Let me be brutally honest with you: the markets never, by definition, have confidence in policy makers. The fiscal stimulus, so misjudged and misdirected by allegedly the brightest economic minds in the Western world, has simply delayed an inevitable natural readjustment by the markets.

Recession is part and parcel of an economic cycle. It’s an opportunity for market forces to relieve the system of the dead wood and reward prudence and responsible investing. Recession is inevitably painful, but necessary for the long-term good health and prospects of the economy.  Politicians are predictably blinded by short-term point scoring and the desire to cling to power at all costs – even at the price of crippling national economies.

The rescue packages are flawed fundamentally because they fight to preserve the very things that the market wants to get rid of. These stimuli reward irresponsible investing and lending, excessive risk taking and moral corruption, which are exactly the things that the recession provides an opportunity to punish. The delusion that somehow giving even more cash for the investment banks to mismanage will solve the crisis is flawed and dangerous. It merely delays what will be an even more crushing recession, or more likely, depression.

Poor Adam Smith must be rolling in his grave.

Whether the double dip begins this year or next, with a sovereign debt default (don’t rule the UK defaulting) the initial trigger, along the same lines as Lehman’s was for the investment banking industry, we are on a downward spiral to economic catastrophe.

Instead of ducking the issue or delaying the demise, politicians should be educating people about how best to prepare for it, if they are to emerge from this crisis with any credit.

Prime Minister David Cameron and Chancellor George Osborne take note.

– End –

Related posts:

1. Playing Down The Recession: Bankers, Politicians And Hacks In One Boat
2. The EU Does Pretty Much Nothing To Tackle The Recession. It’s Useless
3. Is China Heading For Recession? It Could Result In A Serious Social Upheaval

You think I’m bluffing, don’t you? OK, let me throw some figures at you. Take the massive bail-out package that the European Union has come up with recently to supposedly save Greece: it totals 120 billion euros and it’s intended to help the Greek economy get back on its feet. Yes, sure, if you believe that, you’ll believe anything. The whole point of ‘saving’ the Greek economy is to see to it that it repays its debts to the banks. Surprised? I bet you are. It’s a con, just like all those ‘stimulus packages’ that were adopted by governments across the world to supposedly overcome the recession. In Britain the now former PM Gordon Brown siphoned away a trillion smackers of public money to save his banker friends. And now that he’s gone, guess who’s going to foot the bill? Yep, the taxpayers.

And it gets worse. This week the EU adopted another huge fund totalling around 750 billion euros that is supposed to protect the union from another financial meltdown. Guess who is going to rip all the benefits? The banks, naturally. It’s their money and they are already salivating at the thought of getting it under some pretext. And they’ll get it, don’t you worry about that. Because the money men win all the time.

If you are still confused or reluctant to take my word for it, ask yourself this: how many bankers have been held to account for causing the now legendary financial meltdown of 2007 which then wiped out whole economies across the world? Practically none, right? (I hope you’re following my train of thought here closely, people.) And how could it have happened that only a few people went down for causing the biggest depression since the last Great Depression? It just couldn’t have been some silly coincidence, could it?

And now comes the killer question: how could it have happened that as soon as the greedy bankers were bailed out by taxpayers’ money they resumed paying themselves bonuses out of this very same money? Huge bonuses, I might add, with serious sarcasm. (I hope you felt that sarcasm in my reasoning.) Now you don’t need to be a huge expert on finance and you don’t even need to have an above average brain to figure out easily that if a bank receives cash from the taxpayers to save itself from collapsing it shouldn’t then use that very same cash to award itself. In fact, once that money changed hands the governments should have kept a close eye on it and counted every penny, or cent, if you happen to be residing in America. And yet the money men simply paid themselves billions and showed two fingers to everyone. And Big Brother pretended and still pretends that he can’t do anything nothing about it.

