Scene 1: Canary Wharf

Narrator: Its late 2019, a crowded London bar, a young black woman sits opposite a middle aged man wearing a Burberry suit.  Cambridge graduate Helen works for a think-tank that pressures big financial funds to make ethical investments.  She is looking to uncover some of the shadier dealings of hedge funds for her podcast, so she is surprised but excited that John a senior broker from one of London’s biggest hedge funds has agreed to her request to meet. 

They talk late into the evening. The story Helen is after her alludes her, but she is moved by the way John looks at her and listens so intensely.  He seems like a bit of dark horse, a surprisingly sensitive soul. They agree to meet again, so John can tell her more about Spring Tree Capital, his hedge fund, and its corporate culture. At least, they are both happy to pretend that’s why they want to stay in touch.

John: I walk back to Canary Wharf station. Standing on the deserted platform, I feel this new elation inside me. I remember…a different bar, a different time…It was just after the Big Bang – my best mate David and I were toasting Thatcher’s glorious deregulation of the financial markets. This beautiful woman Ruth walked in - we persuaded her with bottles of Moet to join us. I’d forgotten how light I felt, floating on the air of ambition and desire, the future seemed endlessly bright.

Trading in Air (song)

BBC announcer sample:

“Since the ‘60s news from the City has mattered to more and more people.  Nobody makes anything here except money”

John:

How do I explain what’s invisible

But it’s everywhere?

How do I make an honest living

When nothing is fair?

How do I know that I’m normal

When no-one cares?

(when no-one cares)

Chorus (John)

I’m just trading in air

I’m just trading in air

Ruth

We are young, we are precious

All our lives are ahead

You’ve opened my eyes to a world I

Didn’t know that was there

You touched my hand, and I knew

We had riches to share

(riches to share)

Chorus (John and Ruth)

We’re just trading in air

We’re just trading  in air

David

Cheers to Big Bang, cheers to Thatcher!

She’s kicked open the door

No more controls on commissions

Foreign banks! LIBOR!

A toast to our friends as computers

Hit the stock exchange floor.

(stock exchange floor)

Chorus (John, Ruth and David)

We’re just trading in air

We’re just trading in air

Interview samples:

“It struck me we were trading in fresh air…it was one of those moments when you think…this is madness!”

Scene 3: Playing the game

Narrator: As investors big and small look at Sebvis stocks, the price line starts to drop as news of the Spring Tree sell recommendation gets out. But then Reddit, social media, the financial bloggers take an interest. A hedge fund is trying to send a hospital builder to the wall! Overnight, its a hot topic.  Thousands of ordinary investors rally to teach the hedge fund a lesson by buying long on Sebvis.

Behind the scenes though, David, Wagner Bank, is seeding stories to social media, …

David: Doesn’t matter what people think, the Potential Earnings on Sebvis shares shows they’re undervalued!

Narrator:… gaming the share price, appealing to ordinary investors who just want a hospital a built…

David: You know that Spring Tree are just doing what hedge funds do…

Narrator: …want to prove a point about greedy hedge funds.  Over 14  days, Sebvis stock u-turns and rockets up 200%. Investors are unaware they are being manipulated by silent brokers like David, and everyone is being swept up in the chaos of the financial industry machine.

David:  You have to treat the finance world like a giant slot machine. You throw your money into the machine, pull the levers and hope no-one you know gets hurt!

 Hope No One I Know Gets Hurt (song)

David:

Its not going in the right direction 

Share price starting to tank 

Why believe the analysts note 

The truth in what John wrote? 

I hope no one I know gets hurt, 

I hope no one I know gets hurt 

It’s a deal 

There’ll be pain 

But I hope no one I know gets hurt 

You might say it’s crossing the line  

My duty to the market  

Seed the story in the press 

Claim the funds are creating stress 

“The Stock is good please trust me 

The analysis is poor 

If we all buy in we’ll win”

With emotion they’ll believe the spin 

I hope no one I know gets hurt, 

I hope no one I know gets hurt 

It’s a deal 

There’ll be pain 

But I hope no one I know gets hurt 

Social media is keen 

The chatter is hot 

It’s the hedge funds they’re crap 

They’re long overdue a slap 

John might be hitting the dirt 

But It’s a game 

Always the same 

News reader:  Extraordinary scenes in the markets today as construction company Sebvis shares trebled in value in response to activist investors buying up big. The value of Sebvis stock continue to skyrocket as ordinary investors try to thwart one of the UK’s largest hedge funds, Spring Tree Capital who have publicly shorted the stock.

