Bankers turned prostitutes

This quote caught my attention from a BBC interview with a member of the English Collective of Prostitutes:

“We have women in our network working in the sex industry say ‘I prefer this job that I am doing as a sex worker.  I feel that I am exploiting people less, I am less ruthless than in my previous job as a financial adviser to some big city bank.'”

The Greatest Bank Robbery in U.S. History

From London Banker:

When I was a young central banker, we often spent our lunchtimes debating how best to rob our employer. Tempted by the thought of great mounds of gold ingots far beneath us in the third sub-basement, nestling deep in bedrock, we would speculate on the viability of various plans for plundering our nation’s store of wealth. The presence of sufficient security forces to defend a medium size city and enough steel around the vault for a battle cruiser only spurred our youthful imaginations. After some months of fantasy gold robbery, I began to assert to my colleagues that stealing the gold would be foolish as it would be impossible to get away with enough gold in city traffic to make the attempt worthwhile, and selling it in any sizeable amount would lead to instant detection. I argued instead in favour of stealing the wheelie bins of cash conveniently lining the hallway to the loading ramp. Cash would be faster and easier to steal and more liquid to spend than gold.

I see now that I was a central banker of very little brain – and lacking ambition. The way to rob a central bank efficiently is to be a bank executive so skilled in financial engineering that I take my bank to the edge of extinction. I can then swap all my unpriceable, illiquid, engineered credit instruments for good central bank cash and Treasuries. That’s larceny without risk, making the central bank a complicit partner in the looting of its vaults, and earning gratitude and bonuses instead of audits and indictments.

But Dogs Need Stimulus too, Mr. President

Chula Vista, just south of here, is asking for $500,000 in federal stimulus money to build a dog park.

Sunset View Dog Park is part of the U.S. Conference of Mayors “Mainstreet Economic Recovery” wish list now circulating in Congress. The money would upgrade an existing park and provide employment for seven people. It would also stimulate untold numbers of canines, fleas and ticks. The tennis ball and doo-doo bag industry are big believers.

In Chula Vista, the dog park is a small sliver of the $487 million worth of projects the city is seeking, to create 6,325 jobs. The other 18,000 “ready to go” projects include $2 million for neon signs in Las Vegas and $4.5 million for an “eco park” in Boynton Beach, Fla. featuring butterfly gardens and gopher tortoises.

Just … wow. Anybody know the name of Chula Vista Mayor Cheryl Cox’s pooch?