Tuesday, October 14, 2008

The Banking Crisis For Dummies: Really Complicated Investment Vehicles


Really Complicated Investment Vehicles ("RCIVs") are the cause of the current "credit crunch" or "international banking crisis".

It is simple:
1. The sacked heads of UK banks were not themselves capable of creating or understanding RCIVs.

2. In fact, no-one was.

3. There were no RCIVs capable of real world risk assessment (a "RWRA") by someone outside the elite group of their creators ("the inner cabal").

4. The inner cabal consists of people in banking who can devise RCIVs that are inexplicable.

5. The inner cabal know that they cannot conduct an RWRA on a RCIV. But they also know that no-one else can either.

6. However, with a little finesse the inner cabal have been able, by complex but essentially meaningless explanations, to persuade their bosses and customers that their particular RCIV was a sure fire money maker ("an SFMM").

7. The inner cabal knew that there was no RCIV that RWRA would show to be a SFMM.

8. However, they also knew that their bosses and customers did not know this.

9. So, they could sell them both a pup and earn huge bonuses whilst the bubble expanded and did not pop.

10. The bubble popped.
QED.

Now that you understand that, you also understand how the inner cabal did it.

They simply flummoxed everyone with the use of acronyms and persuading bosses and customers alike that they were too stupid to understand what they were doing and so should simply trust them with their money.

A more serious approach to this question can be found at the title link.

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