Selling Tainted, Addictive Products
[Editor’s Note: Given the spate of financial corruption stories lately — did they ever really stop? — I thought I’d re-run a post from almost three(!) years ago making clear where my sympathies lie. Not that regular readers of this blog don’t already know.]
What’s the difference between drug dealers and investment bankers?
Here’s my “Top Ten” list:
Ten. The “product” drug dealers sell is a lot less tainted.
Nine. Drug dealers don’t take out life insurance policies on their victims, er . . . customers.
Eight. Drug dealers don’t plough a share of their profits back into hiring lobbyists to re-write the nation’s drug laws to suit their interests. Or donate millions to the campaign coffers of key members of Congress overseeing them.
Seven. Speaking of profits . . . drug dealers don’t get multi-million dollar bonuses.
Six. Drug dealers wreck blocks, and sometimes even whole neighborhoods. Investment bankers have laid waste to an entire economy and jeopardized its currency — not to mention savaging millions of homeowners, savers, investors, retirees, and small businesses.
Five. Drug dealers don’t require bailouts adding trillions to the U.S. deficit.
Four. The police prosecute drug dealers.
Three. Drug dealers don’t become senior advisers to the President, Federal Reserve, and U.S. Treasury.
Two. Drug dealers don’t solicit business (usually) from retired teachers, firefighters, etc.
One. Drug dealers aren’t under the illusion that they’re “doing God’s work” (as Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein famously said a few years ago).
