The scene :<\/p>\n
A late evening in a plush boardroom on the 54th floor in Lower Manhattan. A dozen portly businessmen are seated around the huge table, where the remains of a large dinner have been replaced by a collection of rare whiskies. At the head of the table, a balding, corpulent man interrupts the others:<\/p>\n
— Now then Gentlemen, enough banter, we have a problem. Anyone want a splash of this 50 year-old Midleton? I had a case flown in from Dublin last week, it\u2019s awfully rare.<\/p>\n
Who\u2019s got the cigars? Richard, we all know what a kike you are, but pass the box along, there\u2019s a good chap.<\/p>\n
So, if you\u2019re all comfortably pickled, let\u2019s get down to business. Where\u2019s Peter?<\/p>\n
— In the john, I think the oysters disagreed with him.<\/p>\n
— I see. Why is that Finance Directors are always absent when you need them?<\/p>\n
[he pauses to finish lighting his cigar]<\/p>\n
As I was saying, we have a problem, and a serious one: the SEC is on our ass, with a vengeance.<\/p>\n
These chocolates really are sublime, are they not?<\/p>\n
My assistant has calculated that we\u2019ve ripped off about 50 million investors with these\u2026 what are they called? Structured derivations?<\/p>\n
— \u201cDerivatives\u201d, Lloyd<\/p>\n
— Yes, derivatives, whatever, for billions of dollars, that John-Alfred has siphoned off to Switzerland.<\/p>\n
— Fucking Swiss, it\u2019s always their fault, with their banking secrecy.<\/p>\n
— Stop kvetching Charles, you bloody hypocrite, we all know where you\u2019ve stashed your booty. I won\u2019t remind you of those stock options that materialized on your Zurich account last year now, shall I?<\/p>\n
No, we have to choose somebody who\u2019s going to carry the can.<\/p>\n
[a long silence ensues]<\/p>\n
— Don\u2019t be silly now, I wasn\u2019t suggesting anybody in the top management, we\u2019ll trim back the bonuses in the lower echelons, not here.<\/p>\n
No, we need some miserable klutz, preferably someone that nobody here knows, so that we can plead ignorance, and throw the creep out on the street for a public sacrifice.<\/p>\n
Richard, you\u2019re good in the sniveling role, you can go on CNN and cry how ashamed we all are, when the word gets out.<\/p>\n
— Yes, Lloyd, but who?<\/p>\n
— How should I know? Surely one of you must have an insubordinate little rat that you\u2019re dying to get rid of? You know, the nerdy type, with big glasses, who can\u2019t lace his own shoes, disconnected from reality. Ideal for a little crying with Richard. C\u2019mon, give me a name.<\/p>\n
— But Lloyd, we don\u2019t know the employees, we barely speak to them, everything\u2019s done by email. Most of mine, I don\u2019t even know where their offices are.<\/p>\n
— So it\u2019s up to me to fix things, as usual. Charles, pass me that PC. Where\u2019s the H.R. page? Ah, here. Let me see now.<\/p>\n
God, where do you hire these people? They all look like retards. Hasn\u2019t somebody given H.R. instructions not to hire hicks? OK, I\u2019ll click randomly. Here we are, Jay Ratlivich, a nasty-sounding name and he looks the part. What do you think?<\/p>\n
— He\u2019s in facilities management Lloyd. Difficult to pin something on him.<\/p>\n
— Which hardly facilitates my task. Alright, how about this one, Mustafa Albariz, terrorist overtones, he\u2019ll do.<\/p>\n
— Hardly Lloyd, he\u2019s in agricultural finance. He deals in manure, not credit default swaps.<\/p>\n
— Pass back the whiskey would you Richard? Alright, my final offer, this one looks ideal, Fabrice Tourre. Ah, a trader, they\u2019re like arrogant hamsters on methedrine that lot. And he\u2019s French to boot, perfect, the frogs are always fucking things up.<\/p>\n
— But Lloyd, he\u2019s only 28, they\u2019ll never believe we let someone so young play with billions.<\/p>\n
— Charles, two years ago, you\u2019d never have believed we\u2019d have a black President. It\u2019s simply a question of manipulating the press. We\u2019re doing God\u2019s work, if it\u2019s good enough for Him, it\u2019s good enough for us.<\/p>\n
Porter, this is right up your street. Get your I.T. guys to siphon off all his emails and dress them up to incriminate the little bastard completely. Then leak the whole lot to press, you know the ropes. Whilst you\u2019re at it, credit a couple of million to his account, back-dated to last June; we\u2019ll leak his bank statement when the shit hits the fan.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s settled then. Fiddle the I.T. records, prepare a press statement, media plan, the usual stuff. Oh, and we\u2019d better announce some layoffs. Charles, make sure the severance payments and restructuring charges are completely tax-deductible. Whilst you\u2019re at it, announce that we won\u2019t be paying a dividend this year, teach those shareholder assholes a lesson. I want all that on my desk first thing in the morning.<\/p>\n
Anyone for a drop of this 1984 Dom Perignon to celebrate? It really is the best year in the cellar.<\/p>\n
(Adapted from the original French article on www.boursorama.com<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The scene : A late evening in a plush boardroom on the 54th floor in Lower Manhattan. A dozen portly businessmen are seated around the huge table, where the remains of a large dinner have been replaced by a collection […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-finance","category-humour","category-3-id","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calvert.ch\/maurice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calvert.ch\/maurice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calvert.ch\/maurice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calvert.ch\/maurice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calvert.ch\/maurice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=225"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.calvert.ch\/maurice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":436,"href":"https:\/\/www.calvert.ch\/maurice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225\/revisions\/436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calvert.ch\/maurice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calvert.ch\/maurice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calvert.ch\/maurice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}