BWANKING
IS NOT A CITY IN CHINA
A few words and phrases spontaneously extrapolated from a much longer televised
speech given in 2014 by Mark Carney, the then new and current Canadian Governor
of the Bank of England. I’ve added some
short link words, in small italics, for my and perhaps your better
understanding of how financial stability is to be achieved and maintained in
the austerical aftermath of the 2008 banking crash.
It’s not likely that every one of the words and phrases will be
completely understood, even after several readings. And who can find the time to learn the
foreign language of banking? It could
take much more than the mythical ‘10,000 hours’ to understand the vagaries,
subtleties and nuances of bankers’ language.
There would be little or no time left for rodding the drains, emptying
the bins, doing the school runs, doing a boring job, cooking dinner, chastising
the children and suffering the ongoing saga of mother-in-law’s water on the
knee. Yet she’s still alive and kicking
the shit out of the family into a state of nonplussedness whenever she comes to
stay for a few weeks in the back bedroom.
So turbo-driven time-short people who started out in early adult life
innocently wanting a good fuck as nature intended, now have no choice but to
leave banking to Bankish speaking people.
“You can’t turn a clock back too
far without breaking it” – said the enlightened post-Freudian psychiatrist.
Anyway, you can rest assured that I am well aware of falling into the
long frustrating digressmental pre-ambling that the famous journalist Alistair
Cooke used to use in his decades of ‘Letter from America’ – weekly broadcasts
via the weird and wonderful pussy-footing PC airwaves of BBC radio in years of
yore, and which still exist today.
In going straight forward in going straight back to the subject of Bankish
– it is worth noting that the following Bank of England statement contains at
least one glaring omission. Namely, it
makes no mention of any genuine intention by the Police Fraud Squad to investigate,
prosecute and imprison the hundreds of white and gold collar criminals who caused
the British banking crash – most of whom continue to conduct ‘business as usual’
some seven years later, under the traditionally twitchy ‘blind eyes’ of the
Bank of England, weak-kneed politicians, egg-headed economists and toothless
lily-livered financial regulators.
Notwithsitting, Governor Mark Carney stood up and said:
“Leverage ratios will be controlled by capital buffers to ensure
macro financial stability. Symphonic exactitude is necessary for ring-fenced banks security within
counter cyclical buffers. Also, a risk weighted system based on the calculation of ratios is required for complimentary
risk shifting. The counter-weighting of
paper tigers and blind asset swaps is achievable with a transmission mechanism using shared analysis to avoid off-setting
during periods of market volatility.
“Geopolitical risks are likely to affect short term monetary policy, but relative predictability
and medium term perspectives should counter
macro volatility. However, any re-enforcement
of trend following should not give the illusion
of liquidity.
“End investors stress tests and haircuts on yield expectations are within the rotation
of the curve, and will reduce the impact on overshooting
existing horizons. Macro pru-policies together with
un-hedged foreign currency require threshold guidance and a core mandate for reaction function to
data regarding material shifting and market shifting de-stabilising trajectories.
“Inflation targeting timelines contain inevitable uncertainty, so forecast
horizons are no more than mirages
in the Don’t Know
Desert
“Sideways impacts testing the resilience of tail risks will need stress
testing for low default rates and to reduce
loan to income volatility. Also, affordability tests within the various options of supervisory oversight should attenuate sector
capital overrun. A re-calibration
of mechanisms for insurance on expectations will ring fence derivatives and provide a working
threshold to deal with institutional off-shoot non-ringfence
lending. Also, the
on-costs of congruent
resolutions to lower high exit
costs may require
re-hedging maturity risks.
“However, the economic outlook is fair if demand
conditions don’t produce a wholesale collapse, skewing the
differentials between a multiplicity of variables. We now know that historical
patterns and imperfect data lags require big
data strategy initiatives involving tipping point
calibrations of forbearance
costs commensurate with commercial rates for the re-cycling of capital.