I’ll be brutally honest with you here: I’m not at all surprised by the way governments suck up to the money men. What are politicians if not the loyal servants of the big banks? It’s in the nature of politicians to feel drawn to bags of money. Many of them end up working for banks, one way or another, when they step down or are kicked out. Just you wait till Mr Brown, the already mentioned former British PM, starts to consult some banks and get six figure sums for that, even if his advice would be useless. And I wouldn’t be at all surprised if there is a huge book deal already in the making that would sweeten Mr Brown’s retirement even more.

And now we come to the most interesting part about how money men rule the world: the regulators. How come they were all looking the other way when the financial meltdown took place? What was it that prevented them from noticing the disappearance of trillions of dollars, pounds and euros?

It was not like it was some small change going missing. And it wasn’t one or two or three bankers involved in the whole big scam. So how come we saw the surprised look on the faces of regulators when the whole bloody thing came crashing down? Well, it’s obvious now, isn’t it? The regulators were in cahoots with the money men. Besides, why on earth would they put pressure on the banks if most of them either come from the banking industry or will end up in it at some point?

And as for rating agencies, well, I suppose it’s a bit like asking the guard dog to bark at the handler who feeds it. Rating agencies are paid by their clients, the financial institutions, to give them good credit ratings, and that is what they do: give them good credit ratings.

So where’s the satire and the humour in all of that, I hear you ask? Well, the funniest thing about it is that if a new financial crisis erupts at any time soon the scenario would be exactly the same: banks will get bailed by governments and the taxpayers will foot the bill. It’s as simple as that. It’s what modern capitalism is all about.

– End –

Related posts:

1. The Current Economic Crisis Tells Us One Thing: Money Men Rule The World
2. My Advice To Governments: Print Money To Help People, Not Banks
3. In My Ideal World Money Men Would Be In The Low Pay Category

Investors and financial markets behave like morons most of the time, panicking over every bloody piece of bad news and generally behaving like retards. Experts and analysts never predict anything properly and it’s only after some calamity happens that they crawl out of everywhere and give us their opinions and even say things like ‘I told you so’ or ‘As I’ve been saying all along…’

The thing is people rely on economic information that is mostly misguided or misleading. Take China, the land of supposed economic miracles, if you base your assumptions on the stats that are produced by the Chinese themselves: who on earth can actually believe anything that China says about its economy? It’s a freaking communist dictatorship, for God’s sake, that denies any say in anything to about 90 per cent plus of its population and produces statistics that would make regimes in North Korea and Cuba blush. Anyone who’s ever lived under a communist dictatorship would tell you that practically all official stats in communist countries are rigged. So if you take this into account you’d soon realise that the so-called ‘economic boom’ in China was and still is more of a smokescreen that the commies use to cover up their incompetence and corruption. All those wild figures about astronomical economic growth each year were pure fantasy and the only benefactors, who have been sharing the spoils of China’s modest success, were the Communist Party bosses, their appointed businessmen and foreign speculators. The overwhlming majority of the Chinese people were and still are just passive viewers at this performance.

So will the Chinese economy get into serious trouble soon, I hear some people asking. And I can tell them: of course it will and it’s in serious trouble already. Just like it’s happening in India, Brazil and Russia, all of which are supposedly doing extremely well, according to their own stats and figures.

But let’s not kid ourselves people: it’s not just the Chinese communists who are peddling dodgy stats. If you look at the figures provided by any democratic Western government, say the one in Britain, you’d never guess that things are not going well. In Britain that has been bankrupted to a crisp by its former ‘great leader’, Prime Minister Gordon Brown, the economy is technically dead. But you’d never know it if you look at the official stats that register signs of economic recovery and even boisterous activity in certain sectors. Inflation, running in Britain in real terms somewhere in the region of 25 per cent a year, is hovering just over 3 per cent at the moment, if you believe the Bank of England and the Treasury, having been stuck at only 1 per cent last year. As any Brit how his spending power is doing and he’ll tell you that he’s cutting on the outgoings, as prices are going through the roof. But in the official la-la land things are looking good. Unemployment in real terms has gone over the 5 million mark, but in the la-la land of official statistics it is still stuck somewhere at the level of 2 million.

