Commentary
Banking on your honour and honesty
By Linda S. Heard
Online Journal Contributing Writer


Oct 23, 2008, 00:15

I have missed my calling in life. I never knew what I wanted to do when I grew up until now. What finer way to earn a living than becoming a banker? So here it is.

If you’re fed up with all the gold bullion stored in your closets or owning an ostrich farm doesn’t seem like such a good idea after all, I have a suggestion. Give your cash to me!

Yes, I’ve decided to open a one-woman bank. Once you’ve assessed that I’m a suitably stand-up individual worthy of being a member of the banking fraternity and you’ve dumped your lifesavings on my living room rug, here’s the plan.

The first thing I’m going to do is hand some of it to my friends Fred and Dora, who for years have wanted to swap their mobile home parked on a Welsh mountainside for a desirable two-bedroom residence near Aldgate Station in London.

Fred assures me that his vegetable allotment will cover the rock bottom mortgage I’m proposing to offer. He’s right. Cabbages come at a premium nowadays.

But even if the Bank of England one day ups its base rate and property prices continue to dive, what do I care? As a fully-fledged banker, I have a sacred duty to harden my heart and turf them out. Well, I might just give them a lift to the arches of Waterloo Station where they can fight over the biggest cardboard boxes.

Or, and this is very important, provided I can read the tea leaves early enough, I can pull off a brilliant coup. This will entail luring a couple of sharp-talking salesmen from the used car showroom down the road, who will be tasked to put their slippery tongues to good use.

They will package up Fred and Dora’s bad mortgage with others of the same tainted ilk and flog them to gullible chumps in the far-flung corners of the globe.

Soft landing

Naturally, when a tearful Fred and Dora come-a-knocking to ask for more time to pay due to an attack by the dreaded Delia radicum (cabbage root fly to you), hoping to walk me down memory lane in an attempt to soften my emotions, I shall merely tell them this: “Sorry and all that but the last time I looked the financial institution holding your loan lies in the outer reaches of Kazakhstan.”

Banking really is a win-win profession and I fail to understand why I didn’t think of it before. Whatever happens, Bank Heard It All or, rather “Hoard it All” can’t fail. Because in the unlikely event bankruptcy looms, I will have a soft landing thanks to the multi-million pound golden parachute I’ve reserved for such a contingency.

Don’t worry! You won’t miss out either. Any holes in your savings will be covered by the generous British taxpayer, who has been ordered by the government to keep mum and think of England.

I know what you’re thinking. That woman who occupies this space in our beloved Online Journal each week was always on the weird side but now she’s finally cracked. Not so, my friends. What I have proposed is a tried and true formula conceived across the pond.

Look around you and spot the bankers. In these turbulent times they are the ones without a furrow in their brow. Their bronzed complexion advertises lazy days on the Riviera; their custom made dark suits scream respectability; their slightly protruding paunches say expense account lunches.

My new profession’s pin-up boy is the former boss of the defunct Lehman Brothers, Richard S. Fuld, who has been unfairly grilled on Capitol Hill.

Can you believe that Beverly Hills Democrat Henry Waxman actually asked him if he thought his $480 million salary accrued over the past decade was “fair”? What’s fair in love and banking?

But I digress. Just like a real banker, here’s what I can do for you. Once I’ve taken care of Fred and Dora, I will hire a minivan along with a couple of trusty thugs to cart the rest of the loot down to my local casino, where I will be waiting at the roulette table with itchy palms. “Place your bets messieurs. Rien ne va plus!” Oops!

Never fear! The good old Bank of England is always good for a short-term loan. Otherwise, I will sell-off the Blue Chip stocks I inherited from my granny and spread nasty rumours around.

Hopefully, other shareholders will, lemming-like, follow suit and then once those shares are nice “n” cheap, I’ll buy them all back plus plenty more. Or I can bet on a market massacre and laugh all the way to the bank -- that’s as long as there’s any left.

Did I hear you use the world “unethical”? Don’t blame me! It’s a “made in the USA” system of legal grand larceny and, as we all know, they always do things bigger and better than anyone else.