Bonus Bankers in Cocaine Crisis

Published March 7, 2013 | By skrufff

Matt Taibbi on HSBC- How did their execs avoid jail?

Cash strapped London financiers struggling to maintain coke and gambling habits are being exploited by short term ‘payday’ moneylenders, the Standard reported this week, in a hard-hitting report about life in the City of London.

Middle class financiers struggling to get by on salaries of £200,000 are suffering ‘misery and hardship’, the newspaper revealed, as payday lenders shamelessly take advantage of their failure to keep up with ‘the Square Miles’ expectations of entertainment, drugs (and) partying’.

“When you’re gambling and sniffing cocaine, you can do £2,000 in a night,” City trader ‘Duncan’, 40, explained, “I was borrowing (from payday lenders) for everyday living,” he added (Standard: http://bit.ly/XXMg5b )

Cash strapped city workers in Farringdon were also exploited by prostitutes in a brothel in Holborn, the Telegraph reported last month, with some bankers forced to pay over £5,000 a night to attend team-building cocaine and sex sessions.

“I’m in the mood for a total f*** fest,” one apparently stressed out banker reportedly texted the club, “Having two girls who f*** like rabbits to get me in the mood would be good”, he added (http://bit.ly/YSP58K )

Human resources magazine HR Magazine, meanwhile, published a lengthy feature about the problems City workers increasingly have to contend with, noting ‘as social media becomes more influential, concealment becomes near impossible.’

Investment guru John Greenwood, CEO of Creechurch Capital, agreed, pointing out ‘the public sees through all the lies now’.

“The City has changed very little, and that’s the frightening aspect,” Mr Greenwood added, “The culture of tolerating, and even rewarding, any sort of behaviour for profit, hasn’t changed.” http://bit.ly/13k3FMh

Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren on HSBC bankers (click below for the full interview): “If you’re caught with an ounce of cocaine, the chances are good you’re going to jail. If it happens repeatedly, you may go to jail for the rest of your life. But evidently, if you launder nearly a billion dollars for drug cartels and violate our international sanctions, your company pays a fine and you go home and sleep in your own bed at night — every single individual associated with this — and I just think that’s fundamentally wrong.”