Is the situation any different in other civilised western nations? No, not really, as we are already seeing in Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Italy and Greece.

And once we mention Greece why not talk about the strange things that are going on there. If you believe the European Union’s propaganda, the current financial meltdown in Greece is solely caused by the wasteful policies of consecutive Greek governments and the Greek’s overall tendency to milk the generous EU for all it’s worth. Does anyone actually talk about the role of the international banks in f..king Greece’s finances and using its difficulties to make a quick buck? Nope, no one is really saying this. Everyone’s busy scolding the Greeks for their extravagant ways. The international bankers are not to blame, you see. They are never to blame. And when these greedy bastards will bring down Spain or Italy or Ireland we will hear more stories about outrageous overspending by the people of these nations and their governments. And the credit rating agencies will say: We told you so.

Which brings us, rather nicely, to the phenomenon that is credit rating agencies. How come they never predict anything correctly and never warn anyone about impending disasters? Remember the crash of the Tiger Economies in the 1990s, when Japan and all the rest of its mighty neighbours went down in a matter of weeks? The rating agencies then were blissfully unaware of the situation, up to very last moment when the value of all stocks went through the floor. Only then they got all serious and started ringing alarm bells. The same happened with the financial meltdown on 2007. The rating agencies were keeping quiet about the crash and are still, by the way, not really giving us a proper picture of what is happening. And yet, despite that abysmal track record, these very same credit rating agencies continue to issue their silly statements and pretend that they know what they’re talking about.

So there you have it: nothing in the world economy is what it seems. Never has been and never will be.

– End –

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1. Could It Be That The World Economy Is A Virtual One?
2. A Novel Idea To Save The British Economy: Strike A Deal With The Underworld
3. The Current Economic Crisis Tells Us One Thing: Money Men Rule The World

The four Goldman’s execs, who took the stand in the initial phase of the hearings, including Fabrice ‘Pretty Boy’ Tourre, who’s currently looking at 25 years to life for making a billion dollars out of clients on false pretences, wore $100,000 suits each, $20,000 shirts and $10,000 ties, with haircuts ranging from $3,000 to $5,000 and dental jobs in the $1,000,000 category. As a result, the Senators looked distinctly cheap and felt patronised by the dashing four.

The village idiot technique also paid off as Mr Tourre and the others stumbled over each question and pretended not to understand the documents placed in front of them. Josh Birnbaum, one of the four, said that he knew nothing about anything, as he was a loner within Goldman. Michael Swenson, another executive, chose the offended innocence look, slightly on the gay side, while Daniel Sparks pretended to be a mental retard with the age of four and constantly drank water from his glass and played with himself under the table.

The hearing picked up some tempo with the arrival of David Viniar, Goldman’s chief financial officer, who was dressed in $250,000 suit, $100,000 shirt and $120,000 tie, while sporting a luxurious $1,000,000 wig and an showing off an impressive $4,000,000 dental job. Mr Viniar chose a very strong line of defence, saying that he had never heard of Goldman Sachs and didn’t know what it was that the Senators wanted from him.

But, of course, the killer blow to the sub-committee was delivered by no other than Goldman Sachs’ CEO, Lloyd Blankfein, who was wearing a suit costing $1,500,000, a $500,000 shirt and a $300,000 tie, while sporting a $50,000 haircut and showing off a $15,000,000 dental job. ‘That man is a genius in standing up to people who wear $1,000 suits, $100 shirts and $50 ties,’ Bob Illegitimate, a body language specialist from Boston told StirringTrouble. ‘When you know you look like twenty million dollars you can say whatever you want to people and not answer their questions.’

Mr Blankfein’s testimony was a corker and he refused point blank to be patronised by the Senators. Asked by the chairman of the subcommittee, Senator Carl Levin, whether he thought Goldman was in the right for betting against financial products it was selling, Mr Blankfein produced a hilarious expression, broke wind and then basically told his tormentor to go f..k himself.