Narrator: Both sides are now being played by forces bigger than themselves- by the financial industry machine, the game itself.  There’s all those Next Best Fools – those investors who just follow others for share purchasing, Passing the Parcel. Then the game can turn suddenly into Musical Chairs. When the music stops, you don’t want to be the person without a chair – standing there holding the stock that now no-one wants.

Scene 5: Lost control

Narrator: But why does this industry generate such chaos? Is it just up to players who hock their imaginations to money, who are just ‘doing their jobs’? Or could it be that the machine itself has gotten out of control?

Before the Thatcher/ Reagan driven Big Bang of deregulation in the late ‘80s, there was another time and place. The time was 1944, the place was Bretton Woods, USA. World leaders gathered to vow no more Great Depressions, no more chaos, lets reign in financial institutions to serve the people. 

Bretton Woods (instrumental)

Interview sample (Professor Max Haiven):

It’s called post-Bretton Woods financialisation, basically after 1971-1973, the collapse of the Bretton Woods international system, the collapse of the gold standard, the American dollar backed by the gold standard and post like Thatcher/Big Bang…

 You can talk to anyone in the financial system and after one drink they’ll say, like, I’m just doing what I have to do…

 A system beyond any one person’s control.

Narrator: John is devastated. Everything he has worked towards all these years – his reputation, his increasing wealth, his status – all gone. So many people John knew in London’s finance industry – younger than him – had made their windfalls and got out of the game, early retirement at 35.  But not John – he was the fool still holding the dud stock when the music stopped. And now he could see no way out.

Scene 7: Success

News reader: Sebvis, one of the largest construction companies in the UK with 4 billion in govt contracts, announced today it is going into receivership, with over 300 million in unpaid debts. Sebvis hit the news last month when it was the target of an activist investor campaign which increased company share value by 200%, to the dismay of hedge funds that had shorted the company believing…(fade out)

Narrator: Sebvis really is in serious financial trouble, run to the ground by corrupt management and going down for good. There starts the real  trickle down effect – the effect of reckless corporate failure on hundreds of people not being paid, small suppliers, contract electricians, catering, cleaners, small businesses now unable to pay their own debts.

When the share price finally collapses altogether, Sebvis is insolvent. But David at Wagner Bank had already taken his bonus. The Sebvis directors had already cashed in their shares at the inflated price. The players and share revvers all got rid of their options to a hungry market before the company crashed.

They all make a lot of money. Although nothing of value happened in the ‘real world’, a hospital won’t be built in Tower Hamlets. Wagner and Sebvis execs all walked out from the wreckage with more than enough to buy a Hertfordshire country pile, a racehorse, a yacht.

David: That all worked out rather well in the end, thank Christ!  Hope John’s not taking it too hard, must drop him a line, no hard feelings, we knew what kind of industry we were getting into all those years ago...at least I think we did.

Getting Richer (song)

The markets:

Oh, what a dream

Inside the machine

Next Best Fools

Followed David’s pipers over the edge.

Chorus

He’s getting richer

He’s getting richer

Executive bonuses made from thin air

He pumped up the stocks

Then sold his shares off

A master of winning at musical chairs

Investment bank making money

Though no hospital is built

Corporate brass making honey

From a company they’ve killed.

Verse 2

Look on the ground

Debt trickles down

Jobs gone, homes too

Government shouldn’t interfere.

Chorus

He’s getting richer

He’s getting richer

Executive bonuses made from thin air

He pumped up the stocks

Then sold his shares off

A master of winning at musical chairs

Investment bank making money

Though no hospital is built

Corporate brass making honey

From a company they’ve killed.

And the people cry that it isn’t fair

But reality is laissez faire…faire…faire

Scene 9: The future

Helen: What’s happened to your marriage?

The Future Is Love (Helen’s song)

You want to run

From what’s been revealed

You’ve lost the fight

But can’t bear to yield

Now you reach out

You draw me near

Chorus                         

But I must drive you away

You don't need what I've got to give anyway

The door is open, there’s wind in your hair

Look at the past, you have left her wanting there

But there is a future where love is everywhere.

The world needs to change

We haven’t much time

Behind every deal

There’s human kind

So many will beg

While a few of you steal

Chorus                         

But I must drive you away

You don't need what I've got to give anyway

The door is open, there’s wind in your hair

Look at the past, you have left her wanting there

But there is a future where love is everywhere.

No more sleepless nights

Stranded near her hands

No more building castles

On your shifting sands

Chorus

Their cries are fading away

The tide that swept in is now pulling away

The door is open, there’s wind in your hair

Look at the past, you have left her wanting there

Go back to her now and find love is everywhere.