A banker’s power now grows proportionally with his bank’s losses
Evidence
In contrast, after 2008 in the United States and Europe, with the exception of Lehman Brothers, the central banks saved the bankrupt bankers, prompting me to coin the term ‘bankruptocracy’ – the new, post-2008, reality where a Western banker’s power is analogous to the size of his bank’s losses! — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism, 929
Categorization
- DEFINE: Coins and defines ‘bankruptocracy’ — a reversal where losses convert into power rather than failure.
- XREF: Connects to moral hazard and too-big-to-fail literature, and to the book’s broader theme of how state power now serves the financial class rather than the market economy. — connects to: Capital requirements shift loss burden from taxpayers back to banks. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 1563; Too-big-to-fail bank concentration worsened after the 2008 crisis — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s…, 736; Fear of economic collapse deters prosecution of top bankers — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 1502
- CANDY: A sharp, tweetable inversion: ‘your power grows in direct proportion to your losses’ — an elevator-conversation zinger.
- corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism, 929
Broader Connections
- Fear of economic collapse deters prosecution of top bankers
#expands(0.80) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 1502 - Too-big-to-fail bank concentration worsened after the 2008 crisis
#complicates(0.78) — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 736 - Capital requirements shift loss burden from taxpayers back to banks.
#qualifies(0.72) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 1563