his bank’s headquarters. His bank. He often reminded himself of that too. The magnitude of it often did become quite pedestrian compared to, say, finding the right buyer for his 28,000 square-foot mansion in Jupiter, Florida. Success had not exactly been earned, but rather promised to him. He had studied business at Harvard, but his education truly began at his father’s side working in the bank. His untimely demise came at the inauspicious time of the US subprime mortgage industry collapse. Not that such things are ever auspicious, he thought. He had inherited the bank’s reigns, and had relished the challenge, one so many others had failed. He proudly self-portrayed himself as a man who defied stereotypes, and certainly did so as far as a young trader turned Fat Cat Jr.. He had long stopped entertaining a cocaine avocation, and by no means would he ever have called it a habit. He had only once indulged in the high-riser courtesans, succumbing to peer pressure. Uncharacteristically though, he did hold the night he practiced his afore-mentioned non-habit off a midtown whore’s nipple for 8 straight hours in high regard. He still received literature from the Madam herself asking him to come back and visit. He sometimes caught himself feeling flattered by these personal missives. He spent vast amounts of money, but hardly considered that he flaunted it.
He valued his identity as a man of principles, and regarded himself as better than most, and very few his equals. The bad publicity the last few years had brought to men of his cloth did bother him. He attributed it to ignorance, though, and a misunderstanding of the balance that makes the world go round. He did not feel disdain for the ‘Occupiers’. Rather, it amused him. He found talks of AIG suing the government over “bailout exploitation” brought ridicule to serious men like himself. Some of his alma mater colleagues at HSBC had recently testified before the Senate, others had been named in the LIBOR scandal. He had mixed feelings regarding airing out financial laundry, and often ended up contradicting himself on the subject, but in the end felt that these were unserious men. There was a time an adrenaline rush could last him days when he knew a deal might get him in trouble. The brunt of his chores now consisted in finding ways out of the latter, and scapegoats for his erratic gamblings on the market. He referred to the word ‘erratic’ as his euphemism for ‘illegal’. He did so with a tranquil conscience. He was well aware that they were untouchable. Some days, his only interactions with humankind went from the valet who parked his car, to the secretary who handed him the morning newspaper on his way to the executive elevator which had his office as its sole destination. He had always equated friendship with little more than strategic alliances, and paid little mind to the fact that he had very few of those. As he gazed upon the masses down below, he realized that he had long ago stopped having to convince himself of a reason why they now looked like ants. Evolution explained why he towered above them, why he stood where he did, while they swarmed on the ground floor. It was a necessary sacrifice for some to serve those who were best equipped to bear the responsibilities and pressures that his lifestyle had bestowed upon him. His position at the top of his empire had made him larger than life. He did not think to thank divine intervention for his eminence. Rather, he considered himself a great man, among the very ordinary. As he massaged his tongue against the whiskey-soaked ice at the bottom of his glass, this reminder never failed to leave him very, very satisfied.
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As HSBC walks away from the US Senate with a $1.9 billion slap on the wrist for money laundering, aiding and abetting, and basically being huge assholes, I can’t help but fondly recall childhood memories of conning my mom into giving me what she thought to be a crippling punishment, but what actually made my transgressions totally worth it given the cost-benefit ratio. Perhaps though, my mother preferred to hold back, thus avoiding me losing my shit and the subsequent disruption this may have meant for the balance of the household. I then recall the time an HSBC branch in London kindly told me to go fuck myself when I inquired into opening an account with them, because I did not have proof of UK residence, while Saudi terrorist financiers and Mexican drug lords get the red-carpet treatment. I also think of my friend’s brother on the tail-end of a 10-year stint in a Northern California jail for selling Mary Jane, the amount of which I admittedly do not know but wouldn’t serve to embellish the purpose of this story anyway. I wonder though, whether or not he could have put any of the hundreds of warnings issued by the US government to HSBC to better use. As I identify the strategy of ‘strength in numbers’ utilized in getting several banks together to rig the LIBOR interest rates, I realize that our rehabilitated dope dealer really had it all wrong. First, his crime was way too insignificant and thus all too jail-able. Second, and this is really where his business model lacked vision, his crime did not hold millions and millions of people’s welfare at stake. Now, while you may believe that the perpetrators of the more distinguished white collar crimes deserve to be raped by horses before they are lined up and shot, if you just allow yourself to shed some of that pesky holiday humanity you’ve accumulated as of late, as well as that self-limiting and ultimately unproductive dignity your parents may have selfishly instilled in you at an early age, you will realize that this is not evil, it’s genius. The fact that justice departments have followed my mom’s school of punishment sets a precedence for the future. The day you realized your mom could no longer send you to your room, let alone the fact that you now towered above her, head and shoulders, her only hopes that you would respect what little authority she had left was mostly based on her hopes that you didn’t hold a grudge and still loved her. Other than that, balls to the wall you were now free to drink soda before going to bed, or forgo sleeping in general and pizza could now figure on the breakfast menu. Bankers can now go balls to the wall. The difference is they don’t need to. If embezzling trillions of dollars doesn’t put them in jail, there’s really no need for an identity crisis here. Business as usual will do just fine. Ladies and gentlemen, the revolution will not be televised quite simply because it will never happen.
Note-worthy: “Dude. I owe you big time! Come over one day after work, and I’m opening a bottle of Bollinger.”
– e-mail from a trader thanking a Barclays trader for helping to fix interest rates
Le Razor's Edge 