Although GS is accused by the US Securities and Exchange Commission of fraud most experts are betting on the US government apologising to Goldman in the end and giving it some taxpayers’ money to play with.

– End –

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1. Goldman Sachs Lays Off Ten Per Cent Of Its Staff. The Future Doesn’t Look Bright Anymore
2. Village Idiot Look Is Going To Be Mega Huge This Year, Fashion Experts Say
3. Whom Do You Think You Are Kidding Mr Goldman?

Imagine a meeting between Mr Soros and leading economists and financiers to discuss new ideas about ways of making money.

Soros: Ladies and gentlemen, you will agree that we have come to a crossroads: the old economics almost bankrupted the world. What went wrong and what do we do to repair the damage?

Voice: The old economics relied heavily on mathematics to demonstrate that markets were efficient. Every PhD in mathematics was recruited to produce more simultaneous equations to demonstrate that a nation’s economy could be left in the hands of bankers and market traders. The function of government was merely to collect taxes and make it possible for everyone to make more money.

Soros: Hold on, that system produced an unprecedented upsurge in global wealth.

Voice: Of course it did, but only for the lucky few. The average middle class family in America, for instance, saw its disposable income drop in the two decades before 2008. Had that continued, there would have been a middle class revolt. And remember that workers were taking home less money due to the influx of cheap Chinese goods. Social unrest would have undermined that model sooner or later.

Soros: I mourn the passing of the efficient market model because I made a lot of money and I could tell governments to piss off.

Voice: That’s as maybe, but we have now to think radically differently. The efficient market model doesn’t work anymore. We need an efficient regulated market model.

Soros: Hold on. Don’t tell me you are going back to Karl Marx and the planned economy. Even the Chinese have abandoned that.

Voice: No, but the sage of Highgate talked a lot of sense. He argued that the main objective of economic activity should be people’s welfare instead of making money. He was wrong in thinking that markets should be abolished. We have to arrive at a neo-Marxian model which will lull people into thinking that capitalism is a thing of the past.

Soros: Don’t use the world capitalism. It is like a red rag to a bull for the people of the world. We must coin a new expression. Why not Fair For All Economics? Everyone has a fair chance of getting rich.

Voice: That’s just pathetic. Who is going to fall for that rubbish? You sound like a Marxist yourself.

Voice: Why not Fun Economics? The more you do the greater the fun you will experience.

Soros: We need to create an impression that things are changing and that governments are interfering into the money making process.

Voice: But if governments take over we’ll become redundant.

Soros: Didn’t you hear what I just said? We’ll only create an impression that things are changing. Who’ll still be advising governments on their priorities? Same old us. You know that most governments are pathetic when it comes to economic decision making. Just look at the mess Gordon Brown and Alastair Darling have made in Britain.

Voice: You mean we’ll still be setting the economic agenda and not the governments?

Soros: Of course. Why are we immensely rich and the governments are very poor? Institutes of New Economics will have to be set up at all leading universities worldwide – even in China. That way we’ll create a new myth: that markets are now regulated for the benefit of the people. I can’t wait to start making my next billion!

– End –

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1. The Strange Case Of President Obama And Petrobras. With George Soros Smack In The Middle Of It
2. Don’t Blame Bankers For The Financial Meltdown. Blame The Mathematicians
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Herman Van Rompuy: Mesdames et Messieurs, we have reached a historic landmark in the evolution of the EU into a federal state. The deal with Greece confers greater powers on us to supervise and regulate Eurozone economies. What steps shall we now take?

President Nicolas Sarkozy: What’s wrong with you? You’re not supposed to reveal that our goal is to create the United States of Europe. You should instead insist that national governments are still sovereign.

HVR: Je m’excuse… Sorry, I forgot I was speaking on the record. You, Monsieur le Président will, of course be the first President of the United States of Europe.

PNS: Watch it. You talk too much.

