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IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER
THE QUESTIONS IN THIS BOOK WERE
SUBMITTED BY COMPUTER-GENERATED
MEMBERS OF THE PUBLIC. THEIR
QUESTIONS HAVE BEEN ANSWERED TO
THE BEST OF THE AUTHORS ABILITY.
THE AUTHOR HAS NO BACKGROUND IN
ECONOMICS.
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Does anything eat bankers?
Harrietta Stork, 6, child, Market Scarborough
Forcenturiesithasbeen assumed that the banker
had no natural predator. Traditionally bankers
have been low-prole, tame beasts who shun human
company out o ear and embarrassment, and
whose natural lie-caution makes them extremely
careul in zoos and wildlie parks, thus minimising
the risk o accidents.
However, recent events have shown previously
unknown behavioural patterns amongst several
species o banker. It transpires that many bankers,
when let in unattended, unregulated markets, can
turn eral and embark on ravenous sprees in whichthey risk their and others livelihoods to gorge
themselves on vulnerable nancial institutions.
Furthermore, evidence has come to light that
bankers do, when the mood takes them, resort to
monetary cannibalism there is independently
veried ootage o banks swallowing other banks
whole, beore spewing them out a short time later,
lying on the ground, and whimpering to the
government or help.
Following these revelations, bankers have also
been ed to the tabloid press, which had previously
shown little interest in them as a potential news
source. The recent spectacular crises have shown
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that bankers can, in act, provide valuable
newstrients to satisy a tabloids hunger.
The behaviour o bankers has always been
bafing, and increasingly has become almost
completely alien to us. However, whilst we can nd
it near impossible relate to them, the latest scientic
research shows that ordinary human beings do in
act share 70 per cent o the same DNA as bankers.
We are, it seems, much more closely related than
anyone had previously thought.
What should I do i I fnd mysel
being chased by a banker?
Paul Small, 33, elbow surgeon,Hackney Marshes
thereissomedisputeover the best course o action
in this unortunate but common circumstance.
Some suggest you should stand still, others advise
running in a zig-zag, others advocate climbing
a tree.
The most important thing is not to show the
banker any hint o nancial vulnerability they
can sense it rom several miles away, and once the
scent is in their nostrils, they will hound and pester
you mercilessly until you take a loan out with
them, at which point they will slowly savage you
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limb rom nancial limb. And never look bankers
directly in the eye. They will gore your soul.
I always thought banking was
boring. How wrong was I?
Colin Lunch, 44, reelance re risk analyst,
Norwich-on-Sea
Very.
Er, yup. So how come banking
has suddenly become so lethally
risky that the government hasnow ofcially classifed it as an
extreme sport?
Colin Lunch, 44, reelance re risk analyst,
Norwich-on-Sea
Formillennia, bankingWascommonly thought o as
the preserve o dull, saety-rst, bean-counting
squares who only did the job because o their
inexplicable enjoyment o skull-crushing tedium.
However it now transpires that the banking
community, ar rom being the buttoned-up
epitome o conversational minimalism and the
straight-laced saeguard o stability that we all
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assumed it to be, has in act been playing nancial
Russian roulette with the entire worlds economic
wellbeing.
This revelation has shocked the planet to its
molten core. It has been like nding out that your
next-door neighbours Marjorie and Dennis, both
aged 55 and active members o the local Crown
Green Bowls club, are in act the ex-Presidents o a
bit o Yugoslavia and are about to take a very long
unpaid sabbatical in The Hague; or that your local
library, in addition to its core lending-and-ning
business, has been running a satanic book-deacing
cult, in which the sta gather in a woodland
clearing, strip buck naked, date stamp each others
buttocks, and scrawl anti-monarchist grati allover the collected works o Anthony Trollope.
The culture shit began when banks realised they
had achieved a level o trustworthiness that was so
ar beyond suspicion as to give them ree license to
have a bit o un on the side with their customers
money. Thus began the dangerous addiction to
saety-harness-ree lending that has led to todays
crisis. Chucking mortgages and loans around with
the gayest o abandons was a huge adrenaline
rush or ordinary bankers, who were more used
to shunting grandma Doriss giro cheques around
her current accounts like an unwanted pea around
a at childs plate.
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High street banks began behaving increasingly
tittishly towards their customers, oering their
savers lower rates o interest than a 50-volume
encyclopaedia o socks, and ning them or being
nancially unsuccessul when Muddy Waters
bluesily mused that you cant lose what you never
had, he had clearly never been 1 over his overdrat
limit or twenty minutes.1 Banks o course deend
such charges by claiming that they are, in their
own quirky way, simply encouraging people to be
wealthier. Their critics respond that ning people
or overdrawing themselves is akin to a sports
teacher punishing a slow child or coming last in a
running race by thwacking him repeatedly in the
kneecaps with a monkey wrench whilst screamingat him to try harder. The banks win the argument
by retorting that its a ree country, they can do
what they like, and who are you to tell them how
to live their lives?
