Is there something British about banker bashing?

Umm in my view it is very simple.

1. If you look at Netherlands, Switzerland and Germany they are much more equal societies than the UK. America is not more equal but America is very different to all European countries. In the UK the cock ups by the bankers has driven a rise in lefty activism whereas in the US it has produced the Tea Party.

2. The finance sector is a much more important percentage of the UK economy and the tax base than in US, Holland and Germany,

3. In this country the banks and the politicians went over board telling everyone how clever and important the bankers were.

So far as I am concerned the one thing we learnt from the era of "light touch" regulation is that if you want to design a regulatory sytem for the banking industry you do not give undue weight to what the bankers say. They are always going to advocate what ever is best for their short term interests.

"After all, the reckless lending and investing of banks in the US, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Germany - inter alia - wreaked a fair amount of havoc in those countries (and around the globe)."

Yeah but Robert - half of those come under EU legislation (which is going to be toughened) - Switzerlan has long been known for it's harbouring of illicit funds and the US are in fact pretty harsh at criticism themselves.
Fans of movies will have seen a recently released film - a comedy, totally unrelated to banks - and the titles at the end feature a very 'anti-banker' song aimed at Goldman Sachs.
...so which part of "we're particularly harsh" stands up to scrutiny really Robert?

I think the the case of the US - it depends where you get your news from. Of course Fox are proclaiming the virtues of bonuses being fair and reasonable in a free market economy - but once you leave that arena I think you'll find the mood is very similar to here.

"Why should that be so? Arguably recession-induced unemployment and homelessness are bigger problems in the US than in the UK. So if you are minded to blame bankers for that recession, you ought to be angrier about the plight of the US than that of the UK."

If you want to know the reason - well in the US the Government gets blamed for everything - from oil spills to banking collapses. That's because the US people have always believed in freedom and fairness - the problem they have is that the system is anything but fair - but as I have said countless times before......nobody cares about unfairness until the money runs out, it doesn't matter in the boom times - it only now they are all exposed do they see the horror of this show.

...and don't forget, this is the same country where the questioning of the presidents' right to take office due to his race / background managed to make mainstream news - despite the 'evidence' being taken from an inaccurate blog about a particular trip to Pakistan in Obama's youth.

Maybe Robert needs a trip to the US to see the real story on the ground - because the impression he has of the place is not what it's actually like at the moment.

Just as in the UK, you can stir up a furroure on the bus at the mere mention of bankers and their activities - I know this because I've done it in both countries now!

The real danger with the US is they don't just get angry and vent their spleen - they tend to go in for much more explosive reactions after a long period of calm.
I mean they probably won't make it to the end of the year before they're killing each other over healthcare mis-conceptions.

What I don't get, and I think something that would come to the rescue of the banks in terms of public opinion, is why, when these banks make these massive global profits, they don't offer competitive rates for savers? It takes foriegn banks, Bank of Baroda, State Bank of India, First Bank (even the Bank of Cyprus) to offer UK savers the best rates yet these huge global banks, who make billions by inestements across the globe, cannot even offer a decent, competitive high street rate for loyal customers.
A little bit of the bankers bonus in the direction of loyal UK customers would do wonders for public opinion.

I wonder if you've lost the plot Robert. AEP in the Telegraph seems to have a better grasp on the real world:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/8249181/Deepening-crisis-traps-Americas-have-nots.html

And the comments section (on AEP or here) reveals that many in the UK public haven't been fooled by the conduct of the banking oligarchy.

There is another key difference explaining the difference in the publics response in the UK and the US.

In this country the government has chosen to implement a policy of cuts and tax rises to tackle the fiscal deficit. The Government did so after taxpayers bailed out the banks and when the bankers are paying themselves an absolute fortune. That policy response has produced a broad and growing anti cuts and anti bankers popular movement.

In the US the government has chosen to ignore the fiscal deficit and engaged in good old fashioned stimulus spending. That policy response has produced a broad and growiing deficit reduction movement - the Tea Party.

Dear "Writings On The Wall" - your postings are very amusing - you are obviously a communist with too much time on his hands - you're not Ken Livingstone are you?

This observations is incorrect. People in Gerrmany are as incensed about gigantic rewards for gigantic failure as we are here.

Maybe its because both Conservatives and New Labour have told us how wonderful the City was for years.

It seemed ridiculous to everyone that people who became investment bankers would be paid/worth 100 times what someone who became an engineer or chemist. But while the banks they were making profits we had to just agree that we didn't understand how they were making money and so we just had to shrug and accept it.

When the wheels came off in 2008 our suspicions that these profits were an illusion were confirmed - we naively thought they'd be change.

But nothing's changed - we've realised that those in the city really run the economy for their own benefit. Politicians are clueless/useless - no-one seems to be standing up to the injustice of what has happened.

Those in the city who preached the free-market and opposed all state intervention suddenly became in favour of it when their job was on the line. They cheer the slashing of public spending and the scrapping of final salary pension schemes for workers while recieving salaries which mean they will never be dependent on the state for anything or even need a pension.

PS Knowing that the london buses are full of people at 5am in the morning travelling hours to earn clean offices and earn £6 an hour while others in the city will earn more in 10 seconds is maybe another reason we are angry.

why not the banks solve these problems among them instead of the women speeches !!

Robert, your "fiduciary duty" is to help enlighten the public about allegations such as the following:

"Fraud, collusion, embezzlement, manipulation and misrepresentation of risk are not isolated incidents, they are now the essential fabric of our entire financial system."

https://www.zerohedge.com/article/guest-post-united-states-organized-financial-crime-if-fraud-stops-financial-system-collapses

Or shall I continue to get the real financial news from Russia Today's Keiser Report:

https://rt.com/programs/keiser-report/

> Is it something to do with cultural disagreements over what's fair?

No. All Amercians despise Wall Street, even more than we despise the City.

There was a time, before deregulation, when the investment banks were partnerships and not publicly owned companies. This meant that although they could award themselves large bonuses when times were good, they were doing so having risked their own money. Should times turn bad, they could lose their own money.

By allowing them to become publicly owned companies they started to risk their shareholders' money and could in some sense take more risks. Or at least be immune to the losses.

By allowing them to be coupled with retail banks, they now not only risk the resources of the shareholders but that of the retail customers as well. When these latter become endangered the government, and thus the taxpayer, becomes involved.

When the bankers risked their own money and paid themselves large bonuses we could be indifferent.

However they have maintained their old attitudes to risk and bonuses.

