Wednesday 11 July 2012

The Pecking Order Of The Pyramid Of Ponzi

There is a distinct pecking order here, which dictates the amount of taxpayers' money you will get:

Banks (and many governments of EU member states) are playing a merry pass the parcel whereby they will keep bailing each other out until all the money is gone.

Bankers who let the cat out of the bag lose their jobs, but are given multi-million pound golden goodbyes.

If you set up a taxpayer-backed Ponzi scheme and granted yourself the right to draw out far, far more than you ever paid in, despite it having been public knowledge from the word go that there was no actual sinking fund (not only is there no fund, there is an accrued deficit of two whole years' worth of GDP) then it's clearly the next generations' problem (not that people working in future had any say in laws passed sixty or seventy years ago), thus doubling up the misery in future.

If you own land, you are entitled to subsidised loans. Especially if you bought land you couldn't really afford. Or indeed if you want to sell land at inflated prices to people who can't really afford those inflated prices.

If you chipped in a few quid a week to a Xmas savings club and the directors run off with the money, you'll be lucky to get half of it back, and the government allows something vaguely approaching normal market forces* to apply. It's also worth noting that the directors of said club were treated far less favourably than directors of failed banks.

* Lloyds/HBOS a government-controlled bank was cordially invited by a government-employed judge to chip in £8 million and the government set up a charity to reimburse them, which accounts for most of the 50p they got back. As RA points out in the comments, the average return with company insolvencies is about 7p in the £1. So the Farepak savers are nowhere near the bottom of the pecking order.

Thanks to MBK for exhibits 2 and 3.

5 comments:

James Higham said...

Accountability of them and representation of our voices - these are the issues.

Mark Wadsworth said...

JH, it is I suppose down to too many people not bothering to vote any more (those who have fallen off the bottom of the pyramid), something about which I intend to do something. You can't expect justice in this world, you just have to vote for as many goodies for yourself as possible and hope that it evens things out.

Anonymous said...

I was surprised to see that Farepak savers got back 50p in the £. That seems like a lot. In Insolvency Law lectures we were told that unsecured creditors were likely to get on the order of 7p.

Mark Wadsworth said...

RA, fair point, I've added a foot note.

Bayard said...

Talking of banks, have you seen this? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mII9NZ8MMVM&feature