Chancellor Angela Merkel: Stop it, meine Kinder, we have to behave like responsible adults. I propose that we set up a new EU Central Bank. We Germans are getting fed up with Frenchmen running everything. The head of the International Monetary Fund is French. So is the president of the EU Central Bank. Do I need to continue?

PNS: Chère Angela, I’m sure we can come to an arrangement. Perhaps a beautiful German Fräulein could be nominated as joint head of these two banks? I’m sure our officials would welcome them warmly.

CAM: You are even more sex-mad after your recent local government defeats than usual. Why is it that a Frenchman thinks every pressing question can be solved in bed? No, we need a serious, German approach to this.

HVR: Chères enfants, stop squabbling and let’s get serious. We now, for the first time since the Roman Empire, have the power to decide how each state runs its economy. It has always annoyed me, as a Belgian, that our national treasure, chips, are derided by the French, Germans, Italians and so on. I propose that we legislate that chips are served with every meal in the EU.

CAM: Nein, nein, nein. We don’t like chips. Instead I propose that the Frankfurter sausage be made compulsory as a breakfast staple…

PNS: Non, non, non. The French croissant is much superior. Our dieticians tell us that eating German sausages and chips for breakfast would turn us into Germans. God forbid! Sorry, Angela, but we want to stay French.

HVR: Can we not raise the discussion above the level of the stomach? We have an opportunity to decide how much is spent on education, science, defence, climate change, social security, child care and a host of other important sectors.

PNS: I don’t care about those areas of policy. Unless everyone in Europe has a French breakfast of coffee and croissants, I can’t see how they can take a sensible decision.

CAM: Hold it, mein Herr, a good German breakfast is vastly superior. Why are we Germans now the top people in Europe? I’ll tell you. We eat German sausages, drink German beer, consume pumpernickel bread and have cold showers in the morning. I propose that all of Europe should do the same.

Commotion in the hall. Leaders start throwing sausages, croissants, chips and anything else that comes to hand at one another. Beer and wine is flowing in all directions.

HVR: Mesdames et Messieurs, this is disgraceful. It’s like a Marx Brothers movie. Surely we can act in a civilised manner…

He is cut short as a custard pie lands on his face and temporarily chokes him…

– End –

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Chancellor Angela Merkel: As a good Hausfrau, I’ve told the Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou that no household can live beyond its means. In Germany that means counting the small change and existing on one less litre of beer a week. The Greeks will just have to learn to drink less ozoe, or whatever they drink there.

George Papandreou: Yes, Frau Merkel, you are a wonderful Hausfrau, but not everyone wants to live like you. There’d be no pleasure in life anymore. We, Greeks, like to live merrily. We can’t just stop partying.

CAM: Look, you can party as much as you want, but don’t expect the German taxpayers to foot your fun bill. Let’s be serious now: who is going to contribute to the European Monetary Fund (EMF)?

GP: We have no money at all. However, we could throw in a few IOUs.

Spanish PM: As a Spaniard and Mr Bean lookalike, I must say our treasury is empty. But we could give you all the shares in our collapsing construction companies.

Portuguese PM: I have to report that the floods in Madeira have bankrupted us. We can’t contribute anything.

Irish PM: We’ve just been sandbagged by the international financial community. We haven’t even got a sack of potatoes to put in.

Italian PM: Italy has no lire to put in, sorry, I meant euros. All our money has gone on supporting my lavish life style. I think it’s a good policy as it keeps all the girls in Italy under the age of 25 in employment.

CAM: Hold on, you pack of scroungers. Do you think Germany is going to put all the money into the EMF just for you to dip into when you can’t pay your bills?

Dutch PM: No, but you could also ask President Sarkozy to put something in. Or perhaps I should rephrase that.

President Nicolas Sarkozy (PNS): I was waiting for some imbecile to suggest that the French taxpayer, the most honest person on the planet, should subsidise you tax dodgers. I suggest that Chère Angela and I get together to find a solution.

