Copied from a post on Linkedin today, i assume this has already been done, but my searching wasn’t very extensive. I don’t necessarily agree with his stance, as cycling can and will cost a fair bit…

The bicycle is the slow death of the planet.

General Director of Euro Exim Bank Ltd. got economists thinking when he said:

“A cyclist is a disaster for the country’s economy: he does not buy cars and does not borrow money to buy. He does not pay for insurance policies. He does not buy fuel, does not pay for the necessary maintenance and repairs. He does not use paid parking. He does not cause serious accidents. He does not require multi-lane highways. He does not get fat.
Healthy people are neither needed nor useful for the economy. They don’t buy medicine. They do not go to hospitals or doctors. Nothing is added to the country’s GDP (gross domestic product).
On the contrary, every new McDonald’s restaurant creates at least 30 jobs: 10 cardiologists, 10 dentists, 10 dietary experts and nutritionists, and obviously, people who work at the restaurant itself.”

Choose carefully: cyclist or McDonald’s? It is worth considering.

P.S. Walking is even worse. Pedestrians don’t even buy bicycles.

He clearly hasn’t visited STW 😉

What does this clown think cyclists do with the money they save by not driving? Light the fire with it?

Yeah I saw that one.
Capitalist dick who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.
Let’s make sure everyone gets sick as then it employs lots of people….. what a bellend

Reading the OP, I thought it was a clever way of making you realise that something is very wrong with the economy.

The comments since, make me think I got it wrong

I thought much the same as AlexSimon, thought it seemed like a parody!

Hmmm… not sure… As AlexSimon suggested, maybe it’s not supposed to be taken literally, it’s just using the cyclist theme as a method to point out ills of consumerism.?

Anyway, this bit

does not pay for the necessary maintenance and repairs

is not true in my life; My car is jealous of my bikes.

Any context?

What does this clown think cyclists do with the money they save by not driving? Light the fire with it?

I’ll be a millionaire with the money I save by riding my 4 mile commute. In about a squillion years.

Feel a bit sorry for the author, he clearly over-estimated his audience.

He’s not seen the price of bikes recently.

Yes, I think his point was that the traditional measurement of GDP missing important things. For example, the Exxon Valdez disaster boosted the economy of Alaska because the cleanup generated economic activity but the environmental damage wasn’t counted as a negative.

I liked the footnote, Pedestrians are even worse, they don’t buy bicycles.🤣🤣

Its clearly tongue in cheek, lots of folk falling for it!

Well I mean, I’m thick as champ, but even my first thought was ‘they’ll be spending their hard earned on something!’

Does it still apply if you spend more on bikes than most do on cars? Asking for a chap in the mirror.

I said much the same, but without the sarcasm, last week:

“We should have stopped at the bicycle.”

Pretty much every subsequent technological step has turned out to have so many downsides we’d be better without it.

I’d have thought that was satire.

It inadvertently (or maybe advertently) raises a good point though. If you’re in government, then a nation of feckless consumerists is quite attractive.

Some unknown from a bank no-one’s heard of, talking bollocks.

Its fake news likely to be propaganda from the motoring industry as many of the key points promote motor vehicles etc .
in addition the CEO it was attributed (Sanjay Thakrar) doesn’t exist

It does rather look like there’s some context here that we’re missing. Like, he’s playing devil’s advocate to demonstrate the dangers of treating everything like it’s about money.

Reading the OP, I thought it was a clever way of making you realise that something is very wrong with the economy.

The comments since, make me think I got it wrong

It is isn’t it / you didn’t, they did.

Buy less, grow more.

Definitely a parady/satire. I reckon he’s big advocate for cycling (or whoever actually wrote it is).

Omnitom has it, it’s fake

although Euro Exim bank does exist, it’s one of the those special sort of banks beloved in the Bahamas that tells you in very big letters, very publicly on it’s opening page that it doesn’t do any of that money laundering nonsense

Jeez, it’s an old internet funny that has been doing the rounds again on social media this week.

I’m not sure anyone is suggesting it should be taken remotely seriously.

Reading the OP, I thought it was a clever way of making you realise that something is very wrong with the economy.

That’s how I read it too. It’s pointing out a fundamental failing in the capitalist model – that all we exist for is to consume.

I don’t see how anyone could read and not realize it’s humor and pro cycling\healthier life styles ?

I’m not sure anyone is suggesting it should be taken remotely seriously.

Except for the first 1/2 dozen posters on this thread who were shouting at the screen and tearing their hair out in rage 😆 😆

I don’t see how anyone could read and not realize it’s humor and pro cycling\healthier life styles ?

Because cyclists! Honestly people (or a substantial part of the crap drivers population subset) will believe any old tosh at face value if it villifies people on bikes.

It was posted by a ‘senior manager’ of a ‘bank’; that, due to him working for a ‘bank’ will be guaranteed to generate comment – as has been shown.
Trolling? ‘Humour’? Who knows.
Definitely stupid, troll or not.

Jesus wept this is as old as the hills, how new to the internet are you lot?

Jesus wept this is as old as the hills, how new to the internet are you lot?

I started using the internet in 1998 and I have never seen this before. However, I didn’t take it seriously.

Not sure if it demonstrates that people will believe any old tosh about cyclists, or that cyclists collective paranoia means they believe everyone is out to get them

Not sure if it demonstrates that people will believe any old tosh about cyclists, or that cyclists collective paranoia means they believe everyone is out to get them

It’s probably a bit of both but some of the comments under it when it appeared in my Facebook feed a few days back were sadly very much in the angry gammons believing tosh category. I wish I could conclude that they were ironic as I’d much rather think kindly of people but sometimes you just have to acknowledge what it looks like and call a bit of cured pig a gammon and move on.

Just because the internet is old doesn’t mean all of us spend much time on reddit and facebook etc keeping up with the memes : )

I read it as a gentle troll of the anti bike types – starts with why we’re bad for ‘the economy’ then makes a point on why car use, poor diet and inactivity is a problem tied into capitalism’s needs. Whoever wrote it, it’s quite good.

that all we exist for is to consume.

And to compete. Arguing is a form of competition. Contest mobility is strong in Western culture.

‘The West Is Best’ doesn’t rhyme for nothing.

I read it aa an unattractive, but good argument that modern society on the UK is loaded towards consumerism and the delivery of services. A single cyclist is one thing, but if everybody did that, and spending on cars went to zero , no car factories – what do they do? Less loans for banks, less jobs, what do they do and so on and so forth ad infinitum.

So I don’t know what Molgrips does, but he might not have a big pile of cash to spend as his job might well have disappeared.

It’s a real dilemna for particularly the UK economy , in that , in a world where many middle band jobs are disappearing, and things are changing, what will people do? (Generally get poorer, and if you have a consumer based economy, a poor population is a bad thing)

I started using the internet in 1998 and I have never seen this before.

I was using the Internet to argue about bicycle-related things a number of years before that, and I haven’t seen it either.

But either way, quite clearly a blatant bit of baiting that will cause red mist over the eyes of any gammon within the first few words, thus completely obscuring all view of the irony further down.