On the Bankers Trust’s Rip off factor, having shares in the most corrupt bank in the world and Goldman Sach’s Muppets or why John Key should have no place in NZ politics

This week John Key opened the Bathurst Resources’ office and the Green party called it inappropriate for John Key to do so but is it?

In order to understand why opening the Bathurst Resources office is totally appropriate for John Key you have to understand whose interests John Key is serving and here is a hint: It ain’t yours.

In fact it’s not even New Zealand’s. And before you say there she goes again with her theories lets explore John Key’s history for a few moments shall we?

First of all in the late eighties John Key worked for the Bankers trust. At the Bankers trust he learned something which held him in good stead later in his career. He learned about a financial instrument called Derivatives.

Derivatives can be used for legitimate business purposes as hedges against risks. For example a farmer can insure a fair price in advance with a trader who insures the availability of wheat in the future etc. etc.

But that is not what John Key learned. He learned about the other purpose of derivatives. That of swindling large amounts of money out of people looking for safe investments. How do I know this you ask?

Well he tells us so in his own words.

First of all you need to understand that the Bankers Trust was the first bank to explore the newly deregulated derivatives trade and according to their Wikipedia page they found themselves forced by the lack of the boardroom contacts of its larger rivals, notably J. P. Morgan, they attempted to make a virtue of necessity by specializing in trading and in product innovation.

The thing was they didn’t quite get the honesty thing and used the fact that the “over the counter” Derivatives were so complex to defraud some pretty powerful clients of large amounts of money. This would have gone unnoticed had those clients most notably Proctor and Gamble not sued the bank causing it’s collapse in 1995.

The reason they could sue successfully was the fact that they had some 6.500 recorded calls from Bankers trust employees. It turns out that the Bankers trust boys and girls were well aware of what they were doing and even had a word for their ill gotten gains. They called it the Rip off factor or ROF. 

Now you might ask if this was not limited to just a bad apple here and there but 6.500 recorded calls and the fact that Bankers trust pleaded guilty to institutional fraud should give you some indication of how pervasive the fraud culture was at Bankers trust.

When the whole thing collapsed John Key in the unauthorised biography published in July 2008 stated: “and than all hell broke loose and I said right I’m out of here.”

I might point out here that he didn’t say right I’m out of here when the bank was sued in 1993 but when the bank collapsed as the result of the total implosion of confidence in the bank as the fraudulent culture was exposed in media outlets such as Business week.

Luckily for John Key Merrill Lynch was looking for guy just like him and he started to work for Merrill Lynch in 1995. His job? To help set up a brand spanking new Derivatives department. It’s speciality? Over the counter Derivatives.

It also pays to know that according to the Bankers Trust Wiki page:

Concerns motivated by the particular Bankers Trust case eventually extended to the OTC derivatives market in general. The US CFTC embarked on a failed attempt to take over part of the bank regulators’ role in regulating the OTC derivatives market in the late 1990s. The thesis of a October 20, 2009, broadcast of the PBS television magazine Frontline, Early Warnings of the Economic Meltdown, was that the failure of Congress to allow CFTC a role in regulating derivatives was a key element eventually leading to the Financial crisis of 2007–2010.

John Key went about his merry way with Derivatives for the next five years and Merrill Lynch became a powerhouse in that particular trade but in 2008 had to be bought by Bank of America in an attempt to stabilise the financial world.

If you want to know how much John Key’s efforts netted Merrill Lynch or rather how much it is going to cost the American tax payers in October 2011 Bank of America transferred $ 75 Trillion in derivatives to an insured branch of the bank from it’s investment or uninsured part that part being the bank formerly known as Merrill Lynch.

John Key has said in interviews that the products now causing the financial collapse were developed after he left banking but I hope that the information above clearly shows that not only were the products now causing the financial collapse not only developed when John Key was in the banking business but that he himself was a pioneer in a pioneering bank who when the bank collapsed due to the fraud committed with these newfangled products he helped another bank set up a department to do exactly the same as his previous bank.

When John Key left banking to become the Prime minister of New Zealand he left with an estimated fortune of some $ 50 million. He left with most of his money in long term investments and shares in Merrill Lynch.

These shares were converted into shares in Bank of America shares when Merrill Lynch went bankrupt and was bought by BofA. We know he has them because unlike his other investments they are mentioned separate and not as part of his two trusts on the government site responsible for giving this information to the public.

We don’t know how much these shares are worth but we do know that he has a considerable interest in a bank which is by many considered the most corrupt bank on the face of the earth. In fact Matt Taibbi, a journalist specialising in bank fraud calls BofA a giant raging hurricane of theft and fraud.

Whether John Key has a $1 million or a $25 million interest in the Bank of America doesn’t matter. What matters is that his shares represent a huge conflict of interest with is role as the Prime minister of New Zealand in which we should be secure in knowing he has our best interest at heart.

Almost two weeks ago a banker for Goldman Sachs left the bank because he no longer wants to be part of a banking culture which calls its customers Muppets and who’s only interest is making money without any regards for its customers and whose money making scams in fact often turn fraudulent and against the very costumers they pretend to serve.

In fact hundreds of bankers are leaving the trade as the knowledge about these scamming businesses is beginning to spread around the world.

Now to get back to opening of the Bathurst resource office and the reason why it is completely opportune for John Key to open it consider the following:

• John Key promised to give his pay for being the Prime Minister of New Zealand away to a good cause and while by many Kiwi’s this was seen as an act of kindness and generosity it is also a rejection of the way the New Zealand population sees fit to pay for its elected officials.
• A significant share holder of the Bathurst group is none other than the Giant Raging Hurricane of Theft and Fraud also known as the Bank of America in which John Key holds a part of his wealth.
• John Key made about five million over the past four years and if he did not earn this money with wages paid by the New Zealand population he must have made them with investments and while we don’t know with which he made that money. part of it could well be dividends paid out to shareholders of BofA. It could be argued that this means he got paid by the very bank having a majority vote in the Bathurst group now opening its offices in New Zealand.
• The chairman and third member of the board of the PR company used by John Key was a man called Robert Champion de Crespigny, AC. who is one of Australia’s mining head honchos. Do you really think John Key did not get advised on how to go about the whole hot potato of mining before and during the election campaign as well as now?
• If John Key did not receive wages from the New Zealand electorate but did receive money from his investments in amongst others BofA they must feel pretty damn sure of themselves to allow John Key to come out as working for the mining interests currently waging their attack on New Zealand instead of you the NZ population. You see from their point of view it is most appropriate for their prize asset to open one of their basesoffices in New Zealand.Basically their sticking their fingers up at you, the New Zealand muppets electorate.