GOLDMAN SACHS

God, the ex Goldman Sachs man on Newsight tonight, Richard Sharp, is the reason bankers should be heaped in scorn. The smugness of the man, the attempt to blame a world crisis on Government debt alone and the complete disinterest in people out there too, even if they haven’t a clue how to fix it, or survive in the bewildering system. Those people within the city and Wall Street knew it was a no lose game there, because capitalism could not afford to allow them to fail. They are still the ones able to take their huge slices and in the US 1%’s share in the cake has gone up by 300%. Meanwhile youth unemployment is at its highest since records started.

It may well be that Labour turned Britain into a super casino, and did many harms, but banks pushed loans, debts, products, services at us, as if there was no tomorrow, and then, when the fan got covered in nastiness, the risks of lending to small businesses were throttled on the page. The complexity of derivatives though, the gamboling and speculation on parcels of debt, the hiving off and corruption, in cases like Enron, means those smuglet bankers have played games that have had vast effects on the rest of us. But quite apart from the unconcern of a man like Sharp, in the face of such extraordinary scenes in New York and London, what about the wider issues of Capitalism in allowing 7 billion to live together well on a shrinking and self consuming planet? They will not tell that truth because no one knows how to deal with it. It was that trader this year, talking about how he looked forward to crises in the chance to make money, like many clever speculators, though others lose the gamble, who told us that Governments don’t rule the world, Goldman Sachs does. That’s why Sharp doesn’t like politicians attempting to intervene, which is surely half the point of politics, but if we really think we live in a Democracy can someone please tell us how to vote down the technocrats Richard Sharp? Well, in Greece and Italy technocrats are in the seats and Dan Snow argues it is a momentary Democratic tweaking, but we will see.