As we usher in the dawn of 2011, which will eventually move into 2012 with a crush- ing inevitability, the Banking system is set to change irrevers- ibly forever. The introduction of the Volcker Rule has placed a ban on banks investing their own money in internal propri- ety trading.
Fears regarding the fallout of this decision are mounting. US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said recently that ‘by limiting the amount of money private companies are spend- ing on things, it means that the things that will be being sold will be being sold for less, be- cause not many of the banks are buying those things that are for sale in the first place’.
A fine rhetorician, Geith- ner predicts that key industries that could suffer from the rule include coffee chains, breakfast meeting liaison committees and Moët & Chandon, one of the largest global producers of dried fruit.
In anticipation of the forth- coming regulations, banks are now flocking to the traditionally safer dotcom industry. Danny from Hear’Say, the unlikely new head of Wall Street minnow Goldman Saxx recently invested eight eggs in exchange for an 84% stake in StalkNet.com, a price per share which values L.A. scenester Mark Zuckerberg’s on- line venture at $50 billion.
The cost of the Volcker upheaval is forcing change on even the most venerable finan- cial institutions. Investment bank Lehman Bear recently an- nounced a joint venture with Doug Richards, ex Lion from Dragon’s Den, in a deal ru- moured to be worth more than what they paid for it. Richards was introduced to Lehman Bear representatives on the set of Bear Grylls’ new film, Into the Body of the Beast, in which Old-Etonian Grylls performs an autopsy on the recently deceased Dick Fuld, ten-time champion of the annual Wall Street pissing contest, to ex- plore the causes of the financial crisis of 2007-2009. Following the rip-roaring success of the movie-cum-documentary, a se- quel, Grylls Goes Fannie (Mae) Hunting, is already in produc- tion.
The partnership has also invested an undisclosed sum in Floxx.com, the rebranded FitFinder, previously banned from most UK universities for encouraging the tandem evils of library seat sniffing and in- excusably dull bragging. The new site launched on Christ- mas Day and is named after the sheep beloning to the shepherd who so magnanimously raped Mary after the birth of her son Jesus on the same day 2011 years prior.
Whilst there is definitely something appealing about ca- sually hinting to someone who may or may not be online that you may possibly be interested in them (or anyone sitting in that vicinity of whom about 70% will probably fit exactly the same description) there is little evidence to suggest that this style of harassment can constitute a viable busi- ness model. After a brief look at the impeccable track record of Lehman Bear and Doug Richards one can only reserve judgement, but so far the up- take of the new website has been slow. Creator and ex-UCL swinging dick Rich Martell re- leased a statement saying that he hoped ‘that the website will get bigger than it is now’.