Now that most of the public are involved by being customers of the retail banks, we all become much more interested and concerned.

You say Robert

"Also, there is a general view that these banks are deploying our precious deposits to gamble, to generate their bonuses - and that our savings are being put at risk so that bankers can live in mansions."

This is the important criticism. The banks are gambling with depositors' money and creaming off a large proportion of the profit to pay their senior staff huge sums. They are pretending that depositors' money is completely secure, when it is not, and the huge profits can only be possible because competition is not working.

Banks must be obliged to keep ordinary depositors' money completely securely by depositing matching funds at the BoE.

Money used for risky investment should be raised specifically for that purpose, and banks should be required to keep the markets informed about the risks. The rules should be similar to those which apply to those who raise money by selling equities.

Competitiveness should be improved by banning private interbank lending.

"So is it that Brits genetically and culturally pre-disposed to be more cynical than Americans about anyone - not just bankers - making a colossal sum of money in business?"

'Banks' have LOST colossal sums of money have they not?! yet 'bankers' are making colossal sums of money using taxpayers money. In the mean time the general public suffer huge cutbacks to public services. It's unfair, unjust and downright theft!

Yes there is a cultural difference between the US and the UK about money and wealth in general. In the US being rich is almost a religion, in the UK most keep it quiet because it evokes dislike and suspicion of the rich person. However this shouldn't distract us from the inherent failings of a banking and monetary system that has just accommodated the greatest robbery of ordinary people by those running the system for their own benefit. Thank goodness enough folks in the UK are kicking off about this - running an economy on debt and then the operators paying themselves in real money! Wake up and smell the coffee people!

Barclays and HSBC weren't bailed out and didn't receive state support. I think that they should be able to pay their staff what they can afford.

Bank's created some of the mess we're in (governments spending beyond their means did a whole lot of trouble too), but why do we continually bash the industry that generates the most pounds in tax of any in this country?

If the rest of the country wants to give the position of world financial centre to another city outside the UK then fine. But as I work in an industry that relies on a strong banking system, I (and thousands of others) might also have to move as well. That's quite a lot of tax potentially not going through HMRC.

It seems to me that proper market forces, which imply a lower price for a service when supply is increased, are not working in the investment banking sector.
There is far too much cosiness here, and there needs to be a larger number of operators. Furthermore, if one goes bust, well so be it. The management are out of a job and society carries on.
The current situation where the savings of individuals, not to mention whole economies, are at risk is quite untenable, particularly given the low rates of interest on offer.

It's obvious Robert. In the UK, we have your blog and of course WOTW to convince the "sheeple" (his term not mine) that everything that the banks do is wrong and we don't need them. He'll even give the bankers a lift to the airport but only if they're naked (his words not mine). In fact, WOTW has managed to lead a successful revolution which has rid all of the UK (except Hendon) of capitalism. I must confess on my recent trip to the Isles of Scilly that it too has managed to avoid the revolution which was good as I had no bartable goods on me.

Bankers could do well to remember that not all bankers are getting big bonuses. For example Lehman Brothers!!!!

The British more cynical? Are you joking Robert?!

If it weren't for the fact that we live in a democratic age and country, I'm sure in bygone days, the peasants would have revolted and probably lynched the bankers, as they used to do with anyone who "took what wasn't by rights, theirs to take".

The problem is that the UK is (even now) too loosely regulated (compare with the USA) so the banking industry has got used to doing what it wants and to be honest, just doesn't care.

Why should it? After all, its a business, profit is profit - who cares how we make it and tax avoidance is a game.

The more money you have, the more you can run rings round the taxman too.

UK government doesn't stand a chance.

Banks and Bankers wont change their tune - they effectively own the UK

The only hope we have, is if the likes of Mr Diamond were to offer their resignation to the Treasury Select Committee and the UK regulators enforce a break up of the mammoth investment banks.

Oh well, time to put this "fairy tale" to bed.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

#4 Hawkeye_Pierce wrote:
I wonder if you've lost the plot Robert. AEP in the Telegraph seems to have a better grasp on the real world:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/8249181/Deepening-crisis-traps-Americas-have-nots.html



Great article - thanks for pointing that out.

The Telegraph against inequality - shows maybe things are changing?!

British? may be ... but we have just got more than our international fair share of executive banking sleaze and our press/media is not censored by vested interests as much as in the USA ... although our press/media have as much if not more 'frightened rabbit syndrome' ... to compensate.

Also, not many of the 'ebs criminals' are non-american in the USA, because, in the USA, most executive bankers have to be a US citizen in order to have their snout and trotters in the skimming till under US immigration law.

Whereas in the UK ... our banks 'accept' that a good number of the 'ebs criminals' will be 'foreigners' to the UK?

If you're going to write this stuff, it needs to be accurate. For the record HSBC did not take Government money and Barckays did in the normal course of business (and found other investors to help them as well) as did Santander. Standard Chartered has no systemic presence in the UK. So the issue is really with RBS and Lloyds. In lloyds's case the majority of the losses are from HBOS and based on good old fashioned lending decisions NOT investment banking or trading. the same therefore as Northern Rock - there were not 2 different banks under one roof. RBS overpaid for an acquisition and used cash to do it - had they only used stock they would not have had the same problems. In the US the primary drivers of the failure of sub prime housing lending were the government agenices Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac - following US official policy to offer mortgagaes to almost anyone who wanted one.

Despite Robert's best efforts to get me riled about Bankers' pay, I'm still not.
I still don't care how much they are paid.

I'm annoyed about what they have done; I'm annoyed that the BoE and FSA don't have a handle on any of this; I'm annoyed that the MPC puts the interests of Banks above all else; I've been very annoyed with Charlie Bean for a few months; every letter Mervyn writes makes me more annoyed. (I still think he's run off 40 copies of the same letter).

I'm convinced that the media concentration on bonuses is a smokescreen.

If what you state is true it is not really surprising.

The people of the USA accept some of the most amazing religious cults, permit everyone to have and use guns, do not want to support their own sick or disabled with an NHS or insurance based type service, vote movie stars in as politicians and presidents (Arnei and Reagan), peddle a false image of the lifestyles of their people omitting to advertise how the poor, under priviliged, coloured and latino people have to live, have treated and still treat native Americans abismally, most successful exports coca cola, McDonalds and jeans. Yes I know they do have some virtues but not many. There is even a sizeable proportion of their population considering voting for that half mad woman Sarah Palin.

Basically they have an every man or woman for themselves culture and if you can get away with anything great.

