The city traders and the recession will kill more people in the UK than guns kill. The recession triggers unemployment and this is why recessions are associated with an increased suicide rate. Some bankers also feel guilty and take their own lives though often it is for the same reason other people kill themselves rather than the guilt of their responsibility for the recession suicides.
There is also significant evidence which suggests poverty contributes to mental and physical ill health as well as reduced life expectancy. So many potential years of extra life are lost because of economic recessions.
The city traders continue to prosper regardless of the deaths and reduced life expectancy of others. I hope there are many people who think this doesn't have to be like this.
The investment banks and hedge funds and other risk taking financial institutions find the best people and pay them insane amounts of money. How much? Well my cousin got herself a degree in medicine from Oxford and when she left Arthur Anderson - a now dead accountancy firm - offered her £70,000 to come work with them instead of become a junior doctor. She chose to be a doctor.
The people who make the decisions and take the risks can make or lose millions and billions ina day. The best make more on the days the win than the lose on bad days. A lot more. This is why they get so much money. The investment banks want the best risk takers, those who succeed on the risk versus reward equation.
This is all measured by money though. The bankers don't know they end up killing people when they fuck up. They don't see the gambles which make and lose them money also affect the lives of individuals.
The risks they take and are well paid for also result in the misery and early death of many people when they go wrong. Global recessions have a greater price than lost productivity. It harms a lot of people too.
This shouldn't be allowed. No society with any moral conscience could allow this pattern of events to be repeated again and again.
In legal terms the concept of mens rea seems relevant. The city professionals should have known. They're so smart and stuff. They can understand that unemployment and poverty harm people, and their mistakes are the cause. This means the lives of the worst off just get worse.
Mens rea means they could be responsible for murder. They should know about cause and effect. There's enough evidence. They may disregard it as many people and organisations do but their mistakes abd ignorance lead to other people dying. These deaths are preventable.
That's sort of the crux of my point in a way. These deaths are preventable. How is the question?
The Chartered Financial Analyst exams are an important tool with which people who work in the banking industry are gaining the...the stuff which comes with being part of a profession. The exams are very hard and experience is required too to get the top level qualifications but these are a gateway to a high salary in the investment banking industry.
They also have ethics modules. Here is one opportunity to inform and create a prevention system. Bankers need to know when they fuck up they kill people. Their professional code of conduct doesn't need to say they shouldn't do this. The law should be enough to stop them killing people. Using the education and requirements for chartered status forces them to learn that they're killing people.
It also creates the opportunity to put them in jail when they fuck up. Murder isn't just killing someone. The law in the UK has a broad view of responsiblity. It's time the biggest murders are locked up.
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