“So the new order of magnitude includes cross subsidisation options and essential conditions consistent with expectations for the re-structuring of balance sheets. Of course global commodity
markets and high frequency trading can cause
substantial headwinds disrupting operations, therefore
contingency planning to cope with systemic
consequences will require code of conduct regulations and a consultation period timetable, sometime before the end
of infinity.”
Well, feather my nest with Ferraris!
This
impressive Bank of England jargon does not come from low-down conventional political
euphemistic metaphoricalism. It comes
from high up in that strange but rich, cold dry foreign land called Bwanking.
Mark Carney could have kept his
speech short, simple and honest by saying:
“We at the Bank of England don’t know what’s going on. We don’t want to know what’s going on, and we
don’t know what we’re doing or why we’re doing it. However, I do enjoy a chat, coffee and cake
with my cheeky chums in the Monetary Policy Committee. I also enjoy an occasional bit of banter and
playtime with the puppies in the Parliamentary Financial Stability Committee –
although after half an hour these sessions become very irritating, and
unnecessary stress testing impacting on my soft holdings, haircuts and
symphonic exactitude.
“Even though I am only paid £1,000,000
a year I’ve got to justify my job, stand up and say something. So in the interests of brevity, I’d like to
remind you all of the 6 essential professional skills to acquire if you want to
be a big banker – skills I learned in my 13 years with the Goldman Sachs
boys. These are very similar to those
required in order to become a top politician. They are simply:
“How to Hedge, How to Skew, How to Confuse, How to Use Smoke and Mirrors,
How to Use English as a Foreign Language, and How to Use a Thousand Words to
Say Absolutely Nothing.
“I’m not taking any questions today because I’ve got a Harley Street
This 6-piece skill set has got
Carney to the top of the ‘up-skilling’ ladder at present, which makes him the
best man for the job as Governor of the Bank of England. And when his tenure comes to an end, he might
acquire a 12-piece skill set from the Big Boys Toy Shop to become the Governor
of the Bwank of the World. But as of
now, he is doing an excellent job of saying absolutely nothing that could or would
influence financial markets, interest rates and economic conditions, one way or
another. Is this banking or is politics?
By way of compensation for his very
hard work, the Governor is paid a measly £1 million a year for conducting
private meetings with symphonic exactitude – to orchestrate an unknown number of
sideways impacts on counter cyclical buffers skewing the differentials between
a multiplicity of variables overshooting existing forecast horizons.
Wow! That’s a tough core mandate for
reaction function to big data strategy initiatives off-setting de-stabilising
trajectories and geopolitical risks. But
what is this mysterious symphony that the Governor conducts with such
exactitude?
He also has to go public and use
English as a foreign language (without an interpreter) to talk about a
normative convergence of optimal ratios and various options for supervisory
oversight, in order to impress the media vultures, financial corruptstitutions and
crackpot economic experts. This leaves
them wondering about what his new ‘order of magnitude’ might possibly be. However, it is they who now have a ‘multiplicity
of variables’ from which to select and wind-up their wildest speculations, and
then get paid for being pontificating pundits in public.
Oh what a wonderful merry-go-round.
By the way, I claim no credit for my
alliterativeness – it just is.
Meanwhile, the rest of us are merely
millions of human ‘hoover-uppers’ of bank-fed household debt. Without us gullible suckers to borrow and
bail them out, the banks would be out of business. So the Governor’s language has to be skillfully
crafted to restrict our understanding and keep us blissfully ignorant of what
goes on in the shadowy land
of Bwanking
There is certainly no so-called
‘transparency’.
If we did somehow understand Bankish
language, despite all the smoke and mirrors, we might regard his job as not
worth much more than that of a cheap children’s party magician. His illusion of
authority would disappear like the Emperor’s New Clothes.
But someone’s got to be the Emperor
of something, even if that high position of power is an illusion. The seemingly powerful Governor turns out to
be in reality, only a public puppet perched precariously on the top of a huge
pile of very clever, well-dressed and ‘respectable’, but ruthless mercenary
money grabbers, who are also adept at protecting their anonymity.
