Text Box: Text Box: Text Box: Monday 22nd September 2008 So unsurprisingly it’s the Governments and of course more specifically you that will clean up the foul economic stench left by the greed of the world’s banks– is anyone surprised? Men like Andy Hornby, who in May rather scandalously described HBOS’s shares as a “much better investment” than rival London banks’ are bailed out after a situation caused by the capitalist desire to get richer, and richer and supremely richer. Were we all meant to feel jubilation for the likes of Wall Street and our own City traders as Friday was a day when they “filled their boots” as I’m sure you’re aware, one red-top reported? The HBOS merger is a dream come true for Hornby of course. Remember when BSkyB tried to buy Manchester United, but were reminded by the Jimmy Cricket tapping on their shoulder– the now defunct Monopolies & Mergers Commission, that maybe it wouldn’t really be in the interests of fair play? Well their successor, the Competition Commission has just been held to ransom and gagged with more than just a few rolls of Government red-tape to stop it objecting to a bank which combined has more banking power than even Adam Smith could have dreamed possible. As Adolf Hitler famously said- “The masses of the people will more likely fall victim to a big lie, than a small one.” A tyrant, but an intellectual one, no-one will deny as he proved with his propaganda machine, and is it not possible that the books of HBOS have more than a few PR Masterchefs cooking them nice and crispy? Would HBOS really have gone under? Would a AIG-style Federal intervention have been fairer in the long term? The answers to these questions, we are unlikely to ever know as you can be sure they will be embezzled in the debris of the ‘Credit Crunch’ and the political turf war. Of course it’s not just the banks that are writing blank cheques. Out in China (conveniently after the Olympics and Paralympics have passed over) the milk companies thought they’d had a bright idea to water down milk– a Eureka! Moment if you will. Mix in deadly chemicals and even the suits in Starbucks are wondering what’s floating in their lattes. Fantastic– what a capitalist, Bernard Matthews would be proud of them. As The Sun would say, the best thing you can do in this greed-driven world (OK maybe they didn’t quite use those words) is to smile and make light of the situation. Except I don’t see many people laughing. Text Box: Links and affiliates Contact Me Text Box: Archive Text Box: Andy Hornby, HBOS CE– recently described as “good looking”. Greed makes the World go round