What makes you think I am a banker. I have been on a motorcycle for the last 4 years. :funmeteryes:bier You?

Oh ... just missed. Government run fee free state schools in Australia.. ... but hey, thats close Nath! Only 10,000 miles away and totally opposite philosophy ... but good guess .... really close. :clap::clap:

History? Try me. My favourite subject. ::funmeteryes: :welcome:

Do say hi to Eva from me.

When did I say it works perfectly.? Show me that quote?

Your not making this up as you go are you Nath? :D

Thanks.
Now some of those earlier posts make sense - 'til now they were out of the context of the "new" OP concerning banks.

Woops, I made a little mistake there. I described Colebatch as a banker, but it seems I the word I was actually looking for was... Wanker?

Go back to drinking champagne with Giles and Tarquin and stop being a troll :thumbdown:

ok so now you are really are making it up as you go ...

False quotes? Really? doh Is that really your response? Tell me you are kidding ...

You didnt expect a free shot did you Nath? You didnt expect to waltz in, throw a molotov cocktail at me and not expect to get some stick back, right? You can take it as well as give it ??

Or not?


OK I give up mate.

Besides ... Austin, Chas and Millie want some more caviar. Someone has to call the bloody butler you know.

Nath,

Are you high, posting this drivel?

Colebatch can be a knob sometimes - like we all can - but I think his discussion on this topic has been pretty informed (ex-banker, perhaps, Walter?) and accurate about the way things are - not necessarily the way we think things ought to be.....

I don't like banks as I don't like the way they do business and I don't like bankers, of the ones that I have met, as they were snide, arrogant and generally thoroughly disingenuous people. But I haven't met all of them and some might be OK. Being able to keep an open mind is one of the biggest lessons I've learned from traveling over the years - you should try it.

Nath has been throwing the W word around for a while now, mainly directed toward those who ride BMWs, so there's a double hit! :innocent:

I apologise for tonight; I just lost about a half hour of fat finger typing and it is way too late to start again tonight.
But there is good discussion herein, with a spirited argument in the bar. bier

I will return to quote, or mis-quote, Arnie.

Ah, I see you've met Colebatch as well then? To be honest I didn't know what disingenuous meant and had to check, (no Harrow schooling for me), but that sounds about right.

I haven't time to write a trolling response as before I go to bed I should give thanks to the bankers for to whom I owe my high standard of living.

Bloody hell didn't this thread degenerate.

I'm going to stick up for Walter here as I have actually met the man, seems like a good guy, helped me out a lot with heaps of info when I decided to ride across central asia and Russia. Provides lots of advice to others trying to the same thing, including many informed posts in the North Asia section of the HUBB and I know he happily will sit down with someone to assist with route planning.

Is he self-assured and confident - I would say yes, some may describe that as arrogant, in that context I would take that as complement.

As for banks and bankers generally, they have an important role to play in the economy, in recent times they may have made some foolish decisions and in some parts behaved corruptly show me any group of organisations that this hasn't happened to from time to time.

I used to work in the banking industry (support roles) I have seen guys who behaved like punters at a racetrack in the tech boom, I have also seen people so risk adverse that they wouldn't jay walk. Classifying all bankers is at the best foolish, in society there is no us and them, just us.

Factually, Walter's got it right
 

I've nothing to add regarding Colebatch's assistance, patience, indulgence of the curious re: all things North Asia.

But the attacks on bankers or his points are . . . hilarious.

Bankers only facilitate the "creators of wealth" ? Really. Tell that to a smart kid/entrepreneur in Pakistan or Russia. They're effectively locked out of "the game" because they can't access capital and when they can . . . it's often from abroad. Somebody in northern California's Silicon Valley - it's pretty easy. At some point "the idea" and "the money to fund it" are rather "chicken and egg" debates.

The "old boys network" ? If one's watched alot of 30's movies, say, 'It's a Wonderful Life" so such - sure. But the days of JP Morgan strutting down or being called down to the White House or 10 Downing are LONG OVER. Today, a man sits inside of an organization because he could deliver numbers (revenue & profit). The "old boys network" was blown up in the US in the early 80's by deregulation and mergers.

Now . . . on the other hand, the percentage of global output due to financial services in the past decade has tripled from 4% to 12%. That seems rather unlikely without a bit of "gaming".

The capital markets USED to be about raising cash for new investments or expanding product lines or productivity. Clearly, with any view into them . . . that's no longer the focus.

Where do bankers fall into it ? Well, there's "bankers" and there's bankers. Retail bankers ? Commercial bankers ? Investment bankers ? There's a trajectory there, mathematically, from arithmetic to . . . stochastic calculus.

A historical view of (retail) bank profits neatly tracks GDP. That tends not to make retail bankers look too clever but also serves to clear them of all the ranting charges. As Walter says . . . central bankers set monetary policy (interest rates) and the outflows of lending start there. (Another reason that banks are currently reluctant to lend is that they're holding lots of "assets", like mortgages on homes which are NOT worth the valuation of the mortgages . . . as that problem has worsened it endangers a banks capitol reserve ratios - welcome to a nasty deflationary spiral - all a result of an asset bubble a la Japan of the 80's.)

In the last 30 years the game has been a bit more complicated by China's rise and the prolific US T-bill buying of south, southeast and north Asia. Holding ALOT of someone else's debt doesn't have much value, per se. That purchased debt permitted the west to have large current account deficits by exporting jobs and importing finished goods.

