Posts Tagged ‘bank’
Posted by michael on March 5, 2009
The latest attempt to fix the recession, the quantitative easing policy, means that £75 billion of new money has been created and given to the banks.
My first thought is that most people who have created money to ‘help the economy’ have ended up in jail for forgery!
The second thought is why has it been given to the banks? If they won’t lend to anyone who needs to borrow money, then what will change now the banks have more money.
Surely they are not going to lend our money to dodgy risks and use their own money for the secure loans?
Since a significant proportion of the UK population won’t qualify for these loans, I would have thought that a better process was to ignore the banks and use the money to significantly reduce taxes or to increase benefits for those less well off. (the one thing that you can be sure of with money given to the less well off is that it is going to be spent and not saved).
It also seems that introducing ‘quantitative easing’ is an admission that everything else has failed. That would seem to mean that the huge debts that have accrued up to now, and which will need many years of additional taxation to pay off, have all been for nothing!
Posted in Blogroll, Conservatives, credit crunch, debt, economy, labour, Lib Dems, recession, UK Economy | Tagged: abuse, bank, banker, bankers, banking, banks, bills, borrowing, brown, conservative, credit crunch, debt, economy, government, recession, repossession, UK Economy | Leave a Comment »
Posted by michael on March 5, 2009
How can Gordon Brown be expected to ‘seize the moment’ when he has proved that he was incapable of ’seizing the ten years’ whilst New Labour were running the UK economy into the ground!
Posted in Blogroll, Conservatives, credit crunch, debt, economy, labour, Lib Dems, recession, UK Economy | Tagged: bank, banker, bankers, banking, borrowing, brown, conservative, credit, credit crunch, debt, economy, government, labour, recession, repossession, UK Economy | Leave a Comment »
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 benefits, Blogroll, Conservatives, credit crunch, debt, economy, labour, recession, tax, UK Economy | 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 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, credit crunch, debt, economy, labour, Lib Dems, recession, UK Economy | 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, credit crunch, debt, economy, labour, Lib Dems, UK Economy | 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 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, credit crunch, debt, economy, financial, labour, recession, tax, UK Economy | 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, credit crunch, debt, economy, Europe, financial, labour, UK Economy | 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, credit crunch, debt, economy, labour, recession, UK Economy | Tagged: bank, bankers, banks, borrowing, brown, conservative, cost of living, credit, debt, economy, recession, tax, UK Economy | Leave a Comment »
Posted by michael on February 7, 2009
It is being reported that the Royal Bank of Scotland is planning to pay out huge bonuses to it’s staff.
If this is true and it is allowed to happen then it would be the final proof of the helplessness and incompetence of New Labour.
Who else would bail out a UK bank with billions of public money, yet end up being totally helpless and unable to act when the bank uses the bail out for bonuses!
RBS should have been allowed to go bust!
It should be closed down now and the assets sold off. The government should get back all of the bailout money and use it for the good of the public, not to line the pockets of greedy and ungrateful bankers!
Posted in Blogroll, credit crunch, economy, recession, UK Economy | Tagged: bailout, bank, banker, bankers, brown, government, greedy, labour | Leave a Comment »
Posted by michael on January 18, 2009
Gordon Brown appears to be due to announce a new banks rescue package aimed at encouraging them to restart lending.
It is thought to include a bank insurance scheme which protects the banks against future bad loans.
It would appear that the people in the UK are now expected to have to pay, through their taxes, to ensure that the commercial banks do not lose money from what is now seen as their reckless lending motivated by greed.
It is becoming more and more obvious that the banks should be nationalised in order that the public money being used to rescue the banks would be used to benefit the public and not the directors and the shareholders of the banks.
The banks should not be allowed to keep any profits that they may make in the next few years. All profits (and bonuses) should be paid back to the public purse until the credit crunch and recession is finally over. And attempts to spend all their profits expanding the banks should not be allowed if it is an attempt to spend money that should be declared as profit!
Posted in Blogroll, credit crunch, debt, economy, recession | Tagged: bail out, bank, banks, rescue package | 2 Comments »
