Astronomical profits

If you saved £1 per year it would take you the present age of the universe to save up the truly vast profit just posted by HSBC (M Star March 5), while its workers lose their pensions.

Alternatively, a £1 coin is around 1mm thick. So a stack of 13.7bn £1 coins would be some 13,700km high, well above the altitude of many satellites.

Some HSBC staff get just £14,000 a year. That's a stack of £1 coins less than 50 feet high - not much higher than a house.

This graphically illustrates the obscenely cosmic scale of the greed, inequality and injustice against which most of Latin America is taking a stand, with policies to redistribute wealth to the poor and the pursuit of rich tax evaders.

This is one legacy of Hugo Chavez, whose name will live on.

Viva Venezuela Libre! Viva Chavez! Viva Latino Americana Libre!

Brian Precious

London E17