Danish PM: We’re not going to pay for your canoodling. Pay for it yourself.

PNS: You misunderstand me. May I propose something which will be very popular?

Irish PM: What’s that?

PNS: We tax people for breathing our air. I hear the Swiss tried it once but could not collect the tax.

Italian PM: That would start a revolution. You would be deprived of air by someone’s hands straight away.

PNS: Non, non, non. I would only tax foreigners and their pets. Think of all the money those rich Americans with their pet poodles would pay.

British PM: Monsieur le Président, I always thought you were a jackass and you’ve just proved it. Clearly Carla has been applying downward pressure on your windpipe recently. Any idiot knows the Americans would not fall for such a ruse. You know what they say: It’s Tuesday so this must be France. They’ll simply say: It’s Tuesday, so we’ll skip France.

CAM: I’m almost in despair. Let’s ask our new EU President for some ideas.

EU President: Er, er. I thought my job was to carry out your wishes, Chère Madame, and not to think for myself.

CAM: You were not supposed to say that. We chose you because you are the dimmest bureaucrat around. It turns out that you are dimmer than that.

ECP: Je m’excuse, je m’excuse…

CAM: I should think so.

Portuguese PM: I have just had a brainwave. I’m called Socrates not without a reason.

CAM: Careful, careful, we don’t want to have to pay medical bills for you as well.

Portuguese PM: I’ll ignore that. Why don’t we put all our old money in the EMF? I mean all the marks, francs, lire, pesetas and so on which are still stored in our Central Banks. That way, we’ll give the impression we’ve all made huge sacrifices to set up the EMF.

CAM: But all that money is just useless paper.

Portuguese PM: No, it is not. We’ll denominate it in euros.

CAM: What a wizard idea. When the euro collapses we can all dip into this fund and refloat our economies. I propose that Herr is made President of the EMF. All agreed?

Voices: You bet.

– End –

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Not anymore, though. The Greek economic meltdown has undermined confidence in the euro. There is a feeling that Spain, Portugal, Ireland might follow the same path and go bust.

Imagine a meeting called by the head of the European Central Bank (ECB) in Frankfurt with all 27 member states present, plus some overseas guests.

ECB President: ‘Guys, you will forgive me for interrupting your busy schedule but we have important matters to discuss. When we adopted the euro the outlook was very rosy. We thought that our currency would take over the world and replace the US dollar. The Chinese were behind us, as were the Indians, Russians, Brazilians and everyone else who wanted to see an end to Yankee domination. Even Hamas has asked us if we could arrange for the euro to become their currency, so that they could piss of the Israelis and the Americans.’

Gloomy silence hangs in the hall.

ECB President: ‘However, the Greeks have let us all down by going bankrupt. We imposed stringent conditions on them in order to join the euro zone. They met all our criteria with flying colours. Unfortunately, everything their finance ministry sent us was false. They simply made the numbers up. What are we to do with the Greeks?’

An angry voice from the floor: ‘Hang them out to dry. Let them slide into the Mediterranean. Why should we bail them out with our hard earned money? They are lazy and will have to learn some financial discipline.’

Another voice from the floor: ‘But isn’t there a danger that the Greek workers will wreck the whole country.’
He is interrupted by shouts of: ‘So what, we can spend our holidays somewhere else!’

ECB President: ‘May I continue? If Greece goes down, Portugal, Spain and perhaps Ireland would follow. It could become a chain reaction. Where would we be then? We would all become paupers. So we have to bail them out.’
Another voice from the floor: ‘No, no, no. Only over our dead bodies. We must teach those lazy bums that we do not provide free lunches for them. They have to stand on their own two feet.’

Voice of reason from the floor: ‘The communist in Greece actually want the country to collapse. Then the workers there will take power. The corporations and fat cats will all be put in prison and forced to disgorge their stolen wealth.’

Hushed silence prevails for a while.

