John Key’s business experience
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4:20 pm, October 29th, 2008 - 9 comments
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That’s a brilliant clip.
The link is not so brilliant though.
Here’s a good link for ya
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=10539975
Since when has John Key been involved with the Subprime Mortgage debacle? Sure he was at Meryl Lynch as the head of Foreign Exchange, not mortgage or debt related investments. But you know, if we are going on the same analogy, perhaps we could say Helen Clark was involved with the sale of the BNZ, oh wait, she was.
Jared you would be a moron if you thought this clip was only aimed at such a specific aspect of the finance industry or if you thought foreign exchange speculation was somehow more noble, honourable or sensible than the mortgage dealing described in the clip.
Oh wait, you are.
Do enlighten me as to how Foreign Exchange is related to Mortgage related debt financing. Id be interested to know. You would be a moron if you considered all financial trading the same. Oh wait, you are.
“Id be interested to know.”
Freudian slip.
Jared,
According to JK’s own website he was Global head of Forex, European head of bonds and Derivatives and he was an upon invitation only advisor to the Federal reserve of New York from 1999 until he left Wall street (Funny how he never mentions that in his interviews, eh) in March 2001.
He was one of only 4 advisors and the others were someone from Lehman brothers, Citicorp and UBSWahrburg. Together with his bank Merrill Lynch that makes 4 of the banks most hit by the Subprime crisis. In this speech Key tells his audience that he had an Office in Wall street and that he lived on and off in New York from1995 until March 2001.
According to JK himself he was heading the department that was developing all these great new products.
He states in the next page of that interview that the products causing the subprime market were only developed in 2004-2005. While this may not immediately prove John Key’s complicity, the fact that he distances himself from Wall street and lies about the subprime timeline should be cause for worry and it should send journalists into a feeding frenzy because it is a ludicrous and dishonest statement as the rise in subprime mortgages sales started to rise considerably in 1988 because the US government basically ordered Fanny mae and Freddy mac to start lending mortgages to every Tom Dick and Harry and their dog without any regards as to their credit history and Warren Buffet already said in 2002 that derivatives were weapons of mass destruction.
1988 was also the year in which the Glass Steagall act was unofficially repealed
(officially in November 1999) allowing Commercial banks and Investment banks to merge. This was something the Wall street bankers had been lobbying for for some 10 years and which had cost them something like a $ 100 to $ 200 million dollars.
This is what changed a relatively robust banking system into a free for all and an investment bankers wet dream.
John Key worked from 1995 until 2001 at the epicentre of the banksters feeding frenzy in Forex (Currency derivatives are as dangerous as the subprime derivatives), bonds and derivatives for a bank which was one of the most aggressive derivatives traders, he made it all the way to the top and he’s is lying through the teeth about it . What are the chances of him being a squeaky clean choirboy you reckon?
Again, all of this puts John Key smack bang in the middle of not only the subprime crisis but also in the a href=’http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-Term_Capital_Management’>Asian crisis, the Russian crisis in which Merrill Lynch was involved through the LTCM (long term credit management hedge fund) which collapsed spectacularly in 1988 causing John Key to have to fire so many of his colleagues and finally in the subprime crisis.
At this moment Alan Greenspan’s legacy while once hailed as the magician of Wall street is being revised. For John Key to have been this close to the fire should surely warrant some caution especially since he lies in interviews about is time lines and where he worked.
bugger, caught in purgatory again. help.
Captcha: pastor Jones. LOL
Thats strange, heres me thinking you were going to tell me how forex was linked to mortgage related derivatives, like I asked. What we are trying to ascertain here is whether or not John Key was involved with H-Fee and/or the Subprime collapse. He wasn’t and that is very clear. For you to suggest otherwise is simply scaremongering and misleading.