Jonah And The Banksters

Matthew Goldstein at Seeking Alpha shares this tidbit of news:

In the second quarter of this year, the notional value of derivatives contracts at JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Goldman Sachs (GS), Bank of America (BAC) and Citigroup (C) increased by $1.92 trillion, to $191 trillion. Shockingly, Citi is responsible for most of that gain from the end of the first quarter.

Overall, the total dollar value of outstanding derivatives transactions at the top 25 U.S. commercial banks was $203 trillion, according to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, meaning that the nation’s four biggest banks account for 94 percent of the industry’s total exposure to derivatives.

Now the concentration of derivatives at a handful of banks isn’t new. It’s even to be expected, bank regulators say.

The OCC, in its quarterly derivatives report, routinely notes that the Big Four “have the resources needed to be able to operate this business in a safe and sound manner.” In other words, the biggest banks are best suited to handle all these derivatives contracts because they’ve been doing it for so long.

Well, yes, one could make a breathtakingly stupid statement like that--the OCC, I mean, not Mr. Goldstein--if one lives with the assumption that no matter how reckless the behaviour of these firms, the taxpayer can always be shaken down if something goes awry.

One year ago today, we were being told by The People Who Know About Such Things that massive exposure to derivatives by these huge institutions had nearly brought the world to its knees.

Today, we are told by the same people that all is well and boys will be boys.  Let them play in their sandbox.  What could possibly go wrong?

I keep thinking, 'My unborn grandchildren will be paying for this...my unborn grandchildren will be paying for this... '

This week, the light dawned on my poor brain:  My unborn grandchildren can't vote, or consume, or invest, or do anything to aggrandize the power and wealth of either the politicians or the banksters.

Their unborn grandchildren will inherit wealth, one way or another, so all is fine and good.

And, if this world is really all there is--this life in which we work, play, live, die--is really all there is, and then we die and cease to exist...then what should they care about anyone's grandchildren, born or unborn.  Those 'unborns' can shift for themselves, thank you very much.

We don't just have an ethical problem in this fair country. At heart, we may have a theological problem. The culture shapes the economy...

The story of Jonah is not about the guy in the belly of the big fish, so much as it is about how the Almighty spared a society that had lost its moral compass.  The guy the fish coughed up on the shore had informed them that The End was at hand, unless they changed their ways.

Which they did, for a while.

Eventually, they forgot about all that, and then one day they ceased to exist.
  

The Wiki article seems to be well-written, and gives good resources if one is interested. Until well into the 19th Century, the location of the site of this city was unknown, not a trace left behind. The most evocative line in the article is delivered in deadpan academic style: Many unburied skeletons were found by the archaeologists at the site.