The Governor’s illusory power does however, allow him to allow all those
white and gold collar criminals to continue – for they are the undercover
greasy cogs that keep the wheels of banking turning. And without their wheelings and dealings, big
radical changes would have to happen in the financial systems, which in turn
could cause chaos in the British economy.
It may be worth remembering a recent example
of this top banking work. The previous
Governor, bless him, cuddly little Wimbledon hamster together with his lunch
buddy the previous boss of the FSA, debonair March hare, successfully turned
their beautiful ‘blind eyes’ to all the corruption and greed leading to the
2008 banking crash. Both these lovely
cuddly chaps, who were handsomely paid to be wonderfully ineffective, are
probably now in sumptuous semi-retirement ‘heading-up’ some spurious quangos,
when it’s too wet to play tennis or go to a soggy summer garden party at Buck
House.
“Ours
is not to judge – only to observe and perhaps proffer a bit of witty criticism”
– said the wicked bishop in the bar at the back of the House of Lords.
Carney is not where he is today as
Governor, to root out corruption and greed in the banking system. He is where he is to ‘keep the show on the
road’, and only occasionally make token little whispers about getting someone
else to slap the wrists of a handful of ‘naughty boys’ who’ve been caught bwanking
red-handed.
It’s all just political correctosserish
tinkering with trivialities. The poor
Governor. He can’t get on with proper
banking. He’s paid to be political but
he can’t be seen to be. He’s promoted
and paid by a system to be a public speech-making parrot on a perch who has to
look down on the shit and shenanigans of banking, finance and economics, and yet
say and do almost nothing to disturb these insidious man-made systems.
Yes, someone’s got to do it and
someone always will – but what a dreadful job.
It’s no wonder that many bankers would rather have been rock stars.
Be that as it may, Mark Carney did
not become a rock star. Instead, he was
head-hunted and hand-picked by the Chancellor of the Exchequer to run the Bank
of England independently of government political interference. As Governor, he is supported by the equally
‘independent’ Monetary Policy Committee in reaching decisions regarding the
setting and timing of interest rates.
But the MPC does not have ‘deaf ears’ to noises leaking through the
cracks in the door of the OBR, the Office for Budget Responsibility, which has
a direct line to the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s office.
So when political push comes to
political shove, the Governor will most likely have to comply with government
policy directives. If he does not, and
he vehemently defends his independence, he may have to ‘consider his position’
and resign.
This might be no bad thing. First of all, he would not have to stand up
and deliver silly speeches, answer direct probing questions from the media and then
sit down on the hot seat in front of the Financial Stability Committee. Secondly, he could be hired to ‘head-up’ one
of the Big Four major international banks, and be paid 5 to 10 times his
present salary. And thirdly, he could
enjoy acres of autonomy and not be in the pockets of politicians.
Nevertheless, no matter what notions
are floated about the Bank of England’s so-called independence – it always has
been and always will be the Bank of the Government of the day.
Even if a Governor is a ‘robust’
human being with a functional conscience, the stress and strain of witnessing
the corruption and greed of the banking system while obeying his political
masters could lead to a crisis of conscience, physical illness and a premature
death. Given this risk to his well
being, wife and children, it could be argued that any Governor of the Bank of
England should be paid £5 million a year, to cover the costs of his funeral and
the maintenance of several houses and private school fees, plus his widow’s
shopping habits and holidays. Her ‘heavy
handbag’ would also pay for her precious LGBT personal trainer, and her new
strong virile toy-boy carpenter/plumber who is seriously insolvent, but who is always
working around the house and more than willing to give her ‘a good seeing to’
whenever she wants it.
Who knows what really goes on behind
the bike sheds of banking? I certainly
don’t. The big banker boys of this world
could easily go on to live in total contentment to a ripe old age and have a
happy death.
I wish Mark Carney well. He is doing a brilliant job of saying
something while saying nothing. That
takes some doing!
“What should I do with all my money?” – said
the banker.
“It’s not yours!” – said the wiseman.