Not a country for people with feelings for their fellow men or women.

RP "the British are more stressed by what bankers pocket, why should that be"?

Most likely because the British media and in particular the BBC have been running a witch hunt against the banks for two years. Look at this blog over the last two years and you will find that over 90% of stories have been "bank bashing". Not very balanced for a "business blog"

The European and USA media is far more balanced in its reporting of banking issues -how I wish the BBC could find a Business Editor with some sense of fairness in reporting. And no I do not work in any part of the financial services industry

6. At 15:56pm on 10th Jan 2011, suffolkbanker wrote:
Dear "Writings On The Wall" - your postings are very amusing - you are obviously a communist with too much time on his hands - you're not Ken Livingstone are you?
________________________________________________________________

As a banker having to live in Suffolk, you are obviously not a very good banker, does your job spec include adding up the pound coins in your drawer to reconcile them to the electronic records at the end of each day?

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

I have reread RP’s blog a few times and for once I feel he is starting to stick his neck out. I hope it’s how he feels and not just testing the water or pandering to growing concern.

1. At 15:43pm on 10th Jan 2011, Cassandra wrote:

“…In the UK the cock ups by the bankers has driven a rise in lefty activism…”

I am no lefty but I advocate action by moving accounts away from these banks.

Why continue moaning when you have choices.

“In this country the banks and the politicians went over board telling everyone how clever and important the bankers were.”

Agreed: It is obvious that no political party is going to represent the people (or cannot?) so why not act yourself?

“…you do not give undue weight to what the bankers say. They are always going to advocate what ever is best for their short term interests.”

Then take away their perceived power – simples

1, 10’s, 100’s who move will not hurt them but start talking in the 1,000’s and that will make them sit up and take notice. Very quickly ‘the customer comes first’ will return and it will give the government a clear mandate to act.

The irony of the typical left-of-centre critique of bank employee remuneration is simply hilarious.

One of the fundamental Marxist objections to the capitalist system is that rewards derived from the means of production ("MoP") tend to be channelled to the owners of the MoP at the expense of the workers.

As a mere mid-level bank employee with a minimal shareholding in my firm, I have absolutely no control over how the profits from the corporation's MoP are used. I am, using the Marxist framework, a "worker", not an "owner" (the owners in my case being big, powerful institutional shareholders).

The fact that I and my peers are, nevertheless, paid a large amount of fixed and variable compensation - thus reducing the retained earnings available for distribution to shareholders - ought to be celebrated by those of a Marxist bent as an outstanding victory for workers over the owners.

Strange how this perspective seems entirely omitted in pronouncements by Marx's intellectual heirs..

Why would we be supportive of a sector that's helped sell off most of our utilities and industry to foreign companies, failed to support real industry and remains generally isolated from the rest of the economy.

They have also acted in an industrially treacherous manner by providing credit to UK buyers of foreign goods and in doing so have transferred our wealth to countries like China who having establish huge sovereign wealth funds are now using that wealth to acquire Western companies, resources such as oil and gas and even lending it back to us with all that implies in very unwelcome influence.

The banks and in fact the entire financial sector should hang its head in shame.

Mike at 16

I don't think you first point is correct.

The current public support being provided to all UK banks is £512 BILLION. That is according to the National Audit Office - please see
https://www.nao.org.uk/publications/1011/support_for_banks.aspx

HSBC & Barclays currently gets the benfit of the Government's Deposits Guarantee and are also able to write off their losses during the financial crisis against their tax liability in subsequent years.

Finally HSBC and Barclays had huge amounts owing from both LLoyds and RBS when the government bailed those institutions out. Without the support of taxpayers LLoyds and RBS would not have been able to pay HSBC and Barclays back the amounts that were owed.

Oh and in relation to HSBC see also

sorry this was the link referred to in 33

https://www.private-eye.co.uk/sections.php?section_link=in_the_back&issue=1278

@ 19. At 16:26pm on 10th Jan 2011, Bruce Tuxford wrote:

> Bankers could do well to remember that not all bankers
> are getting big bonuses. For example Lehman Brothers!!!!

But few bankers had the guts to throw themselves from their office windows during this crash. Even Bernie Madoff.

The windows are sealed, nowadays, so they just filed out of the doors with their little cardboard boxes. They should have been given sacks!

Maybe we still all have a chip on our shoulders that's a left over from our 'class' days.Maggie T tried to knock it off, but with some it's still there. I honestly like to see people get on and earn a few quid.....but leave a few bob for the rest of us !

Why is the question never asked - where do the banker's bonuses come from? It seems to me that the bigger the profit a banker makes for his/her bank then the bigger the bonus. These profits for the most part come from dealing in second and third level derivatives in the markets. The profits here come from skimming out from the changing values of shares in these transactions. These shares are held for the most part in the end by pension funds and insurance companies. The massive bonuses paid are taken out of the value of ordinary people's pensions, and the profits of their insurance policies (life and endowment). People are right to be angry, especially if these bonuses are (a) moved to tax havens outside of the UK and (b) squandered on obscenely conspicuous consumption.

Re #16,

Although Barclays and HSBC have not obviously drunk from the publics purse, the BoE amongst others, have shown that without the public support for the other large banks, both Barclays and HSBC would have suffered aplenty.

Moral: banks of this size are all interconnected, if one catches a cold, the others do too - there are no "good" banks of this format.

I think culturally, Brits have a sense of fairness, and clearly the banks are not treating their customers fairly. In traditional market capitalism, you would expect that the banks would be fighting for custom and offering their customers great deals, accepting that their profits would be lower, but they would at least be in business.

Instead we see a monopoly at work, whereby the banks dictate how the market will work, purely for their own benefit, not their customers. There is no competition, law, or regulation to stop them from doing this. The majority can clearly see this now, and know that this is bad.

I'm sorry, the banks may have provided the UK's highest tax take, but what they do, and how they do it is wrong.

I suspect if you add up all the tax paid to date, minus the cost to UK PLC of bailing them out + social damage + ongoing costs, the banks great tax take will not look so impressive after all...

@2. At 15:48pm on 10th Jan 2011, writingsonthewall wrote:

In addition, I believe that the increasing disconnection of people from the individuals and institutions that control their lives is slightly further advanced in the US compared with many other countries. Ably assisted by the likes of Fox, of course.

Robert, I think you're listening to or reading sources with a distorted viewpoint. I do quite a bit of travelling about in different countries and I try to talk with as many people from a wide variety of backgrounds as possible. I can't say I have found any enthusiasm or sympathy for bankers and their grotesque excesses and indulgences.

