The humiliation of Fred Goodwin may have appeased a public baying for vengeance, but has done little to fix the broken global banking system or reverse the Second Great Depression. But then the public have been given very little leadership as to how to address the causes of this crisis. Politicians, economists, central bankers and […]
Posts Tagged ‘Bankers’
As the cuts bite and growth stagnates, who will challenge our reckless bankers?
Feb 6th, 2012 by Ann Pettifor.
When the Ku Klux Klan came for Fred Goodwin. Or not.
Feb 2nd, 2012 by David Osler.I must admit that I did not immediately grasp the obvious parallels between the decision to strip a banker of his knighthood and the brutal murder of hundreds of American blacks at the hands of a mass white supremacist paramilitary organisation. So I am thankful to Lord Digby Jones, a man who served as trade […]
Share:
Kid gloves for the Banks and throw the poor on the street?
Feb 2nd, 2012 by Michael Meacher.Businesses need funding fast, so why doesn’t Osborne just order RBS and Lloyds to ratchet up the lending? After all, he controls 80% of the former and 40% of the latter, more than those who talked about seizing the ‘commanding heights’ of the economy ever dreamed of. Why instead does he go cap in hand […]
Share:
Capping bankers’ bonuses: is that a promise, Ed?
Jan 31st, 2012 by David Osler.Getting one banker voluntarily to forego one bonus, one time, is the easy bit. But taking on the entrenched enrichissez vous ethos that pervades the financial sector will not be achieved by moral suasion alone. Don’t get me wrong, Ed Miliband has handled the Simon Hester affair in a manner that compensates – well, ever […]
Share:
Does anyone seriously believe swallowing Tory austerity measures makes Labour credible?
Jan 29th, 2012 by Michael Meacher.There seems to be a plague going round the Shadow Cabinet, which is quite catching, the symptoms of which appear to be seriously muddled economic and political thinking. After several comrades went down with this malady over the New Year period, the bug appears to have re-surfaced again, to judge by yesterday’s remarks from the […]
Share:
The postmodern payday lender
Jan 22nd, 2012 by Carl Packman.Recently it was revealed by McKinsey, the consultancy, that the UK debt to GDP ratio stood at 507% in the middle of 2011. Robert Peston reminds us that this is up from 487% of GDP in the second quarter of 2008, and, incredibly, from around 300% in 2003 – before the credit boom. Only Japan is more […]
Share:
Lobbyists can still sleep soundly
Jan 22nd, 2012 by Michael Meacher.The Cameron technique becomes clearer by the day: Pick up a problem that is causing public anger, make an instant speech declaring himself fully on-side, and then hit it with a wet flannel. Bankers crash the economy and spark a slump – set up a Commission years later, then endorse its conclusions that are too […]
Share:
Burglars get jail, Goodwin gets a £342,500 pension. Why?
Dec 13th, 2011 by Michael Meacher.RBS crashed in 2008, costing taxpayers £45.5bn to bail it out. The FSA (Financial Services Authority) report published today (482 pages long!) indicts everyone – Blair, Brown and Balls for insisting on ‘light-touch regulation’ (i.e. the bank could do whatever it wanted), Cameron and Osborne for demanding even less regulation, and itself – the FSA […]
Share:
Cameron’s No 1 priority: protecting the City of London
Dec 9th, 2011 by Michael Meacher.How does Europe manage to do it? It’s demolishing the Tory party far more effectively than the Labour Party is. Can you believe it – Cameron is going to Brussels this weekend to save one thing – the City of London. No other industry, not the rest of us – only that part of the […]
Share:
Golden rule of banking – don’t kill off your customers
Dec 9th, 2011 by Will Howley.First Golden rule of banking is: ‘don’t kill off your customers‘. But as the BBC 2 TV documentary Inside Job broadcast on Wednesday night confirmed, top bankers don’t care and live in a arrogant-elitist cocoon of their own making away from the reality the rest of the 99% who have no choice but to endure […]
