Archive for February, 2009
Posted by michael on February 27, 2009
Gordon Brown has repeated his threat of legal action against ex-RBS boss Sir Fred Goodwin over his “unacceptable” £16m pension package.
The PM said he shared public “anger” at the size of the pension and was “considering every legal means at our disposal” to get some of it back.
Sir Fred has rejected pleas to return it, claiming ministers approved it.
In a way this anger is artificial, because ministers knew about the pension package before Goodwin resigned. Those who knew may have kept it quiet, but the government did know and could have stopped it before Goodwin had resigned!!
It would seem to me that there are two options available.
1) Goodwin could be pursuaded to give up this excessive pension in return for a more reasonable package which reflects the losses the bank has incurred
2) Brown brings in a law, similar to the windfall tax for companies, which is aimed at Goodwin and takes the pension fund away from him.
But I doubt that option 1 would happen, and I doubt that Brown would succeed with option 2.
It will probably end up as another example of the inability of this Labour government to get things right in the first place!
Posted in Blogroll, Conservatives, UK Economy, benefits, credit crunch, debt, economy, labour, recession, tax | Tagged: abuse, bank, banker, bankers, banks, borrowing, brown, conservative, debt, economy, government, greedy, recession, repossession | 1 Comment »
Posted by michael on February 26, 2009
The problems with the Royal Bank of Scotland are much greater than we were originally led to believe.
Its 2008 loss totalled £24.1 billion.
It will also put £318.6 billion of toxic assets into a new government insurance program. The bank will have to pay the first £19.5 billion of these losses. They will also pay a fee of £6.5bn to take part in the scheme.
The government will then pay £13 billion into the bank to strengthen the RBS balance sheet and there is a further £6 billion available if the RBS need it.
If I have got the figures right, it would appear that the government is giving £312.1 billion of tax payers money (and maybe plus another £6 billion) to RBS and getting £6.5 billion in return.
And of course, the taxpayer is also getting the portfolio of toxic or bad debt. How much of this money is recoverable is not known.
RBS is also likely to get rid of a lot of jobs. Each one of these people will potentially cost taxpayers money in benefits and (possibly) housing costs.
I fail to understand why the entire bad debt is not simply being ‘loaned’ to the government over the next 10 years or so. This would give time for RBS to rebuild itself as a proper bank and to pay back the taxpayer for the total amount of debt that we have taken on to save RBS from going bust!
The government should also demand that RBS keep all their staff to avoid addition unemployment and benefit costs.
When a company saves money by getting rid of staff, it is actually (in most cases) passing on it’s staffing costs to the government (e.g. the tax payers) .
But this still leaves The government will inject £13bn into RBS to strengthen its balance sheet on top of the £20bn the government already injected into RBS last year. The bank will have access to another £6bn should it need it.
Posted in UK Economy | 3 Comments »
Posted by michael on February 26, 2009
The government should pass the necessary legislation to remove this pension from this individual, and also to anyone else who received similar benefits at that time.
Yes the shareholders voted for it but they thought that it was a reward for providing huge profits for everyone.
They thought that the deal was profitable to everyone!
That fact is that it was a really bad business decision that has almost destroyed RBS and damaged the economy of the UK.
This government has passed laws before to take excessive profits from companies. They should do the same to this individual to get the £50 million back to repay the taxpayer.
Having said that the government should act to claw back this pension, it looks like they agreed to it in the first place when sir fred goodwin left RBS!!!!
Posted in Blogroll, Conservatives, Lib Dems, UK Economy, credit crunch, debt, economy, labour, recession | Tagged: abuse, bank, banker, bankers, banks, benefit, benefits, economy, golden handshake, pension, recession, repossession | Leave a Comment »
Posted by michael on February 25, 2009
According to the chairman of the Financial Services Authority, the failure to spot the banking crisis in advance was partly due to the style of regulation.
Lord Turner said that a “light touch approach” at the City watchdog had been seen as politically preferred.
Speaking to the Treasury Committee, he said that this ‘had led to the regulator not asking enough questions about the strategies of certain banks’. Some of these banks then had financial problems.
Lord Turner also said that ‘regulatory changes were needed which amount to a revolution‘.
MPs accused the FSA of “being responsible for supervising 10 big banks and allowing five to collapse”.
Lord Turner said that the FSA would be “fit for purpose” but only after changes were made – which he would be recommending in a report next month.
Can this government continue to claim that they were not responsible for the economic difficulties affecting so many people in the UK (let alone the rest of the world)?
Posted in Blogroll, Conservatives, Lib Dems, UK Economy, credit crunch, debt, economy, labour | Tagged: bank, bankers, banking, banks, borrowing, brown, conservative, credit crunch, debt, economy, government, greedy, mortgage, recession, repossession, tax, UK Economy, whistleblower | Leave a Comment »
Posted by michael on February 22, 2009
I have just heard a radio interview where a Labour minister was defending Gordon Brown by saying that Brown had been calling for years for global financial controls and global actions to prevent the sort of financial crash that we have had.
It was an interesting defence of Gordon Brown. If Brown had been actively campaigning for these controls over a number of years, then why did he not take steps years ago to prevent the crash we have had in the UK???
Or, as I suspect, he did not have a clue about the risks to the UK economy and is desperately trying to save his political skin now. We know that he has said that he didn’t see the recession coming.
