Well then you dont understand why I included that example. Your attempt to criticise the financial sector implied the LIBOR scandal tainted the sector with corruption (see above).

My point is thats no more valid that saying the priesthood is malfunctioning because of the child sex scandals, the academic university research world is malfunctioning because of corruption in academic research, the high school world is malfunctioning because to student -teacher relationship scandals, the medical world is malfunctioning because of doctors taking improper sexual advantage of their patients or in the case of Shipman, just killing them. The police are malfunctioning because of corruption scandals, because of the de Menezes scandal etc. According to your logic, society as a whole, without exception, is malfunctioning.

My point is that its not valid to conclude because of a scandal or number of scandals that a sector of society is malfunctioning, because all segments of the economy and society are subject to scandals and cases of abusing their position. Including Doctors, nurses, priests, teachers, police, engineers, academics, etc etc etc etc etc .... ad infinitum

Do you think there are some industries or professions that are immune from wrongdoing?


If Hollywood is to be believed?? Thats kinda destroys any credibility behind an argument right there.

"The bankers?" ... who are the bankers? Genghis tried to point this out but conveniently you Nath Drwnite et al dont seem to bothered to have read (or maybe not bothered to understand) his post. Where does a banker begin or end? The old lady who works behind till number 3 in the local Natwest is a banker. Has she acted in a manner akin to drug addicted rollers of the dice?

The officer who sits in the loan processing centre and tells you yes or no to your mortgage ... he is a banker. Has he acted in a manner akin to drug-addled "rollers of the dice".

The guy who sits in a dealing room in the City, in a sharp suit, who the big corporate clients call up and ask at what price they can buy 20 million EUR. He is a banker. How has he acted in a manner akin to drug-addled "rollers of the dice". He just tells British Airways and companies like them at what price they can buy 20 million EUR against sterling.

The investment banker who has worked for the last 2 years on a potential deal to merge British Aerospace with EADS, making sure the terms of the deal are clear with both parties and the pricing is agreed and transparent ... How has he acted in a manner akin to drug-addled "rollers of the dice".

What about the team of investment bankers who worked for years on a deal to raise money for Tube expansion and improvement ... How have they acted in a manner akin to drug-addled "rollers of the dice".

You dont even know what bankers do.

Of the million or so people in the UK who are bankers ... how can you claim to have any understanding of the matter when you blanket pronounce ... (the bankers) have acted in a manner akin to drug-addled "rollers of the dice" ..... Its a ridiculous oversimplification and generalisation that has absolutely zero truth in it in 99.9% of cases.

If one biker in 100 is a drug dealer and a anti society gangster, should we all be labelled like that? Would you accept that labelling from someone who know nothing about bikers in general? Let say your local conservative party politician just showed you a newspaper clipping showing a biker gang robbing an old peoples home as blanket evidence that Bikers are scum? ... and he is going to propose outlawing them. I assume you would look at the guy, shake your head, and say you have no clue what you are talking about.

Well, thats how it is trying to explain banking to you. I mean lets never never let the truth get in the way of propaganda and ignorant hatred. Its the cornerstone of populism.

It just demonstrates you not only dont understand the topic, but in order to hide your lack of understanding you throw a black blanket over a million people.

That is about as sensible and logical as saying the medical profession are murderers - Harold Shipman anyone?

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In that case, I wonder how many 'bankers' it took to miss-sell PPI to 12 million customers? Some of which were elderley and were lied to outright about 'what is best for them' in order to fleece their cash. I think those f*ckers have acted worse then your drug-addled roller of the dice!

Just for the record, nothing posted in here so far has come as a surprise to me concerning the nature of banking; I'm sorry to say that it is all too familiar.

If you choose to go into the depths of collateral debt obligations and/or credit default swaps then we may get to a position that needs some further explanation, but, so far, so good.

And certainly this thread has more or less agreed that malpractice occurs in each and every walk of life; but the thread is about banks and banking.

It did seem from recent posts that we were on the way to agreeing that the problems within that activity are the fault of all of us, via ignorance, apathy and the fact that we get the politicians we deserve (who ultimately are responsible for everything that is wrong in the world).

But, oh dear, best not to choose British Aerospace for an example of best practice!
Below is an extract from Wikipedia and I remember this case all too well, including the very active intervention of a certain politician who has already been named in earlier posts (if you get my drift).

