SPREADING THE WEALTH

"God... a being whose only definition is that he is beyond man's power to conceive." Ayn Rand. 

I think Sir Francis Bacon (above) is usually credited with the saying, “money is a good servant but a bad master”.  Actually, it was an old French proverb, far older even than the Elizabethan politician and writer, and Sir Francis merely translated it. His own original observation about money said the same thing, but was as prosaic as fertilizer. “Money is like muck,” Sir Francis said, “not good except it be spread.” 

"The alleged short-cut to knowledge, which is faith, is only a short-circuit destroying the mind." Ayn Rand 

You see, Sir Francis believed the biblical warning that “The love of money is the root of all evil” (Timothy 6:10), because capitalism is a without morality. It is not amoral. That is an excuse. It is immoral, because money has no memory and no soul.  You buy a loaf of bread and you employ the baker and the driver who delivers it, and the check-out clerk, the farmer who grows the grain...etc. Morality has nothing to do with any of that,

Economists, by the way,  call this the “velocity of money multiplier effect”, or the VMME, and most economists multiply each dollar spent on bread by six. This is the material logic which – in addition to Judeo-Christian and Islamic and Hindu and Confuscusian morality - justifies food stamps and unemployment insurance.  Government is supposed to provide context via morality.

And yet, today's devotees of Ayn Rand (above), meaning most Republican politicians,  ignore VMME,  preaching that wealthy Americans should act only out of self interest while the working poor, once known as the middle class, are sacrificed on the alter of more wealth for the wealthy. Heads the bankers win, tails, anybody who borrows from a banker, looses.  No wonder that these days, every corporation wants to be a bank,  

"We will rebuild America’s system on the moral premise...that man is an end in himself."

Ayan Rand Atlas Shrugged 

According to Wikipedia, “A bank connects customers that have capital deficits to customers with capital surpluses.” But in the post “Citizens Untied” world, where a Supreme Court majority can chose to believe that corporations have the same rights of free speech as individuals – and enough money to reduce “Free Speech” to an oxymoron - money has become the master. Five American banks now hold – hold - more than $8.5 trillion in assets – 56% of America's $15 trillion economy.  

As the stock market becomes increasingly detached from the middle class values these mega-bankers practice zombie capitalism, trading their cash surpluses back and forth between themselves, hedging their equity by shifting the money from this pocket to that, paying themselves a bonus every time their computers shift the funds. At some point reality must intervene in this monetary computer game world, as J.P. Morgan discovered back in 2007 and as Silicon Valley Bank learned in 2023. And when it does, the destructive effect is suffered by the nation as a whole. Sacrifice might be required, but only for those who cannot afford to live in the fantasy world of 21^st century hedge and bit fund managers.  

"I will never live for the sake of another man."  Ayan Rand Atlas Shrugged 

It brings to mind an observation once made by a very angry young man. He wrote, “There have been gambling manias before... (but) the ruling principle of the...the present mania, is... to speculate in speculation...” The angry young man was Karl Marx (above), and he was writing about the swindle of the moment in September of 1856, the collapse of the Royal British Bank. 

It was a fabulous enterprise which seemed solid as granite at one moment and in the next a cruel fraud and a fantasy. And the most interesting thing about the case, besides the moral lessons the father of Communism saw in it, is that the bankers who perpetrated it actually went to jail, however briefly, without bringing down capitalism. 

"Until and unless you discover that money is the root of all good, you ask for your own destruction."

Ayn Rand Atlas Shrugged. 

The Royal British Bank, created in 1849, was innovative. Previously, banking had been a rich man's game. Those with money had banded together to lend to those who could afford to borrow it - i.e. Royalty.  In return they granted titles and land rights. But the fortunes created by the industrial revolution were not exclusively blue blooded, and both blue blood and non-blue blooded advanced thinkers in Scotland invented the publicly owned bank. 

They then convinced Parliament and the House of Lords to charter an institution which would allow small investors with a little extra cash to combine their money  And according to the new rules, once they had sold L50,000 worth of stock in the bank, they could open their doors and begin accepting accounts and lending money to make a profit. 

In this case the idea belonged to Londoner John Menzies (above), who suggested the idea to his lawyer, Edward Mullins. Together they printed up a prospectus (or Deed Of Constitution), and went looking for investors. But as England was in the middle of a recession (its fourth “Panic” since 1817) they found little money available for investment.

Until they approached shipbuilder John McGregor (above), who was also a Liberal Party politician representing Glasgow, Scotland. For the price of ten shares – at L10 per share –McGregor bought himself a seat on the board of the new bank. Cheap enough. 

He immediately suggested the board hire an old friend of his who had knowledge of the “Scottish style” of banking, fellow Minister to Parliament,  Hugh Innes Cameron (above).  A bank started by politicians, for the politicians. What could go wrong?  

"If any civilization is to survive, it is the morality of altruism that men have to reject."