In summary, the banking sector has cocked
several king-sized luxury snooks at the world,
1 In a urther blot on Waterss already minimal reputation
as a fnancial adviser, the Credit Crunch has now proved
conclusively that: (a) you quite clearly can lose what you
never had; (b) you can also lose what no-one ever had; and
(c) the time has come to try to stop losing stu as a general
rule. Waters may have been the Father o Chicago Blues,
and to listen to a single wordless murmur o his voice may be
to imbibe liquefed elemental truth, but the time has come to
reassess the economic reliability o his lyrics.
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sae in the knowledge that it is so important
to the smooth running o modern society that
governments will always be there to catch them
when they all, jump or are pushed o their
nancial Beachy Heads.
I know exactly what will happen
to me on a month-to-month basisbecause I read my horoscope. So
would it not have been possible
or someone, somewhere, to have
predicted this crisis?
Maradona Smith, 22, dog coieuse, Notting Hill
yes, butonlybysomeone with one or more o the
ollowing rare qualities: oresight; hindsight
(based on knowledge o the worlds previous
economic bungles); or a rudimentary grasp o
basic arithmetic. No-one else, alive or dead, could
possibly have predicted this economic house o
cards would come crashing down like an elephant
on a wedding cake, and unortunately, no-one
had either the oresight or hindsight to use any
oresight or hindsight. Such is lie.
Some o the greatest brains in the economics
universe have claimed they had no way o knowing
that the problems o 2008 would happen. Others
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argue that they would have given themselves a
better chance i they hadnt been locked in a special
golden dungeon rolling around in 100-dollar bills
and gurgling like well-ed babies.2
In some ways, the nancial markets have
displayed the same complacency and lack o
prudence as the dinosaurs, who completely ailed to
prepare or an asteroid attack which they ought
to have been able to predict rom the existing
geological evidence available to them and the
balance o probability. Instead they thought to
themselves: Hey, weve had this planet stitched
up or 150 million years now, and Ive got big
teeth. What could possibly go wrong? So they
smugly swanned around, roaring, eating cavemenand trying to get o with Raquel Welch, until,
sure enough: Whack. Hello Dr Asteroid, goodbye
Johnny Dinosaur.
2 See Appendix 1 or confrmation o whether or not they
could have oreseen these problems.
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A mate o mine in the pub told me the
problem is that the whole fnancial
world has suddenly got the jittersbecause o the sudden and belated
realisation that, while there appears
to be a lot o money in the world,
almost none o that money actually
exists. Is this true?
Derek Scrotch, 25, ATM analyst, Maccleseld
yes. mostmoney ispretend. This has come about
because banks realised that they could exploit
their reputation as dullards to lend out around 30
times the amount o money they actually own without
anyone raising an eyebrow, let alone an objection.Furthermore, the bank you borrow your money
rom has itsel probably borrowed that money rom
another bank, which in turn will have borrowed
rom another bank, and so on. This process is
theoretically innite, meaning that when you
take a loan out, what you receive is, in essence,
homeopathic money it contains barely a trace
o the original cash, but supposedly has the same
unction. Some experts claim that it works just as
well as hard currency. Others are convinced that it
is logically and practically such hogwash that you
could clean a stadium ull o pigs with it.
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Mouse Live Mouse encore, he promised to give
the crowd the ve loaves o sliced white and two
whole cod rom his dressing room (his contractual
rider at all o his major shows by this stage o his
career).
He then buttered our o the loaves, lleted and
mashed the sh, and shaped it into thin rectangles
which he then covered with breadcrumbs rom the
th loa. Ater a quick whizz in the rying pan,
Jesus lent a shnger sandwich to each o his
twelve disciples (even Thomas, who was vegan,
and Andrew, who had hated the smell o sh ever
since being shoved into an aquarium on a school
trip). The sel-proclaimed Son o God told the
apostles to pay him back whenever they could,hopped on his magic donkey, winked at the crowd,
and skedaddled.
The devout dozen, being good Christian men,
elt guilty about being the only ones with ood in
an increasingly bemused, ravenous and restless
congregation. Thereore, each disciple lent his
shnger sandwich to a member o the audience.
Inspired by this example, those spectators then
passed their ood on to the people sitting next to
them, who in turn lent it to the people next to them,
and so on, and so on. Eventually, twelve people
toilets. For he was merciul, and believed his new parable to
be artistically valid. Alvin 14:12.
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sat in the back row were let clutching somewhat
soggy and misshapen shnger sandwiches, while
each o the remaining 4,988 people in the capacity
crowd was owed one shnger sandwich.
In this way, although technically Jesus did not
actually eed the 5,000, he did enable them all to
go home knowing that they were one shnger
sandwich in credit, which they could call in
whenever they elt like a snack. Though by no
means his most impressive piece o magic, its
value as a PR exercise was incalculable in terms
o raising Jesuss prole.5 Furthermore, and o
greater long-term consequence, the Middle Easts
then number-1-ranked messiah had invented the
principles o modern banking.
5 Experts consider this miracle to have been second only to
crucifxion in terms o increasing public awareness o what
St Peter used to reer to as Brand Jesus.