Do we really believe that the bankers are the only ones to benefit form the banks bail out?

What about the following
People who invested in banks
People who worked for firms that did not go bankrupt when the banks were bailed out
Pensioners
House owners (no banks no money so how much would you have left to pay for houses.)
Tax payers because the amount of money spent on social security etc because new companies could not get funding etc would have gone through the roof.

Not to forget all those people who made money out of the banks bad lending prior to the collapse of the economy.

We quite rightly feel that bankers should not be paid large bonuses now because we do not have closure over what happen three years ago and because we are still suffering for it.

However the majority of people last year decided to vote the Condemns in and if they cannot or will not do anything then I think its time to move on and chalk this one up to experience!!

I think this might beat the last record for the number of posts it's going to generate...

We bailed out the Industry, not just particular banks.

All banks benefitted from the money that the taxpayers have been forced to pay for the bail out.

If you remember, all the banks were going down the tube.
Bailing out selected weak banks, put the brakes on, and allowed stonger banks to consolidate.

I don't expect bankers to ever understand this, and that is why they should be made to repay our "investment" by being taxed quite heavily.

This all goes to show that Investment Banking and Retail Banking are completely different animals and should be separated. If the Bankers want to takes risks and pay themselves huge sums, fine, but do it with their own money.
The retail side of Banking is already great at alienating its customers, overcharging, poor customer service. The greed and corruption of the Investment side is just icing on the cake - or a slap in the face depending on which side of the fence you are on.

28. At 16:51pm on 10th Jan 2011, BraveFart wrote:
6. At 15:56pm on 10th Jan 2011, suffolkbanker wrote:
Dear "Writings On The Wall" - your postings are very amusing - you are obviously a communist with too much time on his hands - you're not Ken Livingstone are you?
________________________________________________________________

As a banker having to live in Suffolk, you are obviously not a very good banker, does your job spec include adding up the pound coins in your drawer to reconcile them to the electronic records at the end of each day?

Canary Wharf 1 hour 5 mins - what's the problem?

kalokagathia @ 31 - first time psoter I see.

I'm not sure I accept your Marxist analysis of the world.

Are you really advocating "from each according to his means to each according to his needs"?

44. At 17:17pm on 10th Jan 2011, suffolkbanker wrote:
28. At 16:51pm on 10th Jan 2011, BraveFart wrote:
6. At 15:56pm on 10th Jan 2011, suffolkbanker wrote:
Dear "Writings On The Wall" - your postings are very amusing - you are obviously a communist with too much time on his hands - you're not Ken Livingstone are you?
________________________________________________________________

As a banker having to live in Suffolk, you are obviously not a very good banker, does your job spec include adding up the pound coins in your drawer to reconcile them to the electronic records at the end of each day?

Canary Wharf 1 hour 5 mins - what's the problem?

Nothing at all. I have a 10 min walk to work in centre of Edinburgh, but if you want to, or have to, spend hours a day on the train and getting from station to home, fair enough - entirely up to you. When I lived in London used to take me 20 mins to walk to work in the City. I'm not a banker.

One thing that is so apparent when reading user posted comments on any story like this, is that PEOPLE ARE WAKING UP!!!

Gone are the days of blindly accepting this sort of thing. The people will not stand by and watch this human race hand over its wealth and resources to the banking industry while the proletariat sit by in ignorant silence.

Enjoy it while you can bankers, your time is almost up.

Sorry Robert, this piece is extremely disappointing - unworthy of you. OK, we all have our off days, but really ...............

Either you are totally insular ("fog in channel, continent cut off") or you are being lazy (and playing a cheap game). You can do much, much better !

@31. At 16:55pm on 10th Jan 2011, kalokagathia wrote:

Errr......I can assure you that the people I refer to in my post (#39) are neither Marxist nor Communist (as suggested by 6. At 15:56pm on 10th Jan 2011, suffolkbanker wrote: ). You need a dose of reality. Get out a bit more often, travel around by public transport, meet and exchange views with ordinary people. Let me put it quite simply viz:

They don't like what the 'banking industry' has gotten away with by using other people's money.

There's a history I will never forget e.g.

https://news.scotsman.com/uk/Banker-with-insane-bonus-says.2665767.jp

Split ‘em up. It will limit the damage next time there’s a bust, remove the subsidy for bank funding, improve retail banking service levels, focus regulation and allow different taxes for different banks (and bankers).

#31 kalokagathia – so you’re either a banker or a Marxist? Incredible

#37 David Hooper – bank’s trading profits come from skimming people’s pensions, great comment, quite agree as do most of the personal finance commentators. I’d like to see Robert Peston deconstruct a few big bonuses, incl at hedge funds, and show how much is wealth creation and how much is just transferring it from other people without their knowledge

All the major banks including Barclays (who treat their custmers with absolute contempt) took government loans, guarantees to the tube of approx £300bn through the special liquidity and asset scheme.

Not to mention selling off their crappy assets at a huge profit through the US TARP scheme.

Also the Taxpayer backstopped all the money in deposit accounts when the state guarantee was raised to £65,000.

Then they have access to the 0.5% bank of England lending rate which they can then mark up by a factor of ten when they lend to you and I.

Then on topof this BoE throws them £250 Bn in quantitative Easing

So don't even start with "Barclays should be able to do what it likes as it hasn't taken taxpayer support".

Is it worth travelling by bus in the US to canvas opinion? Only the poorest of the poor travel by bus in America and what do they know about derivatives? They do sell something attractive to bankers though so they should be careful who they upset!

Maybe it's because they're a bunch of robbing scum?

The fact the bankers remuneration arangements was a strong contributor to causing millions to lose their jobs, their savings and their standards of living won't have endeared us to them.

Ome of the main causes of the depression we are in was the banks entering a solvency crisis due to reliance on repo funding.

Repo funding between banks and shadow banks dried up because the bankers were encouaged through their bonus structures to parcel up very crappy investments and pass them on to somebody else.

It was pretty obvious that this was going to end badly but the banksters didn't care as ling as they got their bonuses.

What on earth do you call these parasites?

I shouldn't think we are all to happy about the continued risk (through bond destabilisation) rhe banksters pose to us.

Not sure we are all chugged withe the inflation of oil , food and commodity prices these shyster are causing.

Bosses on 55% average pay rises despite their companies floundering. Spivs on 40% salary rises before they even get their multi-million pound bonuses. Now we hear the head of a bank which only survives because of a tax payer bail out could get up to £6.8 million pounds total renumeration.

