Tonight:
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Is Merrill Lynch the worst company in history? Competition for the title is tough, but any study would have to give weight to the claims of the self-styled “world's biggest stockbroker”.
The Thundering Herd has been blundering into crises for years, the latest disaster seeing it sold to Bank of America. Merrill's last defiant act is to pollute its saviour, previously a perfectly viable concern, with something like $97 billion of toxic assets.
Ken Lewis of BoA was persuaded last year by Merrill's outgoing boss John Thain to pay $50 billion, when a fairer value would have been much less than zero.
Merrill has had its share of movie-villain bosses, but Thain is the perfect man to be the last in charge. He arrived supposedly to save the company and immediately got busy — spending $1 million redecorating his office, complete with a $1400 rubbish bin made of parchment and a $35,000 toilet.
He's on his way now, without — unusually for Merrill executives — the $30 million bonus he felt his hard work merited.
Other companies have been more corrupt than Merrill, but that tended to ensure that they went out of business quicker, thereby capping their impact on the rest of us.
In the last 10 years, few financial crime scenes lacked Merrill's fingerprints. A few of its greatest hits:
In 1999 it was fined £16 million for its role in a notorious rogue copper-trading scandal after being accused of market-rigging.
In 2001 Merrill admitted that its fund managers had been embroiled in a six-year currency trading scam that costs its clients $10 million.
In 2002 it paid $100 million to settle allegations that it defrauded investors during the internet boom. Stocks internally labelled “a dog” and “a piece of s***” were on the buy lists sent to clients. Merrill paid another $164 million to settle class-action lawsuits arising from the scandal.
In 2003 it was fined $80 million for its role in the Enron scandal, a conspiracy to commit wire fraud and perjury and falsify records.
There are others. And there was always a sense of certainty it would fail. You just knew this year's profits would be erased by next year's losses.
For years, Merrill boasted of its role in wealth creation, bragging that it is “bullish on America” — a capitalist success story. In the last two years alone, it must have destroyed more wealth than it helped make since it was founded in 1914.
Which bank advised Royal Bank of Scotland on its cataclysmic takeover of ABN Amro? Merrill Lynch. Which one led the dreadful float of Sports Direct, costing pension funds hundreds of millions of pounds? Merrill Lynch.
It would have been better if Merrill had been recognised as an international disaster area years ago and closed to new business for the good of the public. It will squeeze a few more billions from the US taxpayer before it can be finally laid to rest.
A swish new pad with your skinny latte?
There's an estate agents on the Blackstock Road in N4 that has just turned itself into a café. You browse the properties and the menu — then order a croissant, a skinny latte and a three-bedroom loft conversion.
It always seems busy so I asked the boss if the strategy was working. He's shifting lots of coffee but no houses. I'm not surprised. Despite recent falls in house prices, too many people are still living in homes they couldn't now afford to buy.
Until this situation corrects, there isn't the slightest chance of house prices rising. Anyone who is delaying a sale because they think they'll get a better offer in a year or two is, I'm afraid, delusional.
It's still brutal, but being in the firing line has a little dignity
Given the choice, I'd like to be fired. Of the options — assuming that simply remaining in employment is not available — that seems to be the best deal.
All the jargon attached to losing a job is bad, but being made redundant is surely the most brutal, as if the person's entire being has been found wanting.
We've just discovered, the company is saying, that you serve no purpose. You are redundant. In America, you get laid off, which is gentler. There were lay-offs — no one was to blame. But being fired can allow you a scrap of dignity.
Sure, I got fired, but I walked away with a year's cash and I told the guy what I thought of him.
Being sacked is also not too bad. It suggests you were doing something terribly wrong, such as selling company secrets on the internet or interfering with the boss's wife. At least you weren't redundant.
Tide-over loans could sweep us away
They say banks aren't lending, but it isn't so. Just yesterday I was invited to borrow £750 — no questions asked — by an outfit called PayDay UK.
At a typical APR of 1845% — no, that's not a misprint — they will loan enough cash to tide me over until the salary cheque lands.
PayDay is owned by MEM Consumer Finance, which says its services are cheaper and less risky than some alternatives — loaning your daughter to drug-runners, perhaps. The Citizens Advice Bureau says debt now tops its inquiries list, which suggests business is booming for PayDay and its ilk.
What's the catch? asks the PayDay website — there isn't one! Of course not.
