Occupy La Defense

 I  milled around the world's feeblest protest today in La Defense. There were more tourists than police and there were a LOT more police than protesters. It was all rather 60's with a chanteuse trying to fire up the unwashed to little avail. Even the arrival of an accordianst could not fire up the crowd. All very very tres amicable to say the least. I was about to go when I noticed two jeune filles join the crowd. I would notice them. They were jeune filles. BUT unfortunately the most noticeable thing about the jeune filles was the Palestinian flag they were carrying on an impromptu cardboard poster with some stuff about the evils of Israel. Oh dear. Oh dear Oh dear. The very last country in the world to be even remotely connected with the current economic situation would be  Israel. You see reader it's like this. - Oh bloody hell I forgot the disclaimer - I am not Jewish or Israeli and none of my best friends are either. Got that ?. Good. Anyway yes it's like this. The nub of the problem is this concept of 'fiduciary duty'. This is the duty that banks have to their shareholders. And bankers have carried out their fiduciary duty - to their shareholders -  rather well. Except if you were Lehman Brothers perhaps. Because if you were Lehman Brothers it would have been your fiduciary duty to suck up to the right people  , as Goldman Sacks did , to ensure the well being of your share holders. You see the Banks are legally innocent. Morally ?. That's a whole other story. But they are protected by their very own fiduciary duty. They have done nothing 'wrong'. A couple of trillion dollars worth of less than due diligence here and there but nothing that is going to have anyone eating jailfood or watching out lest he or she drop the soap in the shower. And the reason is this. BOTH the Anglo Saxon and European interpretation of 'fiduciary duty' hold that a Banks' SOLE duty is to their shareholders. And this is the problem. If it were any other industry like shampoo making the directors of the company would be beholden to and strictly held accountable by a raft of Public Safety Laws. They would have a statutory duty of care to the wider public to control the supply of chemicals which  if  ended up in the hands of angry Bin Ladies or Bin Ladins  , might bring down the whole of Lufthansa  Qantas and Easy Jet. ( Mind you the managements of  some these companies are doing a pretty good job all on their own ). They would have to take extreme caution that the Gas Supply could not possibly threaten the welfare of the neighbours. But not so the banking industry !. They are solely accountable for the financial welfare of their shareholders and in the words of Apocalyptica - Nothing Else Matters. EXCEPT In ISRAEL !!!!!. Would ya believe it !. You see the Israeli Supreme Court interprets a Banks fiduciary duty to extend to the public and the economy at large. So if these highly ammoral yet legally untouchable wa.... I mean bankers had pulled the same cunning stunts in Israel they could well be eating jail food and taking extra care in the showers lest they became stunning something or others for sons of other mothers.

Just another sad sad example of where this three and a half thousand year old anti-Jewish disease robs us as a species of the opportunity of learning from each other for the benefit of mankind.