Ayn Rand Atlas Shrugged 

Cameron was offered the position of Managing Director of the Royal British Bank. And with McGregor's help, Mr. Cameron obtained a seven year contract which would impress any modern equity or hedge fund manager. The first year Cameron would be paid L1250 (equivalent to $2 million today) , rising to L2,000 a year ($4.5 million today), with an annual housing allowance of L200 (about a hundred thousand modern day dollars). 

Within a few months Cameron had squeezed out the man who first conceived of the idea for the bank, Mr. Menzies, buying him out  with L400 of investors' money. Now there was nobody looking over the shoulder of any of the bank's officers or investors. The fraud was afoot.

"If you ask me to name the proudest distinction of Americans...they were the people who created the phrase "to make money”.

Ayan Rand Atlas Shrugged

From that moment, the bank never stood a chance of surviving. Instead of the L50,000 the law required and which appeared on it's books, at its opening the Royal British Bank actually had no more than L18,000 in its vaults.

Over the next six years, while the 6,000 depositors supplied the salaries, advances and loans never repaid to the officers of the bank, each of those men became involved in enumerable kickbacks, scams and frauds which removed even more of the  investor's  funds -  about L130,000, (or the equivalent of $247 million today). The whole thing collapsed in the summer of 1856, producing, yet another nation wide “Panic”, this one which taught so much to the Father of Communism.  

"The question isn't who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me."

Ayn Rand Atlas Shrugged. 

John McGregor escaped arrest by sailing to Boulogne, France. He died there, deeply in debt in April of 1857.  In February of 1859 the seven surviving board members were finally tried on seven counts of fraud. The jury convicted them of six. 

At sentencing the judge, Lord Cameron (above), could have been speaking directly modern Wall Street Crypto geniuses, and their patron saint, Ayn Rand. “It would be a disgrace to the laws of any country” said the judge 150 years ago, “if this were not a crime to be punished. It is not a mere breach of contract with the shareholders and the customers of the bank., but it is a criminal conspiracy to do what must inevitably lead to a great public mischief, in the ruin of families and the reduction of widows and orphans from affluence to destitution; I regret to say that in mitigation of your offense it was said to be common practice. Unfortunately a laxity has been introduced into certain commercial dealings...and practices have been adopted without bringing in a consciousness of shame...”  In other words - morality.

"When I die, I hope to go to Heaven, whatever the Hell that is. And I want to be able to afford the price of admission." Ayn Rand 

Because it was his first conviction, Hugh Innes Cameron could only be sentenced to a year in jail. All the other board members received even lesser sentences, and one was only fined a single shilling. 

The scandal sold a few newspapers, and produced a marvelous pamphlet, “The Curious and Remarkable History of the Royal British Bank showing how We Got it Up and How it went down.” But judging by recent history, nobody learned anything from the affair, or any of the other enumerable “Panics”, recessions and depressions which have stricken capitalist economies once or twice a decade ever since. 

I think we learn nothing because greed makes you stupid, and the mega-bankers and their paid political apologists are purveyors of greed and thus are selling and buying stupidity . 

Which is why conservative politicians increasingly say really, really stupid things. We have seen this progression since biblical days. To acknowledge this reality and yet not deal with it is to acknowledge you are a zombie, addicted to greed, and without hope of ever seeing a better future. A devotee of Ayn Rand. 

"You can avoid reality, but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding reality."  Ayn Rand.

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A JOKE IS NEVER JUST A JOKE

 

I recently came across an old English music hall joke. A young Irish lad was warmly welcomed into an English pub , but after a few drinks the boy got a sad look about him. He explained he appreciated the comradeship, but missed his corner pub back home. “The first time you set foot in the place”, he explained , “they'd buy you a drink, then another, all the drinks you like. Then when you've finally had enough, they'd take you upstairs and make sure you get laid.” 

The English patrons were skeptical, and the barkeep asked how many times the Irish lad had experienced this kind of welcome. “Never”, he admitted. “But it happened to my sister quite a few times.” Now I have to ask you, do you think that a racist joke? Sexist, yes. But racist?  I suspect your answer depends on if you are Irish or not.

After almost thirty years of success London Publisher James Henderson finally hit the mother lode in a penny tabloid weekly magazine, “Our Young Folks Weekly Budget”. Its 16 pages of action art work and adventure fiction dominated the youth market through various incarnations for 26 years. 

(Henderson paid Robert Louis Stevens a pound per column for “Treasure Island”, which he serialized in “Young Folks”). And each noon, the savvy capitalist would meet with his editors, issuing detailed instructions for the flurry of newspapers and magazines – even a line of picture post cards - that cascaded from 169 Red Lion Court, Fleet street, each seeking to replicate “Young Folks” profits. Henderson had stumbled upon the concept of a specialty market.

A London Bobby asks two drunks for their names and addresses. The first answers, “I'm Paddy O'Day, of no fixed address.” And the second replies, “I'm Seamus O'Toole, and I live in the flat above Paddy.”

