The Last Straw

They say there is only two sure things in life: Death and Taxes. I would like to add a third: retard investment bankers and arrogant financial mathematicians will figure out a way to make themselves rich while screwing up the lives of everyone else.

Why this rant spewing venom on the uber-rich investment bankers you might ask? Simple I say. One of the biggest problems facing our society right now, that will effect each of our lives within the next 18 months, was nothing more than a scheme concocted by a bunch of 21-year-old financial a-holes based upon the following premise: uneducated people can be conned into borrowing money they can't afford if you sell it properly. The "sub-prime" woes, as they are now being called, will shortly be followed by the credit-card slump and car-loan fiasco. All of which is going to mess up each of our comfortable little lives a whole lot.

Bankers, brokers and everyday finance professionals have been, for some four years now, dining on $25,000 deserts, and $10,000 bottles of wine because they were able to develop the most revolutionary financial product of our time: the loan to people who can't afford it. Shrewdly developed and sold by the largest banks in the world (complicity is a very dirty word), these financial products were slimy from the start. Basically, individuals who otherwise wouldn't qualify for a buy-one-get-one promotion at McDonald's were able to apply for and receive loans in amounts they could never pay back. It was not intended that they would ever pay them back either. In fact, the bankers were counting on it. First you give a loan to someone who can't afford it. The loan is sold to them based on extremely low interest rates and several months up front with no payments. You include small print that adds various fees, penalties and charges for failing to make payments on time. The interest rates and fees increase dramatically over time and hey, if they don't end up paying, you simply foreclose on the property and sell it to someone else. Being that most people want to pay their bills, for a few years these borrowers will scrape and work and live for no other purpose then to continue to pay their ever increasing home, car, credit payments (slavery anyone?) until they are overcome and driven into a pit of poverty and hopelessness. Hopefully, by that time, you have made your extremely large bonus and can comfortably retire at age 28. For the last several years, lots of people made lots of money all over the world, based on the spending habits of the average uneducated American family. Everybody wanted onboard: Germans, Brits, and of course Canadians. And don't get me wrong, I am definitely not saying it was the fault of the borrowers. I have no doubt they were lied to, conned and cajoled into buying these products on the basis that they too could have some bling-bling. The funny part was that everyone knew that crap was going to hit the fan, but they kept on selling the products because it felt so good to give away money to people you knew you were going to bend-over in a couple of years. Isn't that good for a laugh or a few Stella's with your buddies? The middle and lower classes, working their asses off to fund the cocaine and hookers of a few twenty somethings and their twice-divorced single parents. The game was called "human nature and how to screw your fellow man" and now we will all pay the price. The only hope I have left is that the prey of these unscrupulous financiers will simply drive the shiny new vehicles into trees, turn the houses into brothels (not really necessary since most of the properties are in areas the bankers won't even drive through) and use their credit cards to purchase large military style weaponry to exact a blunt form of revenge.

So what are we left with? Nothing but questions and a whole lot of extremely pissed off middle class Americans with easy access to hand guns. Why did the big banks participate in selling financial products based on the screwing poor people? Why did they not see what every first grader knows: don't lend your undershorts to the guy who is always scratching his butt? The answer is always the same: The almighty peso....

I have a great idea for a new financial product that I will be peddling to the major banks. It goes like this: you find two people and get them to give you $200 each, then they find two people....

I know this isn't my best work, but I need to get myself all pissed off again...life has acutally been quite nice (thanks Lisa!).