Posted in Blogroll, Conservatives, Lib Dems, UK Economy, credit crunch, debt, economy, financial, labour, recession | Tagged: abuse, banker, bankers, banking, banks, borrowing, brown, conservative, cost of living, credit crunch, debt, economy, government, household, labour, recession, tax increases, UK Economy | Leave a Comment »
Posted by michael on February 19, 2009
So the home secretary has said she is “very disappointed” the European Court of Human Rights has awarded compensation to the radical Islamic preacher Abu Qatada.
I am confused as to why she is disappointed! Here is a man who has not been charged with anything illegal but has been held both in Belmarsh high security prison and at home under a 22-hour home curfew. Was it not absolutely inevitable that the European Court would rule that his rights had been breached and that we would have to pay compensation!
I do not support this bloke, I would like to see him thrown out of the UK and I don’t really care what happens to him after that, but we have a legal system in the UK that both protects us and punishes those who trangress the law.
I believe that our legal structure is an essential part of our free society. The Home Secretary would seem to believe that the Law is there to support whatever policy she and the Labour government think would suit them at the time!
There appears to be no legal grounds for imprisoning this man. That would suggest that he had not broken any laws in the UK. So why did they imprison him in Belmarsh and then imprison him in his own home? Wht is worse is that they must have known that they would end up losing the legal battle and end up paying him compensation for breaching his human rights!
I think that they took on this hard but illegal line because it suited them politically. Could they not forsee how ridiculous this would inevitably make them look! The New Labour cabinet should pay this compensation from their own pockets and not from the public purse!
I am not supporting this radical Islamic preacher. But if the government is prepared to ignore the law in his case, then who is next?
Perhaps people who blog against the policies of this government?
Posted in Blogroll, Conservatives, Euopean Union, Europe, Lib Dems, labour | Tagged: abu qatada, abuse, european court, government, human rights, labour, law, strasbourg, uk | Leave a Comment »
Posted by michael on February 15, 2009
The head of the Financial Services Authority (FSA) has admitted that the watchdog did not focus enough on the excessive risks being taken by banks.
“We didn’t focus enough on that,” Lord Turner said on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show, referring to the fact that by 2004 “the whole system was risky”.
He also stressed that:
other regulators around the world had also failed to notice the problem.
But this is no excuse. None of us can justify our failings on the fact that other people also failed! There is evidence in the press that people did speak out about the excessive risks being taken and the lack of control by the FSA.
And this is the failing of New Labour, in particular Gordon Brown, in governing the UK over the last 10 years.
Gordon Brown has been the chancellor and then the PM over the entire period that New Labour has been in power. He seems to have a lot of excuses for it not being his fault, but there is actually no one else to blame!
Oh, the minions are culpable but the boss is responsible!
Posted in Blogroll, Conservatives, UK Economy, credit crunch, debt, economy, financial, labour, recession, tax | Tagged: abuse, bank, banker, bankers, banking, banks, borrowing, brown, credit crunch, debt, economy, government, greedy, recession, tax, UK Economy, whistleblower | 1 Comment »
Posted by michael on February 11, 2009
Gordon Brown has fired one of his top advisers. The reason is apparantly that this man, who was the deputy chairman of the Financial Services Authority, had sacked a person who had warned that the banks were heading for disaster!
This adviser was knighted by Gordon Brown who also said today that the adviser had only written two reports for him! Is this all it takes for Labour to award a knighthood?
Or was it his performance as the deputy chairman of the FSA?
Either way this person clearly held a very senior position so the accusation that he fired the employee and subjected him to a gagging order is very significant.
In the few years up to 2004, there was a lot of discussion where I was working about going into recession. This was a manufacturing company but a number of people there had the view that the economy was going to crash. It seemed obvious that the rapidly increasing personal debts, particularly from credit cards, was going to bring the economy down.
It is inconceivable that ordinary office workers could see the consequences of the way that the economy was going yet it seems to have come as a big surprise to the UK government and the UK financial watchdogs!
I can understand that the banks would fail to see the consequences of their lending. After all the more people borrowed and the more debt that they incurred then the higher the bank’s profits and the greater the bonuses that the bosses recieved!
It would seem to me that the people who run the banks are partly to blame for the recession that we are now in.
But most of all, in my view, New Labour are to blame for a catastophic failure to regulate and manage the UK economy over the last 10 years. It is their job to manage and protect the UK economy, and since we are now in recession they have clearly and spectacularly failed to do this!
It doesn’t matter what their excuses are. The fact that the UK is in a recession means that they have failed.
Posted in Blogroll, Conservatives, Europe, UK Economy, credit crunch, debt, economy, financial, labour | Tagged: abuse, bank, banker, bankers, banks, conservative, credit crunch, debt, economy, government, James Crosby, labour, recession, repossession, UK Economy, whistleblower | 1 Comment »
Posted by michael on February 9, 2009
Does anyone remember the fuss that Gordon Brown made about Cameron ‘talking down’ the economy when all he was doing was saying what New Labour policies were going to do the economy?
Wonder how Brown is going to take the comments from Ed Balls ? Apparantly Ed Balls is reported as saying that
the financial crisis will be “more extreme and more serious than that of the 1930s”
According to reports in the Yorkshire Post, Cabinet minister Ed Balls has predicted that the global recession would be the most serious for “over 100 years”.
I think that Gordon Brown will be surprised by these comments, after all he didn’t see the recession coming!
Posted in Blogroll, UK Economy, credit crunch, debt, economy, labour, recession | Tagged: bank, bankers, banks, borrowing, brown, conservative, cost of living, credit, debt, economy, recession, tax, UK Economy | Leave a Comment »