Meanwhile, decent people in the 'private sector' get 2-3% raises, public sector workers are on a pay freeze and, allegedly, the economy is in such a state of emergency that we must deliberately make one million people unemployed.

Excuse me if decent people feel just a little unhappy that they are being crippled whilst the people who caused all the trouble get richer and richer.

But most of all the banksters have allowed the ConDem government to slash the hell out of our public and social infra structure (for their own ideological reasons)

cameron continously spouting on about us "all being in it together" obviously makes us apoplectic when the differences in treatment between banksters and w
everone else us so obscene.

Banksters cause a world depression through greed and incompetence and get paybrises of 20-40% and six, seven or eight figure bonuses.

The public gets slashed public services, university fees trebeling and in the case of public sector workers pay freezes, soahed pensions and redundancy.

The sense if fair play won't allow this to happen.

36. At 17:05pm on 10th Jan 2011, AudenGrey wrote:

> I honestly like to see people get on and earn a few quid.....
> but leave a few bob for the rest of us !

That's a stupid way to think. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. For us to be rich, you have to be poor.

Look, fatcats live in your economy, and inflate your prices. You may like your savings to be inflated down to zero by a bunch of grasping nonentities in some office in London, but don’t try and justify that to us.

#38 wrote "Instead we see a monopoly at work, whereby the banks dictate how the market will work, purely for their own benefit, not their customers. There is no competition, law, or regulation to stop them from doing this. "

This is completely wrong. Banking is not a monopoly - by definition that would require one bank only. There are lots of banks, building societies, credit unions. Banking is not and never has been a monopoly. However, in some parts of the country and in some markets (particularly small business lending) banking is an oligopoly (which means a few banks constitute the entire market). As the internet rises even those areas are becoming less oligopolistic (horrible word) at least for basic banking.

It is also not true to say there is no law to stop them. We have lots of laws about anti-competition both at UK and EU levels which in general work reasonably well (USA is much better on anti-trust).

Even if you were to change the argument and say this is a market out of sync such that suppliers (ie banks) get to dominate and rather than supplying what the customer (ie us) wants the customers has to take what is on offer, it is highly questionable whether that is true. For example banks would dearly love to end free banking on simple current accounts and charge for all withdrawals (including by ATM) but have not been able to make it stick

@31. At 16:55pm on 10th Jan 2011, kalokagathia wrote:

To those who seem to have missed the point - this post is from someone who thinks they have hilariously exposed the logical fallacy at the root of all banker bashing.

These sort of posts crop up on here quite often from infrequent banker apologist posters who read the blog with growing irritation/alarm and decide to put things right with a few well chosen words - they never meet any ordinary people who aren't employees so they never get given the correct Anglo Saxon tinged response.

Briefly summarised - we dug you out of a mess entirely of your own making with our money. Hundreds of thousands are losing their jobs and the means to dig the country out of this hole - useful manufacturing with UK owned IP and financial control - has been wrecked by decades of violent asset stripping by the UK financial services industry using ever more bizarre, tax efficient and incomprehensible/unregulated financial instruments.

If you create wealth for the country - rather than soak it up, skim it off, and ship it out of our reach - why are we still waiting three years later? If the UK government had given say a shipyard a tiny fraction of the money you've got - and which you won't be able to repay - you would have been apoplectic with rage.

You aren't part of the problem you ARE the problem, you and your comprehensively bought and sold politician clients

The housing bubble you used to blind the population has gone, and there is nothing else left to sell. You didn't know what you were doing. Give us our money back. We'll have it directly thanks rather than take the chance that you make the mistake of allowing a tiny proportion of it to trickle back down to the rest of us in taxes on bonuses and profits.

"Is there something British about banker bashing?"

No. Idiots in the USA and Europe also indulge in it.

Is there anything new to say about bonuses?

Is there anything new to say about bankers?

The questions are tautological - no need to answer.

5. At 15:53pm on 10th Jan 2011, Cassandra wrote:
There is another key difference explaining the difference in the publics response in the UK and the US.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In addition, in the UK the banks sit alongside Government in the capital. In the US, there is a physical gap - and perhaps, emotional, psychological, spiritual (?) ones, too - between Washington and Wall Street.

But then ...

Goldman Sachs derives two-fifths (or some similar large proportion, I forget how much) of its earnings from the US Government.

Bashing! It needs more than bashing! Forget the GDP argument, lets consider net benefit! Where are we all now - a lot poorer that's where. Who was responsible - financiers taking advantage of weak regulation to turn banking and the stock market into a global casino taking extreme risks with our money - certainly not theirs! Mr Preston, kindly explain to me why anyone should receive a mega millions bonus for taking risks with someone elses money - and that someone else gets no say. Bankers bonuses and remuneration are totally out of proportion with their contribution and worth to society. And I'm a Tory voter!

What is fixed and variable compensation, have all bank employees had an accident?

Robert, in answer to your question - well maybe people in the UK are just not quite as stupid as those in the US. We can see them for what they are, reckless parasites and gamblers who have cost us dearly.

And as for your comment "Those who run RBS, Barclays and HSBC argue it would be a bad idea to break up their banks, to hive off their bonus-paying investment banking arms into independent organisations.

They disagree that the economy and our savings would be safer if retail banks could no longer be attached to investment banks."

They would say that, wouldn't they? They do not live in the real world so they do not have a clue as to why they are so despised by the ordinary person. They have already demonstrated that the economy and our savings are not safe with them... need we say more?

"But maybe, if their investment banks severed all connection with those high-street branches, they'd be able to regain their cherished freedom to pay and be paid what they like when they like."

Fine with me but no state guarantees or bail-outs,
In fact they should no longer be considered UK member banks or receive central bank interest on reserves.

16. At 16:14pm on 10th Jan 2011, Mike D wrote:
Barclays and HSBC weren't bailed out and didn't receive state support. I think that they should be able to pay their staff what they can afford.

Bank's created some of the mess we're in (governments spending beyond their means did a whole lot of trouble too), but why do we continually bash the industry that generates the most pounds in tax of any in this country?

If the rest of the country wants to give the position of world financial centre to another city outside the UK then fine. But as I work in an industry that relies on a strong banking system, I (and thousands of others) might also have to move as well. That's quite a lot of tax potentially not going through HMRC.

.......................................................................................

A good point I had not considered. On looking back many of the companies I have worked for would indeed move the rump of their operation to wherever they could find reliable banking. A mass exodus of banks would lead to a lot of major multi nationals and even some others going as well. Last one out please turn off the lights.

