A message from the CEO of the Bank of International Loans and Kickbacks (Bilk):
As you will probably know, we here at Bilk have been having a few problems. Now, being fair, no one – apart from a few commentators that everyone ignored – could have foreseen that buying collateralised sub-prime debt would have left us with the small matter of a ten billion dollar hole in our books. Well, aside from my risk management team, whom I replaced with an automated, state of the art computer system written by Nobel Prize winning scientists and guaranteed to never go wrong. Unfortunately it seems the concept that humans aren’t always rational is giving them some teething trouble. Something to do with “not enough atoms in the universe” or something.
Anyway, any suggestion that I replaced my risk managers because they pointed out that these loans were unsafely dependent on the ability of unemployed trailer park home owners in Tennessee to afford the interest on million dollar loans is outrageous and entirely based on hindsight. As our own, completely independent, investigation – led by the heads of our remunerations and audit committees whose appointments I personally supervised – has shown I acted with complete integrity at all times. My actions had absolutely nothing to do with the remote possibility that if we’d stopped buying this stuff our investors would have sold our stock and we wouldn’t have got those huge bonuses, which unfortunately I’m completely unable to repay at the moment because I’ve left my chequebook on my other yacht.
So in the meantime we need some taxpayers’ money to tide us over. It’s important for all of us, you see, because if we were to go under then the ramifications for the world would be severe. The contagion would probably bring down the global financial system and drag us into a decade long depression accompanied by mass unemployment, civil unrest and French politicans sneering at us. Of course that’ll probably happen anyway, but we’d still like the money, please.
Once we’ve got the money we promise we won’t waste it. No, we’ll keep it perfectly safe in our vaults where it can’t do any damage and will enable us to shift it around rapidly to cover the various huge holes in our accounts. Which is all perfectly above board, of course.
What we most certainly wouldn’t do is anything so dangerous as to actually lend it to people who need it. Absolutely not, we’ve learned our lesson – such people can’t be trusted so we don’t do that lending thing anymore. No, instead we’re foreclosing on the debt of as many businesses and homeowners as we can legally get away with every week in order to reduce the burden on you, the taxpayer. This is how trustworthy we are.
Wisely governments have responded to this unprecedented crisis by cutting interest rates towards zero and we’ve naturally had to pass this onto savers while keeping lending rates high in order to discourage people from unnecessary borrowing at lower and more affordable rates. Most savers are disproportionately older and more prudent and have saved carefully their entire working lives for a comfortable retirement, so it may seem unfair that they have to bear the brunt of a crisis that’s absolutely nothing to do with them. But as I said to my fifth under-butler’s assistant the other day when laying him off, these are difficult times and we must all make sacrifices.
In order to give us the money needed to protect the global economic system governments are printing it at record rates. So we’re expecting to see lots of inflation next year which will be good for all of us as the real value of our debt falls significantly. That is unless you’re one of those older, prudent savers who don’t earn anymore so you won’t get any pay rises and will simultaneously see the value of your savings erode still further as prices rise rapidly. Sadly I feel this shows how poorly these people have invested – personally I recommend investing in only the most expensive real-estate and post-impressionist fine art. You get what you pay for, ultimately.
Still in these difficult times we can all take comfort that our leaders are being supported by some of the brightest minds in the industry. We at Bilk have generously lent no less than half a dozen of our best people to various governments to advise them to lend us this money. As these are the same people that devised the schemes that got us into this situation I’m sure you will agree that they are obviously the best ones to get us out of it.
Hence, in reality, there are very few losers. All of you with debt, who can keep some kind of job, can rest safe in the knowledge that governments are coming to your rescue. Meanwhile we here at Bilk and other financial institutions can continue to pay ourselves the salaries and bonuses that fuel so much of our economy. In fact it’s only non-working savers who will lose out and let’s face it, they don’t have much say in the matter anyway. It’s a small price to pay that we’re taking from the prudent to bail out the profligate but frankly most of these people are quite old and would probably have died quite soon anyway.
They have, as we like to say to the happy customers who throng our branches, been well and truly Bilked.