Beginning in 1831 royal taxes on newspapers were lowered by three-fourths. The response was instantaneous. New papers popped up like mushrooms after a rain. The industrial revolution was bringing people into the cities, and putting coins in their pockets. For the first time in history, that created consumers, which made advertising profitable (i.e. capitalism). More papers encouraged more people to read. By 1854, out of a population of 28 million, weekly newspaper sales in England had topped 122 million a year. In 1857 the last newspaper taxes were finally eliminated, triggering yet another wave – daily newspapers. It was this new customer vox populi that James Henderson and Sons were riding to success.

Paddy: Is your family in business? Seamus; Yes, iron and steel. My mother irons and my father steals

In December of 1874, Henderson created the first humor magazine in England, a sort of Victorian Daily Show in print, called “Funny Folks, The Comic Companion to the Newspaper”. The cover art for the first issue was drawn by John Proctor, who signed his work, “Puck”. “Funny Folks” proved so successful that Henderson released an entire line of humor magazines - “Big Comic”, “Lot-O-Fun” “Comic Life”, “Scraps and Sparks”. In 1892 came Henderson's most popular humor magazine, “Nuggets”

Bobby: “Madam, I could cite you for indecent exposure, walking down the street with your breast exposed like that.” Irish lass: “Holy Mary and Joseph, I left the baby on the bus.”

Like “Funny Folks”, Nuggets had its own featured artist, T.S. Baker, and his most popular creation was an Irish family living “in contented poverty” in South London - the Hooligans. The father, P. Hooligan, was a would-be entrepreneur, and shades of the 1950's Honeymooners TV show, a member of the Shamrock Lodge.  And his every scheme in some way involved his wheelbarrow, and the family goat. Mrs. Hooligan was fashion conscious, but always copying far above her economic station. And there were, of course, a hoard of unnamed ginger haired children about. 

It seems impossible to believe that the term hooligans, as in violent law breakers, practitioners of impractical anarchy, began as the name of a gentle Irish family imitating proper Victorian society. In the nine year run this cartoon Irish family, proved popular because it was drawn by an artist and comic writer of ingenious and subtle talents. In person the Hooligans don't make an obvious racist image. But what did the intended audience see in this cartoon, that a hundred plus years later, we might not? And how is being called a Paddy in 1890, different from being hit with the “N” word, today? Time and distance, I suspect.

What's the first thing an Irish lass does in the morning? She walks home

The bigotry towards Ireland seems to have started about a thousand years ago, with Gerald of Wales, the ultra-orthodox chaplain to the English King Henry II, who joined his monarch in the church endorsed invasion of Ireland, and with his observation of the locals. “This is a filthy people, wallowing in vice. They indulge in incest, for example in marrying – or rather debauching – the wives of their dead brothers.” 

One would think a clergyman who had studied logic in Paris would have remembered Deuteronomy 25:5 - “...her husband's brother shall go in to her, and take her to him to wife, and perform the duty of a husband's brother to her.” I guess it's easier to butcher people, if you can manage to despise them for whatever reason.  And imagine them as apes, be it the Irish or African Americans.

What do you call an Irishman with half a brain? Gifted

Illogically the English originally justified their oppression of the Irish because they were bringing them Catholicism. Then after their own Protestant reformation, the English used Catholicism to denigrate the Irish, calling them “cat licks” and “mackerel snappers” who ate fish on Fridays. With time the insults came to include local terrain (bog trotters) physical characteristics (carrot top), perceived laziness (narrow backs) and diet (potato heads, spud fuckers and tater tots for the children). Irish jokes (read insults) were standard fare in English music halls from the 1850's on, and always good for a laugh. And it was from this racism that the sophisticated simplicity of the Hooligans achieved something approaching an art form.

“What's the difference between an Irish wedding and an Irish wake? One drink.”

James Henderson, and his son Nelson, may have been racists. History has failed to record their opinions outside of the business decisions they made. And it may be valid to label them with the black mark because of the Hooligans. And they did publish worse. But then they were publishers, not social activists. And like a music hall comic who told Irish jokes, they provided the public what the public wanted, or else they could not remain in business. Morality is an affect, not an effect. So were these purveyors of anti-Irish humor racists, or were they merely businessmen? And did the Hooligans transcend racism because it was so well done? You might as well ask Norman Lear if Archie Bunker made life easier for African Americans by calling them “jungle bunnies” on national television. In fact that question has been asked

“Paddy, he said you weren't fit to associate with pigs, but I stuck up for you. I said you most certainly were.”

Its hard for me to dismiss the Hooligans because they make me smile, and because they were a loving respectful family, and because they were always striving. But mostly because they make me smile. Why I laugh at them, tells a story about me, not them. It is a lesson every artist must learn at some point, the sooner the better. What is put on the page, is rarely what is seen there. It is the job of the artist to limit confusion. But you can never be completely understood. The most you can consistently hope to achieve is to entertain. Enlightenment is the responsibility of the reader, not the writer. 

Bobby; "Where were you born?" Paddy; "Dublin". Bobby; "What part?"   Paddy; "All of me."

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