This led to the classic investment bubble under whose "pop" we now live. The "cash" flowed to the East, the debt west. Those currency accumulations in the east came back to the west looking for better returns than US T-bills. THAT is the crux of the bubble - relatively fixed numbers of assets and a large increase in the amount of cash chasing them - asset bubble. (We've seen one of these, in one form or another about every 75 years since the Tulip Craze. 75 years must be enough time for the old men to die out and not be around to warn the "kids" that . . . we've seen this movie before.)

What did retail bankers have to do with this ? Almost NOTHING. They were well downstream and simply responding to regulatory and macro-economic forces.

Commercial bankers ? Similarly free of direct implication.

Investment bankers . . . that's more interesting. Small in size (Goldman Sachs makes a large fraction of the profit of HSBC but has 1/10th the number of employees) but very large in impact and reach. Investment bankers were smart enough to react to the changing conditions very fast. If some prefer the word "manipulate", so be it.

It's clear since the de-regulation of banks in the US which started with Reagan the old rules and perspectives changed. The monetization of everything (at least in the US, but coming to a country near you, soon) makes a profit the key goal (consider US health care - not the wellness of it's clients but the profit of it's service providers . . .). The idea, nay holy grail, of "shareholder value" has subsumed all else.

Does that need reform ? Depends if you think the current system creates wealth or manipulates it and whether that matters. In the 21st century 40% of Ivy League graduates moved on to Wall St jobs. Is that the fault of bankers or is it a deeper societal issue ?

But you can't overlook the rise of Asia's cash infusions (too much savings) or the West's profligate spending. You can't blame a banker for either.

Never met the guy and would certainly not apply those or any other demeaning words to him unless I had and knew him and I thought they applied, which they might not, as I don't know him - get the idea? The only things I can about him is he writes a damn good ride report, can't spell very well and occasionally suffers SOH failure after a long day in the saddle.:)

Never went to Harrow - I'm a grammar school boy if you must know.

Trolling is for puerile tossers - why don't you look those two up?

The other thing I don't get with bank bashing, is some how it okay for every other person and business to make money, but not banks?

Why not?

Want not for profit banking? Join a credit union.

More food for the discussion
 

It is precisely because banking is a fundamental and important service sector that there is so much outrage at the actions of those in positions of responsibility within it.
Apparently investigations here in the UK are ongoing but lots of evidence given so far to the Commons select committees, for example, point to either,
1. Incompetence on a monumental scale, for which individuals should have been sacked years ago.
Or,
2. Corruption, greed and criminality. (e.g, the libor scandal).
Yes, this applies to the investment banking "arm" which is why the UK, at least, is aiming to separate that gambling activity from the "high street" banks that serve the interests of the people of a country.

To quote employees of other service sectors who clearly acted without integrity, including committing acts of murder, does not add value to the argument regarding banking.

And, yes, politicians have been complicit in this over many years; such as a certain chancellor of the exchequer who stated that there will be no further boom and bust, at more or less the height of a boom.
The UK has been living beyond its' means for many years, punching above its' weight, call it what you will. Individuals have done this, organisations also, but the state has also indulged itself and those who should have known better did nothing, said nothing.

My profession is irrelevant; I am aged nearly 3 score year and 10, and my comments are based on a life-time of coming across people who have a lack of integrity; I have left employments because I couldn't stomach the lack of integrity of systems or individuals placed in places of authority within those systems; when did you last see a politician, or a banker for that matter, resign as a matter of principle? That used to happen in the UK but it was quite a long time ago and such integrity no longer lies within the experience of a lot of folks here in the UK.
Integrity has been replaced with weasel words of apology and reliance on the short memories of the majority of the voting population. None of this has been helped by the specialisation of the professions which themselves have been self-serving; arguably, the worst example lies, again, in politics which used to be occupied by people who had some background experience outside of politics. Lots of scope herein for reform.

And, it ain't easy to see a way out of this: the holy grail of "growth" isn't happening. And anyway, what is so great about growth? Why is that such an essential to the human condition? Scope here for another thread.

Some more input has continued to explore the issue of wealth; banks do not generate wealth as I understand it (check back with Sir John Harvey Jones RIP for this). As mentioned above, they have generated profits and not even for many of their share holders; quite a few banks have destroyed the profits of their share holders, such as the Northern Rock which was beget from a building society of all things!
Refer back to this guy who in his own small way is trying to carry out the functions of a domestic bank in his own area of the UK.
Your Savings | Burnley Savings and Loans

That is probably enough for now; none of us are squeaky clean in this, and there is a long, long road ahead including actions through the courts, if there is any justice to be had in this world.

I read an excellent book a few years ago by the Australian political theorist Clive Hamilton, it's called 'Growth Fetish' and he tackles the questions that you ask. He doesn't concentrate so much on the political economy of growth but instead explores the reasons behind our fascination with materialism and consumerism. It's well worth a read if your interested in such matters.

I thought about deleting your post, quoted above, because of it's offensive nature. I haven't because Walter is able to counter your (chemically induced?) rantings in an appropriate way. Your post also helps to show how measured and mature your utterances are(n't).

I've met Walter. I think he's a good bloke. Have you? Please also read all the good and current information he submits here and on ADVrider. I sent him a couple of PMs the other day regarding a Siberian question I had. He replied virtually by return. Excellent, in my book.

How are you helping to make the (HUBB) world a better place?




Please don't EVER misquote people. :thumbdown: Thanks.

The responsibility may lie with King Henry VIII
 

For those who are still hanging in there and considering the morality and ethics of banking, the problem may go back as far as 1545:-
Usury - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Within the UK it has been reported that Islamic banks are growing in number.
I don't see any Christian banks on the high streets, to date.

Incidentally, there is a brief reference at the end of that wiki article to micro-financing.