I’m on a thing called a video conference with my cohorts, Swinefever, Ginger Bork, Astral Martin & Pitt-Quicker … And we all agree things are pretty bleak. Yes there’s the whole people dying thing, but the circle of life and all that, however the economy has tanked and that is bad news for everyone’s finances. The elephant in the imaginary room is that no one is allowed to say their bonus is more important than human lives, but it’s what we are all thinking….
The counter argument is that poverty and neglect may well kill more than the blight ever could and if Pitt-Quicker can”t buy his new Ferrari then hundreds in Maranello will starve. While it is true that P-Q could survive on a lot less money and his work bears no relation to his value to anyone but himself and a few cronies, the fact remains he is a wealth creator and the obscene amount he earns spreads the wealth to wine merchants, Italian tailors, over-priced ski resorts and luxury car-makers – like you wouldn’t believe. If P-Q goes down we all sink with him… mainly because he’s got my pension in an offshore fund somewhere.
After the call I sit and ponder the meaning of life and conclude we are a hard-hearted bunch – us City types – only concerned with our own comfort and well-being as long as we don’t get caught. Not perhaps the best motives to run the country’s cash machines with, or the World’s come to think of it.
In my case I’m ex-officio of course. I was excused employment once they started demanding the chosen were competent to fill their desks. They didn’t actually fire me for incompetence, it said ‘over-staffing’ on the letter, but we all knew what they meant. The whole bloody country was in the soup by then and I wasn’t going to get them out of it. Still, they sent me off with a small sack of gold and an adulterated pension, but no more feeding at the trough for me – and I’ve been tightening my belt ever since.
Which was fair enough. I had blagged it for 30 years, moving between posts before the modesty of my professional talents caught up with me. The problem was of course there were too many people in the marble halls with limited abilities and that’s what led to the whole tea-trolley disaster of ’08, that and unconfined avarice. I didn’t see it coming for one minute, but then I couldn’t from the rear booth at Pomeroy’s or the Silver Ring at Ascot.
And now it looks like we are in the soup again. Admittedly it’s not the fault of my fellow croupiers this time, but the blow that has fallen on us all has fallen on them and they like to think they are above all earthly matters – being divine and all that.
P-Q, Bork and Swinefever were all looking distinctly shifty on the call whenever the state of the markets was mentioned. I gradually realized it was a look of genuine fear on their faces. And these were players who cleaned up in ’08 while most of the cognoscenti were running around like headless chickens. Seeing the fear in their eyes put the wind up me I can tell you. And AM – who owns more factories than I have brain cells – looked whiter than a sheet.
It has taken a plague of biblical proportions to wipe the usual smug look off their faces, and I can’t help admitting that is giving me a certain sense of satisfaction, to see them humbled a bit. But on the other hand I can’t get the look of fear in their eyes out of my head, no matter how much Gin I drink.
Bulk and The Devil 