Barrel Strength

A lynch mob has been unleashed in US and institutional advisers have taken note.

“Let’s go hang ‘em.”

American history is replete with examples of lynch mobs taking control of a situation and inflicting injustice.  In the end most lynch mobs have dealt harmful blows to society….

At Cumberland, we are advising institutional clients to take great care when engaging in any form of activity with the federal government.  Simply put: a lynch mob can turn on you in a second and cannot be trusted.  The risk is now very high.

Other firms that are already acting with TARP monies, or other federal monies for that matter, are seeking ways to deleverage and exit.  In the entrepreneurial and risk-taking business and financial community the universal response to this act by Congress is outrage and distrust and disgust.

ACORN has taken this opportunity to fund protests at the homes of AIG executives and across the pond anti-capitalist have attacked the home of ex-RBS boss.  In 1930s FDR displayed “astonishment that wealthy Americans would deliberately arrange their finances so as to lower their tax burden [which] seems almost quaint to us today”.  It seems similar lesson will have to be learned again.

Obama has been silent on lynch mobs, but then that is not a surprise.  After all this is the administration that verbally attacked a private citizen, one Rush Limbaugh, and represents a party that has decoupled itself from the private sector.

Update: The Swiss hide.

Switzerland’s private banks have started to ban their top executives from travelling abroad, even to neighbouring France and Germany, because of fears they will be detained as part of a global crackdown on bank secrecy.