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Willie Sutton
Willie Sutton
In a curious parallel with the Great Depression when many millions lost their homes and money, I’m reminded about the phrase reputedly said by a USA bank robber of the time, and how it could equally well be applied to our current predicament….
When asked “Mr Sutton, why do you rob banks?”, he is supposed to have said;
…..because that’s where the money is.
More likely as a real attributed saying is this one, about his gun-toting while robbing banks;
You can’t rob a bank on charm and personality
Both quotes I’ll come to later…(SP)
Brown, Obama and the Western Dilemma about ‘Business as Usual’ (BAU)
The trouble with a return to the ‘BAU scenario is that all the old bad habits will return along with an even faster return to a fossil-carbon dominated society with all the climate problems in tow. Today on the Number 10 website, toothless PM Brown of the UK is re-iterating his mantra of the past few months;
Of course, we own the banks and in reality there’s absolutely nothing to stop them. The ideal solution out of the ‘lack of credit’ predicament has been passed over, unfortunately….
The best solution would have been to give every citizen of the UK, every man, woman and child, an equal share of the money that’s been used to bail out the corrupt and incompetent bankers.
- Some people would have frittered it – just like the bankers! But those people would stimulate the economy with their spending. And the receivers of the cash all cash up, in banks!
- Some would use it to pay off loans and mortgages – so the banks would get the money anyway and those people would have more to spend.
- The parents of minors would have had to invest it in their name, in the banks… – so the banks get the money again, ready to lend to businesses etc.
As I say, the point has passed, but it would have been a win-win situation, unlike now where we still have to pay, both in loans and in higher future taxes. The only winners are the incompetent and crooked bankers and other money spivs.
Which brings me back to,
A Military Way out of The Credit Crunch
Because all of the missing money, the money that we’ve had to give to the banks to pay for their losses, it’s all had to have gone somewhere. Like the Zimbabwe ladies in the news today or the wealthy Nigerians of my wife’s experience; like crooked Stanford and Madoff, the money has gone offshore. To places like The Cayman’s, Lichtenstein, Luxembourg, Bermuda, Belize, Switzerland.
A much better, less bloodthirsty and legal use of our supposed military might in the West would be to retrieve all our stolen money (don’t forget the Enron billions, Lazards etc etc etc) and pay a nice visit to these offshore havens, packed to the gizzards with siphoned off tax and stolen drug money as well as the proceeds of the biggest frauds the world has ever seen. As Willie Sutton said;
You can’t rob a bank on charm and personality
If Regan could manage Grenada I’m sure Obama and Brown have a mandate to pay a visit to some or preferably all of the above. You know it makes sense and it’s the only sure way to inject some money into the system.
It’s certainly cheaper than alienating yet more Pakistanis pursuing the ghostly Taliban all over the world.
Conclusion
Of course, all the world’s leaders have probably got their stashes tied up in these places. Berlesconi comes to mind….. So I can’t see it happening although it’s an easy, do-able solution to the recent financial meltdown.
To re-quote Willie Sutton – why go and raid the Cayman Island banks and Lichtenstein etc?
because that’s where the money is!!!
And it’s OUR money!!!
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