– In the U.S., in Europe, and even here in my beloved New Zealand.
– They put on suits, they carry a briefcase, they do ‘deals’ and it all looks brilliant and magical.
– But, sometimes, someone goes behind the scenes and traces some of this ‘business’ and finds that a lot of it is ‘funny business’.
– What would you think of an investment company that did big deals for the purpose of making profits for their investors and, when the dust had settled, the deals were done and all the contracts and the fine print were all read out and traced – you found out that the bankers and the company’s principals made far more profit from all of the money shuffling than any of their poor investors did?
– I think it stinks. And yet I also think that many business types live and thrive in just this way and consider themselves brilliant,. And that they consider the rest of us as just their sheep in need of a shearing and too dumb to know we’re being hard done by.
– This bit of fun happened here in New Zealand though the business itself reached around the globe to London as well.
– No matter. In fact, all the better. The more abstract, the further afield, the less normal people can relate to the doings, the better. Big money moving in the shadows.
– Here in New Zealand, the National Government, under John Key, a former Wall Street type, wants to sell public assets to raise money. After reading this expose on the investment company, EPIC, I’ll be most curious to ‘follow the money’ when the Key government does begin to sell those assets.
– Who will be doing the deals and who will be making enormous profits from the fees along they way? Why do I suspect that they will be business types like Key? Types who are telling themsleves all along the way that the fact that they are getting rich is only incidental to the good they are doing for the country.
– Yeah, right.
– Dennis
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The rather curious case of Epic’s fee payments
(this from stuff.co.nz an opinion piece by Tim Hunter)
OPINION: After years of study, there is growing acceptance that homo sapiens has evolved into two distinct branches. One comprises the vast bulk of humanity, the other comprises individuals known as bankers.
Although superficially alike, the latter can be distinguished by their skin, which is thicker than normal. It also has special properties giving unusual adhesion to most forms of money.
In tests using a drained swimming pool filled with Zimbabwean currency, bankers were found to emerge from the pool with up to 25 per cent more cash sticking to them than the non-banking control group.
Scientists initially hypothesised an epidermal layer of tiny hooks, like Velcro, to explain the effect, but now favour a theory of electro-magnetic attraction at the cellular level.
Edinburgh University’s department of parapsychology is also testing observations that bankers can detect the contents of a wallet within a range of about five metres, even through stud walls.
These attributes are an advantage in financial transactions, and Chalkie reckons there could be something like this going on in an investment structure called Equity Partners Infrastructure Company (Epic). Basically, Chalkie’s study of accounts and documents with small print suggests Epic has paid out millions more in fees to bankers and their ilk than it has to its investors.
– Definitely, you should read more here… ➡