They should also not be involved in the underwriting of UK gilts

They've got their bonuses, so where's ours then? We are shareholders so let's have our dividend. The way I see it, no dividend should equal no bonus. I know they have a Monaco lifestyle to support with a yatch in the marina, a penthouse appartment overlooking same, plus a seat at the roulette table in the casino, but I've got a pension to supplement, so when do we see any sort of return for our investment?
Regards, etc.

The only thing that stopped the banks paying obscene bonuses in Ireland was the threat to remove Government support. That worked.
I challenge that nice Mr Cameron (who talks a good deal) to apply the same logic to our tax-payer supported banks. QED.

In any case, a bonus pound sends 50p to HMRC (except for non-doms). So we should encourage banks to pay out 100% of pre-tax profits as bonuses. A profit pound nets HMRC maybe 20p if we're lucky

I don't doubt the sincerity of the anger and frustration expressed here. I feel the same and would like to see their arrogance trimmed. But those who should be doing this are the shareholders. They have been milked of the money used to pay the bonuses. As customers who might have had cheaper financial products, we too have been conned. All the government does is try to tax the bonuses.

The problem here though is that shareholders have exercised their power hardly at all. I wonder why? Is it because they too are part of the industry and they are sticking together. We buy the financial products that are then, in part, invested in Banks' shares to earn a profit for us. This is where we individually might exert pressure.

Write to your pension fund or investment manager [if you have one] to ask “do you invest in any Bank shares?”

If so, have they protested about the size of the bonuses as that is reducing returns to you at the end of the chain. If they have not protested, do they have a duty to you to provide the best return possible to you, their customer?

Why not try it as an argument on the regulatory authorities. Its your choice...

Well done to kalokagathia @ 31. So early in the year yet that's gonna be hard to beat for the craziest comment of 2011!
So bankers are the workers? No, the workers are the every day jo wealth creators out there in the real world...the guys whose pension funds have been robbed year on year with these bonuses!

With compound interest, how much would the bonuses from the last ten years be worth? Enough to pay for a bail-out perhaps? Or maybe enough to pay for all those jobs we're getting rid of? Or no wait, maybe it would be enough to avoid having to beg China for another £500billion next year!

Whatever the reason, the UK public are no longer being taken for mugs. If what Robert says is true and we are the most annoyed, then I'm proud!

58. At 18:14pm on 10th Jan 2011, Jacques Cartier wrote:
36. At 17:05pm on 10th Jan 2011, AudenGrey wrote:

> I honestly like to see people get on and earn a few quid.....
> but leave a few bob for the rest of us !

That's a stupid way to think. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. For us to be rich, you have to be poor.

Look, fatcats live in your economy, and inflate your prices. You may like your savings to be inflated down to zero by a bunch of grasping nonentities in some office in London, but don’t try and justify that to us.

.................................................................................................................

We can't all be millionaires Jacques, that's the way it's always been. You and WOTW seem to have good brains, instead of tilting at bankers and the very rich, why not put that energy into helping the homeless and disenfranchised. They need your energy more than rich bankers.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

#51 - Payguy

>"All the major banks including Barclays (who treat their custmers with absolute contempt) took government loans, guarantees to the tube of approx £300bn through the special liquidity and asset scheme. "

No, all the banks didn't take government loans. Yes, many took part in the SLS, to the tune of £185bn, or so say the BoE. In exchange the BoE received long term assets to the tune of £287bn. Two sides to this particular story, aren't there?

>"Not to mention selling off their crappy assets at a huge profit through the US TARP scheme. "

Whether or not they made a profit on it, the US Taxpayer has already seen a smidge under 70% repaid, and the Treasury has gone on record to state that the taxpayer will see a return on their investment in TARPS.

Oh, and neither Barclays nor HSBC took TARPS money, as per the below:

https://www.upi.com/Business_News/2010/01/15/British-banks-caught-up-in-TARP-payback/UPI-27841263568994/

Making the argument that they benefitted because others took these funds is somewhat transient. It's like saying that you benefit because your neighbour's a keen gardener, and the bees visiting his garden cross-pollinate yours. I assume you wouldn't pop next door and pay him for the benefits?

>"Also the Taxpayer backstopped all the money in deposit accounts when the state guarantee was raised to £65,000."

An increase that has cost nothing, to date.

>"Then they have access to the 0.5% bank of England lending rate which they can then mark up by a factor of ten when they lend to you and I."

I presume you've not heard of LIBOR? Or swap rates? You don't believe that when a bank lends you a sum of money on a 5 yr fixed rate mortgage, they borrow it on a short term basis? Of course not, they borrow it on the 5 yr swap rate - currently around the 2.75% mark. Looking online, the best rate seems to be the Woolwich's 3.6%. So leaving them a margin of 0.85% from which to pay off associated costs, before leaving a profit margin. Not quite ten-to-one, is it?

>"So don't even start with "Barclays should be able to do what it likes as it hasn't taken taxpayer support"."

Bottom line, I'm afraid, is that unless you're a Barclays shareholder, and can gather a quorum of like-minded individuals, you can jump up and down as much as you like. The privately owned firm can indeed do what it likes, within current legislation.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

Oh, and being Scottish, it was a sad day to see our Scottish institutions die leaving no real Scottish banks. This wasn't the source of my disgust, that started a few years back with a BBC programme titled 'what Britain earns'. This show should be run over Christmas every year!!!!

I'm just glad the rest of the population are waking up! The sad thing is, even though many have, the vast majority still don't realise just how big a waste of space the majority are! They are just disgusted at the sums.....just imagine what's going to happen when/if they really do 'click'!

#29. Dempster wrote:

Have we forgotten:
GP Noble Trustees, Walsons Bakeries, Modsmith Ltd Retirement Benefit Scheme, Spelply Ltd No. 1 Retirement Benefit Scheme, Melplash Ltd Executive Pension Plan, Ruswal Ltd Retirement and Death Benefit Scheme, UK Expatriates, Carsten Myrthue Iversen

Yes.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

#68

Don't worry, Uphios, as our good friend Jacques from the previous blog told us, Britain's mighty "tangible" goods production industry will fill the gap once he's chased the services industry off these shores.

It's funny - he never came back on that point. Too busy rushing off to this new debate first, without finishing on the old one.

Of course, given that this only comprises 30% of the economy, that does mean a lot of us will be watching while on the dole, but hey ho....