As you will probably know, we here at Bilk have been having a few problems. Now, being fair, no one – apart from a few commentators that everyone ignored – could have foreseen that buying collateralised sub-prime debt would have left us with the small matter of a ten billion dollar hole in our books. Well, aside from my risk management team, whom I replaced with an automated, state of the art computer system written by Nobel Prize winning scientists and guaranteed to never go wrong. Unfortunately it seems the concept that humans aren’t always rational is giving them some teething trouble. Something to do with “not enough atoms in the universe” or something.
Anyway, any suggestion that I replaced my risk managers because they pointed out that these loans were unsafely dependent on the ability of unemployed trailer park home owners in Tennessee to afford the interest on million dollar loans is outrageous and entirely based on hindsight. As our own, completely independent, investigation – led by the heads of our remunerations and audit committees whose appointments I personally supervised – has shown I acted with complete integrity at all times. My actions had absolutely nothing to do with the remote possibility that if we’d stopped buying this stuff our investors would have sold our stock and we wouldn’t have got those huge bonuses, which unfortunately I’m completely unable to repay at the moment because I’ve left my chequebook on my other yacht.
So in the meantime we need some taxpayers’ money to tide us over. It’s important for all of us, you see, because if we were to go under then the ramifications for the world would be severe. The contagion would probably bring down the global financial system and drag us into a decade long depression accompanied by mass unemployment, civil unrest and French politicans sneering at us. Of course that’ll probably happen anyway, but we’d still like the money, please.
Once we’ve got the money we promise we won’t waste it. No, we’ll keep it perfectly safe in our vaults where it can’t do any damage and will enable us to shift it around rapidly to cover the various huge holes in our accounts. Which is all perfectly above board, of course.
What we most certainly wouldn’t do is anything so dangerous as to actually lend it to people who need it. Absolutely not, we’ve learned our lesson – such people can’t be trusted so we don’t do that lending thing anymore. No, instead we’re foreclosing on the debt of as many businesses and homeowners as we can legally get away with every week in order to reduce the burden on you, the taxpayer. This is how trustworthy we are.
Wisely governments have responded to this unprecedented crisis by cutting interest rates towards zero and we’ve naturally had to pass this onto savers while keeping lending rates high in order to discourage people from unnecessary borrowing at lower and more affordable rates. Most savers are disproportionately older and more prudent and have saved carefully their entire working lives for a comfortable retirement, so it may seem unfair that they have to bear the brunt of a crisis that’s absolutely nothing to do with them. But as I said to my fifth under-butler’s assistant the other day when laying him off, these are difficult times and we must all make sacrifices.
In order to give us the money needed to protect the global economic system governments are printing it at record rates. So we’re expecting to see lots of inflation next year which will be good for all of us as the real value of our debt falls significantly. That is unless you’re one of those older, prudent savers who don’t earn anymore so you won’t get any pay rises and will simultaneously see the value of your savings erode still further as prices rise rapidly. Sadly I feel this shows how poorly these people have invested – personally I recommend investing in only the most expensive real-estate and post-impressionist fine art. You get what you pay for, ultimately.
Still in these difficult times we can all take comfort that our leaders are being supported by some of the brightest minds in the industry. We at Bilk have generously lent no less than half a dozen of our best people to various governments to advise them to lend us this money. As these are the same people that devised the schemes that got us into this situation I’m sure you will agree that they are obviously the best ones to get us out of it.
Hence, in reality, there are very few losers. All of you with debt, who can keep some kind of job, can rest safe in the knowledge that governments are coming to your rescue. Meanwhile we here at Bilk and other financial institutions can continue to pay ourselves the salaries and bonuses that fuel so much of our economy. In fact it’s only non-working savers who will lose out and let’s face it, they don’t have much say in the matter anyway. It’s a small price to pay that we’re taking from the prudent to bail out the profligate but frankly most of these people are quite old and would probably have died quite soon anyway.
They have, as we like to say to the happy customers who throng our branches, been well and truly Bilked.