Cautious voice from the floor: ‘We are risking to inflame a class war in Greece. It might spread to other weak states. Remember the communists almost took power in Portugal in the mid-1970s and also in Spain and Italy further back. No one loves a banker, let alone a central banker at present. So how do we avoid being shredded by the incoming revolutionaries?’

A voice with an Eastern accent: ‘As I see it, gentlemen, you’re faced with a stark choice. The euro is going down the pan and you have to choose a currency to replace it. There are two choices. One is the US dollar, but the Americans are in trouble themselves now and they will try to get out of the mess at your expense. The EU will simply be run from Washington in America’s interest.’
Voice ‘So what is the other choice?’

A voice with an Eastern accent: ‘Well, you could always ask the most powerful people in the world to step in…’
Inquisitive voice: ‘You mean the Mafia?’

Voice with an Eastern accent: ‘No, of course not. I mean the glorious Chinese with their yuan.’

Gasps of disbelief are heard around the hall.

Voices from the floor: ‘‘The Chinese yuan! That would mean we’ll have to start learning Chinese and become subservient to Beijing.’

Voice with an Eastern accent: ‘No, of course not. The Chinese will look after you much better than the Americans. They will not force their own rules down your throats, like the Yankees. As bankers you will have all the freedom you want as there would be no need to play with this stupid democracy and listen to the demands of your ignorant people who don’t know what’s good for them. You’ll simply adopt the Chinese model and rule forever. Especially as you already have parts of the Chinese model in place: unelected leaders, no accountability and so on…’

Amazement in the hall. Shouts of disbelief.

Voice with an Eastern accent: ‘Of course, you would need to be clever when introducing your new currency. You will have to tell your people that you are simply strengthening the euro by making them look exactly like the euros only with the word ‘yuan’ on them. The stupid peasants will not notice the difference anyway.’

Shouts from the floor: ‘Bravo, bravo, Mr Chinese Central Bank Chairman, you are a financial wizard. You have solved all our financial problems.’

– End –

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2. So What’s All This About Saving The Euro? It’s An Arse Saving Exercise First And Foremost
3. Is The Renminbi Becoming Asia’s Leading Currency?

Why all the fuss, you may ask. Well, let me enlighten you: the Serious Fraud Office, that’s a bunch of accountants, if you didn’t know it, have announced yesterday that it would not pursue legal action against Bernie’s British based operations. BM, as he is known among his close friends, is now doing 150 years for stealing $65 billion. Rumours reach me that he has already managed to launch an investment scheme in jail, and it has collapsed, leaving all the inmates out of pocket. What a man! And what a feel for other people’s money. Gordon Brown should have a tattoo inscribed of his image on his chest.

So that you know, the SFO has said that it couldn’t find ‘insufficient evidence to provide a realistic prospect of conviction’ against either the company, Madoff Securities International Ltd, or its stuff that consisted of 28 extremely talented individuals half of whom were traders. And that, I hasten to add, despite the fact that last year the SFO boys said that MSI was playing a crucial part in the whole Ponzi scheme.

But enough of this nonsense. Let me ask you this: can one man steal $65 billion? Come on, think about it. Roll that figure in your mouth, drool on it, imagine all the zeros that follow the two digits.

And the answer would be ‘no’! No one can steal that much money, all by himself. No chance, not even half a chance. Of course it was a team effort. Big names must have been involved, regulators were obviously paid off, senior bankers must have been sharing the illegal proceeds. I would even go as far as saying that some members of government must have been aware of what was happening, but looked the other way.

The funniest thing of all how everyone rushed to believe good old Bernie that he had pulled it off all by his little old self. No questions were asked. Very decent it was of him. Very honest, in a kinky sort of way.

I remembers one investigator telling me that once you steal over a million, be it dollars or euros or even pound sterling, you run a big risk of getting noticed. And that was a man who spent many years tracking down fraudsters and swindlers and con-artists. He also told me that it took a sophisticated network of bank accounts to move the stolen money between them to avoid detection. He did mention though that such things as client accounts in legal companies did help to hide large amounts of money but he was still adamant that once you would be steling millions it would be pretty hard to hide them.