Banker bashing is mainly about envy. But if it wasn't, what is the justification?
Which bankers exactly should be penalised? Most are employees like anyone else, working within regulated practices. No one broke any laws. They were encouraged by the government to make as much money for the Treasury as possible. How you anyone point a finger at a specific banker and say that they should have their bonuses capped, and why?

Banking and financial services raises £billions for this country. Financial services needs to be better regulated and the practices reformed but it still needs to be encouraged. Let the bankers earn their salaries and bonuses; they will pay a lot more taxes on it, and raise a lot more money for the Treasury than I will.

16. At 16:14pm on 10th Jan 2011, Mike D wrote:

But as I work in an industry that relies on a strong banking system, I (and thousands of others) might also have to move as well. That's quite a lot of tax potentially not going through HMRC.
===============================================================
Strong banking system? Is that your idea of a joke?

The UK Government has had to provide over 800 billion of support to the UK banking sector. Is that what you call a strong banking system? Most of it was bankrupt in 2008, without taxpayer support. And believe me, if RBS and HBOS had been allowed to go bankrupt, the rest would have gone too.

Fractional reserve banking allows the banks to create money, as customer debt, banks, therefore, are special, anyone else would end up in prison. This means that there will be system problems (recession) when the created money cannot be repaid, it is perfectly reasonable to bash the banks on the grounds of unfairness.
The solution is full reserve banking. Pay and bonus would then be earned.

58. At 18:14pm on 10th Jan 2011, Jacques Cartier wrote:
36. At 17:05pm on 10th Jan 2011, AudenGrey wrote:

> I honestly like to see people get on and earn a few quid.....
> but leave a few bob for the rest of us !

That's a stupid way to think. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. For us to be rich, you have to be poor.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Busted - your ignorance is shocking. Please look up the concept of comparative advantage and refrain from mocking others so casually.

I think the BBC is rather down-playing the role it played in the UK in terms of identifying the banks as the cause of Brown's monstrous budget deficits and the coalitions cuts. I can tell you that on the day the bank bailouts were announced it fair took my breath away the seamless son-et-lumiere performance the BBC put out with, we were lead to believe, absolutely no notice at all.

The archive pictures re-mastered from the 1980s of yuppies. It was all the Big-Bang's fault. A failure of Capitalism. A failure of Thatcherism. A failure of the banks.

No mention at all of Labour/Brown doing away with controls that had worked for 300 years. No mention of unsustainable government and private borrowing.

If you want to know why the UK has a bigger downer on the banks than any other country look no further than whoever fed the BBC 'the line to take' that morning - or more likely a month or so in advance in order to get the all that archive footage keyed up and ready to go. A line repeated the next day and every day since by the lazy mainstream press.

16. At 16:14pm on 10th Jan 2011, Mike D wrote:
Barclays and HSBC weren't bailed out and didn't receive state support. I think that they should be able to pay their staff what they can afford.
==================================

I don't think that's entirely true.

All the banks function under free insurance by the taxpayer - take whatever risks they like in the knowledge that all the profit is theirs but if it goes pear shaped the taxpayer underwrites them. If it were not for that underwriting customers would have been mobbing the bank doors in panic, demanding to withdraw their savings - money the banks never do have to hand back.

I think any small businessman would like that deal - free insurance against any and all failures of business planning whilst keeping all the profits from any gambles that come off well.

Like some others here, the issue really does seem rather obvious, so I'm not sure why Robert has even written this.

We bailed out the banks, some still survive on taxpayer's money, yet they give us no return on our savings and no loan prospects. Then they pay themselves bonuses for doing so well with our money... !! All the while people are losing their jobs, and suffering the costs of inflation. Is it any wonder we might be fed up with bankers who don't seem to be suffering at all?

85. At 19:57pm on 10th Jan 2011, JohnGarrs wrote:
Fractional reserve banking allows the banks to create money, as customer debt, banks, therefore, are special, anyone else would end up in prison. This means that there will be system problems (recession) when the created money cannot be repaid, it is perfectly reasonable to bash the banks on the grounds of unfairness.
The solution is full reserve banking. Pay and bonus would then be earned.

*******************************************************

Can you explain how fractional reserve banking works and also how you envisage full reserve banking working without savers being charged large sums to store their money and the economy collapsing as credit availability contracts massively

This was and still is a systemic problem with the way the market and banks work. Bankers act in their self interest within the boundaries of what's legal or they can get away with. People with 1st class maths degrees from Cambridge and Oxford go to work in investment banking to have a golden life. It's simple. People who manage businesses ultimately act in the interest of the business and the business owners. In the case of banks and other businesses the management and 'fital few' take their money first, then the general staff get abit, then the government get some and if any's left it goes to the shareholders.

It needs a political and global solution. Co-operation rather than agreements they always end up getting watered down and people break them. The system needs improving. It is possible. Don't expect the bankers to do it.

However if an individual owed the bank money they would expect to be paid and the government as the lender to the banks must make sure it get paid and well for the support its providing to the banks. I actually think things would improve if the government allows the banks use profits to buy back and extinguish shares and pay its staff all share bonuses. This creates an incentive to do well means the government gets its money back and benefits pension funds etc who hold bank shares. But what do I know..

@80 rbs_temp.

I suspect you have done yourself a great dis-service with that one-word response.

Perhaps you think this banker-bashing-fuss will all soon blow over and it will be back to business-as-usual.
It's not quite 12 months since GP Noble was in the News - but it was only £52m so that's easily forgettable. I reckon those with pensions managed by GP Noble Trustees haven't forgotten.

I don't think many bloggers around here are going to ever forget Fred-the-shred and RBS but perhaps they'd be very happy to forget about you.

PS - Perhaps someone could come up with a new word to replace "Trustee". It doesn't seem suitable any more.

I'd like to think that people here have a fairly well developed innate sense of fairness and what's right and wrong. The British have always been at our best when 'we are all in it together'. But when some seem to rather more in it than others,and some not in it at all then rumblings and grumblings start. It seems some of the happiest societies are those without monstrous inequalities and some of the more miserable and fractious where a nation's shared income and opportunity have become seriously unbalanced. I think this is what is happening in the UK.

As before, none of the day-time megaposters on this site want to consider facts and the law of unintended consequences.

At the highest rate of tax and NI, the government takes 67% of bonuses, and the recipient then pays 20% VAT on what he/she buys. Thus by the time he/she has what's been bought in hand it's about 75% to the government and 25% to the individual. Yet, if no bonus is paid, the government only gets 30% corporation tax.

