back to article JP Morgan has a Playmobil moment

They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so we're well and truly flattered that JP Morgan has taken a leaf out of the El Reg Bootnotes book and decided that figurines are the best way to illustrate important news. In this case, it's the European debt crisis rendered in Lego miniatures: The European debt crisis …

COMMENTS

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  1. Sir Runcible Spoon

    Sir

    I just love the way most of the arrows end up pointing at the Banks, and then there is a single arrow from the Bank pointing to the jolly old tax-payers.

    Actually, that's a lie, I don't love that arrow at all.

  2. graeme leggett Silver badge

    Taxpayers (10)

    Look a disgruntled lot.

    I wonder how you would represent the British in lego (avoiding stock stereotypes) ?

    1. a cynic writes...

      Since we aren't members of the euro...

      Laughing.

      OK - I'll admit we shouldn't laugh as we're going to cop a lot of fallout from our biggest overseas markets going pear-shaped. But we're not going to be in the crowd bottom left.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        @a cynic

        Evdently you aren't sufficiently cynical. We may not be paying into the eurobailoutfund, but we're stil paying a rather large chunk of the bailouts via the IMF, so we are indeed opping for a hefty chunk of cash that we can't actually afford.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Thumb Up

      Avoiding stereotypes? Why?

      http://minifigures.lego.com/en-gb/Bios/Default.aspx#Royal%20Guard

      Count Dooku as the Bundesbank is inspired. And that silver anchor the Finnish guy is holding - that's not a part, that's the moulding sprue. Genius.

      1. MacroRodent
        Happy

        Some stereotypes, indeed

        I wondered for a while why the Finns (of whom I am one) were represented by a sailor figurine, but then got it, and split laughing. Of course, "Tom of Finland".. But some unusual nine-year old to know about him.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Tom of Finland NSFW!!!

          Please, when mentioning Tom of Finland - add the phrase NSFW.

          I already got caught out...

          Note: The NSFW does not apply if you work as a Queen/Village people tribute band , in a leather suppliers or in an art gallery.

  3. Rob Crawford

    No doubt

    from a US institution it will be Europe caused all the banking problems.

    The US institutions of course had no hand in any of the problems of the last few years

    1. Armando 123

      Well

      In all truth, it was the US treasury, which is not only an institution but is staffed by people who belong in one.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    If I understand this right...

    ...The Village People are footing most of the bill for these bailouts?

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Coffee/keyboard

    when I read

    quote

    the work of nine-year-old Peter Cembalest, "who specializes in conceptualization of such phenomena".

    unquote

    For some reason I had this memory of the Jethro Tull album "Thick As A Brick" which was written by a 9-year old "little Milton", Gerald Bostock ...

    For those that don't know of it, check out the cover art - especially the stories.

  6. Pascal Monett Silver badge

    So JP Morgan employs 9-year olds as consultants ?

    Well, that explains a lot. Is that a trend in the business ? Does Gartner employ 8-year olds ?

    I think we should be told.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Trollface

      @Pascal Monett

      > Does Gartner employ 8-year olds

      No - that level of maturity wouldn't be tolerated at Gartner - now 5-year olds....

      Anon - well, because....

  7. Bill B

    playmobil

    Said it before, but I think the Reg's playmobil crown has slipped off. The last playmobil I can find is November 2009. Well over a year and I don't really think Paris counts

    1. Lester Haines (Written by Reg staff) Gold badge

      Re: playmobil

      http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/07/22/murdoch_hearing/

      1. BristolBachelor Gold badge
        Thumb Up

        Obviously an iPad user...

        ...and therefore didn't see the most excellent stop-motion video :)

        http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/02/11/playmobil_joy_division/

        1. Bill B

          @Lester

          I grovel and humbly apologise. I had not seen that one, probably had disappeared from the front page when i went for my daily fix.

          In mitigation the link to the playmobil page doesn't include a link to that article

          And I'm not an iPad user; unfortunately my company deems the site you use to host your videos as NSFW.