In Bernie’s case, we’re talking about $65 billion. OK, the amount was spread between several years, but it has come to light that he had actually invested – in a proper sense, that is – only something like half a billion and the rest of the money  just went walkies.

Let me tell you what I think really happened: Bernie was, of course, working with many other people, serious people with connections. Maybe even senior politicians and top bankers and big shot lawyers. And these people have decided when he was caught out – by chance, by the way, all because of the financial meltdown – that he should take the blame for everything.

Look, Bernie, they said to him, why don’t you take the rap for the whole thing? It will look great on your CV and you will help many good people from having to explain some of the honest mistakes they have made in the past. Not to mention that your family will not have to suffer. And we promise to look after you when you spend your time in the slammer. You won’t even notice the difference between your penthouse and your new place of residence.

And Madoff had agreed. And took the rap. For all of the $65 billion. And I bet you he probably even feels a certain sense of satisfaction now. Because it’s not like he going down for some miserly hundred grand, or even a mil. He is going down in style and with a bang, so to speak. And he is expecting to be looked after well.

I wonder if he would not be tempted to confess to stealing even more money. Say, $500 billion? Compliments of some other group of serious people? And why doesn’t he actually claim to have brought down the whole US economy? The possibilities are endless here.

Bernie should also consider taking the rap for the whole world crisis. Would save so many people all that hassle of proving that they never touched a cent of other people’s money.

– End –

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Why indeed.

Meanwhile millions of chocolate lovers in Britain and throughout the world are devastated by the news. Or at least pretend to be devastated. As one of them, mother of ten, Angie, from Newcastle, told me, it would very difficult to get used to eating chocolates that would smell of cheese. ‘I’m bracing myself for Cadbury Cheddar Bars and Cadbury Stilton chocs,’ she said, weeping. Another chocoholic, Bruce, a practicing psychopath, said that he comforts himself with the thought that Cadbury cheesy spreads might not be that bad – if you put salt and pepper on them.

Cadbury Chairman, Roger Carr, denied that the takeover of the company by Kraft had a cheesy whiff to it. He said that as chairman and principle shareholder, he simply couldn’t say ‘no’ to being offered so much money. I’m not stupid, you know, Mr Carr said in Mandarin, for some reason. I can count, and my cut in the deal was definitely worth it. I was in it for the money anyway, he then added. Who cares what they put in those chocolates. I personally prefer expensive junk food with my morning bottle of vodka.

Good for you, Mr Carr.

On the lighter side, Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who is known for his addiction to Cadbury’s produce, came out fighting yesterday, promising that Kraft’s takeover would not result in any British job losses. He is like that, Mr Brown is. He knows how to reassure people. He said exactly the same thing about Rover some years ago and look at where Rover is now: it’s prospering and making cars. Well, it’s actually gone bust and all the workers were laid off, but still Brown did offer comfort at a difficult time. It’s not for something that he is no longer known as Iron Chancellor.

Chocoholics Anonymous, a non-profit organisation that helps people fight their addiction to chocolate by getting them to become hooked on things like booze and dope, cautiously welcomed Cadbury takeover. We’ve heard that Kraft was planning to add cheesy flavours to most chocolates, CA’s director, Benny Cracker, said and we hope that it might help some chocoholics switch to other less harmful things like alcohol or soft drugs. In any case they can be rest assured that sister organisations, Alcoholics Anonymous and Junkie Anonymous, will be there for them at all times.

No one in Kraft was available for comment on the deal, but as our sources tell us, the American food giant has already planned a massive party to celebrate its successful bid and several asset stripping companies have been invited to the bash to throw a few ideas around. The name Cadbury Cheesy Chocolate Bars has been touted already for the first exciting new product to hit the shops in spring.

Still, chocoholics should be grateful though that Cadbury was not taken over by a company that I involved in sewage or fertiliser production. The whiff and the taste then might have been stronger and less pleasant.

– End –

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