John Varley of Barclay’s Bank, London. Let us all take a moment to shed a tear for somebody whose business was given massive taxpayer money, and, as a reward for his successful Reverse Socialism Corporate Welfare money raising scam, is being paid Even More taxpayer money. Sob sob. Okay, moment’s up. It’s pretty standard (Standard Oil?) for people who got their money directly from Government Subsidies, like those in the Oil, Mining, Timber, Shipping, Railroad, So-Called “Defense” and automotive Industries, none of which would exist without massive government funding, to piss and moan that having to pay TAX on the money they got free of any other charge from the Other Taxpayers is somehow Tyranny.
Who do these freaks think they are, Imperial Demigods to whom us Mere Mortals must pay Tribute, and undying love and loyalty?
Bankers, now, as well. Not content to get the Usual corporate welfare reverse-socialism, you know, getting paid to count the money that changes hands between Industrialist corporations owned by an Elite Very Few and Other Industrial Corporations owned by the same very few… A guy can sell himself to himself through the Legal Fiction of “corporate citizen” and actually both himself and himself make a profit. And with less taxes. So the Very Richest overextended themselves buying their own products at grossly inflated prices, all on credit, and crashed the economy of the entire world. Then they got emergency bailout money, they got back all the properties they sold to their own banks, all the real estate, the people they defrauded with their Impossible Mortgages lost their houses, lost their jobs, lost their credit rating (the Credit Ratings maintained by the Bankers who were defrauding them) and the very Bankers who caused the troubles now refuse to handle the very small bailout moneys aimed at the Victims of their fraud. Pueblo Bank and Trust, locally, makes huge political points even among those whose mortgages and home ownership dreams are next on the chopping block.
“WE refuse bailout money!” the CEO loudly proclaims in about half of his Lying ass commercials. But it’s not money that’s coming to him that’s being refused, it’s money aimed at his victims, and the victims of his Capitalist Comrades. But “he” nobly refuses it. Mighty White of him.
His bank isn’t one in the chain of dominoes that the banking industry had become simply because of the bailout of the largest banks. Otherwise the hypocrite bastard would be “recording” his commercials to a fake camera outside a cardboard shanty by now.
If those higher up in the Banking Chain of Command had continued to fail, his bank would be toast, and since Bankers and other Rich Capitalists don’t know how to do actual WORK he’d be completely lost.
Those who do the REAL work that keeps his fantasy bubble of Wealth from bursting would refuse to do it for him.
The good news and the bad news is that they might all come to that same state anyway. My advice is always the same, don’t go around the Shanty Hoovervile Camps boasting about how you’re better than the others because you were once rich. And by unspoken extension, that you were instrumental and made a profit in the destruction of their own homes, careers, families, homes, steady food supply, homes… Life in the shantytowns isn’t as much a popularity competition as life in the Gated Community, but making yourself stink in the nostril of your neighbor in the Shantytown can prove to be lethal. Bankers and other “White Collar Financial Elite” Desk-pilots won’t survive without a lot of help from their neighbors.
Make yourself really unpopular and you won’t get that help. Your worthless ass will be one of the first to die. Nobody would have to lift a finger to harm you.