  8. Doogie Howser MD
    FAIL

    Kids would do a better job

    Dunno about anyone else, but I'm sick of these financial fuckwits spunking someone else's cash chasing stupid dreams. We could do worse than get a bunch of kids in to look at the world's finances using their in built brutally honest appraisals of everything in life.

    "You want us to spend money we don't have? That's stupid!"

  9. Pete 43
    Go

    Gordon Ramsey

    That Chef is obviously modelled on the 'F-ster' himself.

  10. BristolBachelor Gold badge
    IT Angle

    A question

    Everyone seems to think that because Greece and Italy are struggling to repay their debts, and they use Euros, that everyone else who uses Euros should help pay.

    Well I use Pounds. Lots of other people use Pounds, why aren't they helping to pay my debts? Why is it that I can go bankrupt and the bank loose money on me, but Greece and Italy can't?

    Especially since it's the bank's fault for lending so much money to Greece when they had no hope of being able to pay it back (or is it the fault of those people in USA who said; yeah this is a safe bet, buy, buy, buy just like all those mortgages?)

    Oh and to be on topic, Lester could've done better :)

    1. Old Tom
      Headmaster

      They don't just use Euros...

      ...they issue euros.

      Like the fiver in your pocket is an IOU from the Bank of England, an Italian Euro is an IOU from the Italian state. If the Italian state defaults, then its IOUs won't be worth what they say they are; but an Italian Euro is interchangeable with a German Euro - so if I have an Italian Euro, I'll swap it for a German Euro, then I have an IOU from the Bundesbank. See what I did there? - the other Euro states then have to pay Italian debts.

      Something like that, IANAE.

    2. Danny Roberts 1
      Happy

      I'd love to have the bank 'loose' money on me, they can 'loose' money all over me if they want!

      PS: Thanks for the optional titles!

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Sorry, I was going to comment on this, but then I saw that the "Title" has "Optional" in it, and was so floored that i completely forgot what I was going to say... how long has that been there?

    1. SkippyBing

      Good spot!

  12. s. pam Silver badge
    Flame

    Nucking Fabulous

    But where are the rioters?

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Stormtroopers

    The stormtroopers are appropriate symbols for the European Commission: they certainly aren't skilled enough to be represented by Vader and the Emperor, no matter what Barroso and chums think.

    Meanwhile, the example of Iceland is an interesting one: if you basically let yourselves off the hook and tell everyone that their money is gone, that other governments will have to bail out savers, and that money won't be returned to those governments either, of course there'll be an upturn in the economy once it has fallen off the precipice, especially if half the country has to go abroad to earn a living and you don't have to find money for unemployment benefits and so on. I'm not so sure that anyone will want to trust an Icelandic financial institution ever again, though.

  14. Eduard Coli
    Windows

    Familiar

    IMF, that's the tunnel through Congress (possibly setup by the same) to funnel out American tax payer money to rich people around the world. That is, to bail them out after a bad day at the market.

    Funny that the EU originally wanted to avoid involving the IMF as it would look bad upon the whole venture but I think the Germans and the Greeks took care of that shyness.

    It must not have been enough that the TARP program and various other US funded bank bailouts also sent payola over the pond to banks on Airstrip One and the continent.

  15. Laurence Penney

    Just out of the frame…

    … are the Bilderberg lizard men:

    http://minifigures.lego.com/en-gb/Bios/Royal%20Guard.aspx#Lizard%20Man

  16. <user />

    Null

    Playmobile? Looks more like Lego to me.

  17. Potemkine Silver badge

    Isn't something missing there?

    For instance what is the origin of the crisis? Ok, I guess it's better for JP Morgan not to mention the subprimes scam anymore, and the roles of banks and the financial sector at large in the economic disaster the World is experiencing. We are here to pay for them, not to expect them to be accountable, aren't they?

    Anyway, another weird point is why is the EU debt crisis so serious when the ratio debt over GDP of the eurozone is still 20 points below the ratio of the US, for instance?

    For UK, AFAIK the ratio is 150%. Who is gonna pay?

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