Thursday 24 January 2008

400 jobs to go at Citigroup

Citigroup is planning to cut around 400 of its investment banking staff in Canary Wharf. This is part of an annual review in which the bank weeds out the weakest 5 per cent of its staff. Goldman Sachs does this as well. I suppose other banks must also do it.

I'm wondering though how banks identify their weakest employees. Is it all about money, or are there other factors involved? I have been speaking to award-winning financial psychic Keith Busby, and he said, 'I fear money is the main concern for most banks, but they should be more enlightened than this. Instead of sacking an employee who doesn't bring the money in, they should realign his or her chakras. Scientific tests have shown that a banker or trader with well-balanced chakras performs better than someone whose chakras are all fucked up. Maurice Marble III conducted these tests, and he knows what he is doing. It's scientific. You can't argue with science.'

I wouldn't want to argue with science, but let's forget about money altogether. Even if a banker is no good at making money (even with perfect chakras), maybe he or she has other qualities that a bank would need. I mean, imagine a dreary bank where everyone is hard at work - and suddenly a banker, whom everyone considers absolutely useless, receives a message from the world of spirit. Imagine he takes this message to his boss. Imagine the message is so beautiful, so full of peace and love and joy, that this hard boss, this cold assassin, breaks down in tears. Imagine the boss becomes infused with a divine light and then goes on to preach a gospel of holy love to everyone in the bank. Imagine everyone in the bank then stops working and devotes themself to higher things. Imagine everyone crying and singing and dancing, full of happiness, living and breathing this new holy love. Wouldn't that be something more precious than money?