Appropriate punishments for banks…
by Brendan Coffey
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There’s a scene in the film Die Hard 3 when Bruce Willis’ character John McClane, he of the atomic hangovers and even more explosive crash scenes, is sent to Harlem wearing boxer shorts, a placard stating that he hates niggers and of course, an atomic hangover.
It brings him into contact with Zeus, who becomes his partner in the quest to prevent terrorists plundering all the wealth on Wall Street. When you think about the current mess the world’s financial institutions have caused it might not have been such a bad idea had someone else been allowed to play with all the money in the world.
Ireland’s response to the banking crisis that threatened to bring the global economy to a standstill was to bail them out with a state guarantee. In return the banks have to cough up close to a billion euro. It’s not the financial cost that’s the problem here, it’s the punishments the banks have to suffer. We’d really much prefer it if the suited ones were stripped a la John McClane and left to survive in a world they don’t know.
How about taking all the bankers and sending them into a halting site with posters saying they hate Travellers? How about insisting that all bankers have to wear t-shirts saying: WARNING - I MAY RUIN YOUR LIFE
The banks have suffered financially but they haven’t suffered in a tangible way. We can’t feel their punishment, we can’t touch and we can’t see it. It is hidden from us. It is the same concealment and world of wonders that the banks operate in that resulted in this financial mess in the first place, the mess that has the Government dashing to adopt life-support measures yet stubbornly revealing the details of that life-support and failing to show us what the consequences for the guilty parties are.
The problem is that we all know that get are just desserts because we’ve felt the weight of a punch, the slap of a hand or the wrath of a parent. Take that away and you’ve got real anarchy.
Tags: banks, Bruce Willis, Die Hard 3, Economy, money, recession