So, providing bonuses are taken from profits, the government [and our megaposters who appear not to work] are much better off taxing bonuses rather than taxing retained profits.

I'm not saying it's right, and of course it's a ridiculous situation, but there are sensible answers / solutions out there that are not getting any hearing on this site, and people who can contribute constructively are being put off.

Perhaps we should prefix our posts with the word NORMAL and only post after 6 pm, by which time, with a bit of luck, the megaposters will have gone off to bore people at the pub rather than here.

To everything there is a season a time to speak and a time to refrain from speaking. Now is a time to speak because some peoples lives are being wrecked because they are being made redundant, because our economy has been rocked to the core by the need to rescue some parts of the financial sector. Simples. There is something British about a sense of justice, which is why I feel that the UK will be safe hands with the youngsters who took to the streets over the tuition fees.
I dont think the bankers need to take it personally anymore than the people whose lives have been spoilt due to lack of money as the result of this crisis.

Thankyou dempster blog 29 for your very clear list of the problems with the investment banks products. Though I am not farmiliar with term precipice bonds what do they do?

In my world that of retail, products have to be fit for purpose. If they are not and sufficent people excercise their rights to their money back the firm goes down and quite right to. We also have health and safety inspectors so that people cannot be sold products that are unsafe. Well I call wrecking somebodys pension equally damaging to their well being so how about some wealth and safety inspectors to keep an eye on proceedings with the same level of powers and in the same numbers that we have in business.
jenny jones

Could it be simply that British bankers are even bigger sleaze balls than those in other countries? No harm in asking.

The trouble is that in Britain we like to shoot ourselves in the foot instead of keeping quiet. The financial crisis was started in the good old USofA by their institutions/investment banks trying to rip everyone else off. Their ratings agencies and investment banks just slag euro/uk banks off and keep downgrading them while having rather large short positions on them. They even have the cheek to collude with hedge funds etc to enhance their profits, it is all too easy for them to make money by dubious means. They get caught and are fined a few hundred million dollars which is chicken feed when they have made billions. I am still trying to work out who has all the money that everyone has lost. You can bet that all the euro banks are in worse health than the UK banks but they are all keeping quiet, most probably on orders from Germany who run the financial circus now. I keep reading that the gov bailed out RBS and LLoyds but I think that LLoyds shareholders bailed out the gov and did the country a great service only to be slagged off at every opportunity. The gov should keep quiet about inhouse matters and learn tricks from other countries.
It does seem odd that all US banks are now back to making zillions of$$$ and everyone else is still in deep doodoo. I did read that American mutual funds etc supply most of the money to the financial markets and by cutting that supply to banks worldwide they were able to put their trading positions into practice before they stopped the cash. The financial markets are now a joke because even illegal goings on are well documented and usually rewarded by a slap on the wrist or a small fine. Legalised robbery is now the name of the game with no holds barred.

#77. At 19:34pm on 10th Jan 2011, smith_cw wrote:

"Making the argument that they benefitted because others took these funds is somewhat transient. It's like saying that you benefit because your neighbour's a keen gardener, and the bees visiting his garden cross-pollinate yours. I assume you wouldn't pop next door and pay him for the benefits?"
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

That's got be the worst analogy I've ever read. Are said flowers roots entwined, are they rotten to core infecting all other flowers. And these bees, are they suddenly a resource owned by a neighbour because the visited his flower and I should therefore pay him for my fortune.

You cannot seriously be telling us that Barclays and HSBC weren't exposed to the rotten roots of other banks and therefore gained from the rotten banks being propped up. Surely you're not, are you??

As for LIBOR rates, do you think they would be higher or lower if the BoE base rate was say 3% - what's that you say - "Higher." Well I would never have thought. Quoting a Woolwich mortgage deal at 3.6% is hardly a smart move when you should know all the profit is in personal finance, mortgages are low profit long term vehicles. Now what's a common personal loan or credit card rate.....ooops up to 10 times higher than LIBOR.

Also your assertion that the US has had 70% of its bailout funds back is no vindication of what is happening over here, the funding methods employed were completely different on each side of the pond making it easier for US banks to pay the money back. In fact 30% outstanding of a helluva lot is still a helluva lot when the banks in America are going to be faced with either unenforcable debts or buying back $Trillions of trades.

Finally, the BoE received £287Billion worth of assets. Well now, pray tell if these assets are still worth £287Billion, their securitised net worth, provision for loss and projected realisation value. Considering the governement and BoE seem intent on inflating the debt away I'd say their long term values are looking pretty poor eh?

Considering the problems that lie ahead I personally believe your faith in banks and bankers is totally unfounded, being a Halibut I know a Flounder when I see one.

#90. At 20:16pm on 10th Jan 2011, spike1606

The UK economy would have to be significantly devalued before FRB could be removed. However that's is to an extent happening anyway as credit slowly dries up and will difficult to obtain for many years.

Some say devaluation of up to 50% - 60% is necessary which in itself has obvious repercussions. Done quickly we all suffer very badly in the short term but we become competitive in the global market quicker. Short sharp shock economics advocated by many but not popular with governements or corporations who are too stupid to realise wealth is relative and not just big numbers. Done slowly and we get left behind in the global market and possibly suffer catastrophic economic collapse in several years time. Not done at all and I'm afraid we're all dead meat.

Right. And I bet they whined on School Sports day when they came in last in the 50m and didn't even get a medal too. So unfair!

'Here's the thing. Similar views are prevalent in the US. But they are not dominating the political agenda, as they do here. '

The media? And do you think the US media represents the people or the vested interests Robert? Go take a look at the FCC, go take a look at who own the media, then watch for a bit of understanding as to why there were virtually no voices against the Iraq war when Americans were demonstrating in every town and every city against it, you'll understand why the first time most people in the UK heard the chant 'You got bailed out, we got sold out' was from the kids in London, not the people marching on Wall Street and occupying the lobbies of those casinos.

The bankers are really complaining that the UK media hasn't done it's job properly. Manufacturing consent is the job of the media. Until now, our education system has been a bit too good for that nonsense, so you are seen in the eyes of the bankers as a failure.

And we Brits are a tad naughty for thinking. Still with Philosophy departments being privatised now the consent will be manufactured for future generations of Etonians.

The rest of us will have doss house lessons from Enlightenmnet books retrieved from the rubbish dump and furnaces allowing us readings from the works of the great philosophers from the Enlightenment, Ancient Greece, Rome and elsewhere in our doss houses and shanty towns.