Monday 12 April 2010

Ravi Sinha and the phantom fees

Yet again, the FSA is fucking with one of my mates. I am convinced it is something personal against me. But the FSA knows it can't touch a man as powerful as I am, so it goes after my friends.

Ravi Sinha is the latest. He is being investigated by the FSA over claims that he skimmed money off the top - like some sort of Mafia hood, like Moe Greene - when he was working at the private equity firm JC Flowers. £1.3 million of phantom fees! From a company owned by his fund!

But those are just the mundane details. The FSA's problem is that it does not understand what phantom fees actually are.

When you are a mystic financier, an astral trader, an other-worldly dealer, a cosmic banker, an inner space cowboy, you quite often come face to face with the ghosts of the dead financiers. You will not always have to deal with them. Unless you are an established shaman like myself, they can be rather snooty. They are not as friendly as I often make them seem. It depends on the mood they are in. We all have our moods, don't we? A lot of the time, you will find them staring down at you, with a look of utter contempt on their pale faces, because they think they are all that and you a mere worm. And they are right. They are all that. They are special. You most probably are a worm. Not in your everyday life, of course. You could be a very successful hedge fund manager in your earthly wanderings. But that would mean nothing to the ghosts if they bumped into you in the astral sky, one warm night at the beginning of summer - we are almost there - as you looked dreamily at the desert sands, not seeing them dancing all around. And the point is, if you did meet them, they would question you about your latest deals, and they would want a taste. Yes, they would want their phantom fees! And there would be nothing that you could do about it. You could not refuse the ghosts. That would mean certain death. So you would pay them.

O my children, my brothers, my sisters, if you see the ghosts, pay them! There is nothing corrupt about it. That's the way business is done in our reality.

The FSA will never understand.