Corruption investigations
[edit]
Serious Fraud Office

BAE Systems has been under investigation by the Serious Fraud Office, into the use of political corruption to help sell arms to Chile, Czech Republic, Romania, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Tanzania and Qatar.[131][132][133] In response, BAE Systems' 2006 Corporate Responsibility Report states "We continue to reject these allegations...We take our obligations under the law extremely seriously and will continue to comply with all legal requirements around the world.[134] In June 2007 Lord Woolf was selected to lead what the BBC described as an "independent review.... [an] ethics committee to look into how the defence giant conducts its arms deals."[135] The report, Ethical business conduct in BAE Systems plc – the way forward, made 23 recommendations, measures which BAE has committed to implement. The finding stated that "in the past BAE did not pay sufficient attention to ethical standards in the way it conducted business," and was described by the BBC as "an embarrassing admission."[136]

In September 2009, the Serious Fraud Office announced that it intended to prosecute BAE Systems for offences relating to overseas corruption. The Guardian claimed that a penalty "possibly of more than £500m" might be an acceptable settlement package.[137] On 5 February 2010, BAE Systems agreed to pay £257m criminal fines to the US and £30m to the UK. The UK already massively benefited from £43 billion contract in tax receipts and jobs in the UK, and had dropped an anti-corruption investigation into the Al Yamamah contracts later taken up by US authorities.[138][139] Crucially, under a plea bargain with the US Department of Justice, BAE was convicted of felony conspiracy to defraud the United States government and sentenced in March 2010 by U.S. District Court Judge John D. Bates to pay a $400 million fine, one of the largest fines in the history of the DOJ. U.S. District Judge John Bates said the company's conduct involved "deception, duplicity and knowing violations of law, I think it's fair to say, on an enormous scale".[140][141] BAE did not directly admit to bribery, and is thus not internationally blacklisted from future contracts. Some of the £30m penalty BAE will pay in fines to the UK will be paid ex gratia for the benefit of the people of Tanzania.[142] On 2 March 2010 Campaign Against Arms Trade and The Corner House were successful in gaining a High Court injunction on the Serious Fraud Office's settlement with BAE. The High Court may order a full review of the settlement.[143]
[edit]
Saudi Arabia

One of 24 Panavia Tornado ADVs delivered to the Royal Saudi Air Force as part of the Al Yamamah arms sales.
Main article: Al-Yamamah arms deal

BAE (and British Aerospace previously) has long been the subject of allegations of bribery in relation to its business in Saudi Arabia. The UK National Audit Office (NAO) investigated the Al Yamamah contracts and has so far not published its conclusions, the only NAO report ever to be withheld.[144] The MOD has stated "The report remains sensitive. Disclosure would harm both international relations and the UK's commercial interests."[145] The company has been accused of maintaining a £60 million Saudi slush fund and was the subject of an investigation by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO). However, on 14 December 2006 it was announced that the SFO was "discontinuing" its investigation into BAE. It stated that representations to its Director and the Attorney General Lord Goldsmith had led to the conclusion that the wider public interest "to safeguard national and international security" outweighed any potential benefits of further investigation.[146] The termination of the investigation has been controversial.[147] In June 2007, the BBC's Panorama alleged BAE "paid hundreds of millions of pounds to the ex-Saudi ambassador to the US, Prince Bandar bin Sultan" in return for his role in the Al Yamamah deals.[148] In late June 2007 the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) began a formal investigation into BAE's compliance with anti-corruption laws.[149] On 19 May 2008 BAE confirmed that its CEO Mike Turner and non-executive director Nigel Rudd had been detained "for about 20 minutes" at two US airports the previous week and that the DOJ had issued "a number of additional subpoenas in the US to employees of BAE Systems plc and BAE Systems Inc as part of its ongoing investigation".[150] The Times suggested that such "humiliating behaviour by the DOJ" is unusual toward a company that is co-operating fully.[150]

A judicial review of the decision by the SFO to drop the investigation was granted on 9 November 2007.[151] On 10 April 2008 the High Court ruled that the SFO "acted unlawfully" by dropping its investigation.[152] The Times described the ruling as "one of the most strongly worded judicial attacks on government action" which condemned how "ministers 'buckled' to 'blatant threats' that Saudi cooperation in the fight against terror would end unless the ...investigation was dropped."[153] On 24 April the SFO was granted leave to appeal to the House of Lords against the ruling.[154] There was a two-day hearing before the Lords on 7 and 8 July 2008.[155] On 30 July the House of Lords unanimously overturned the High Court ruling, stating that the decision to discontinue the investigation was lawful.[156]
[edit]
Others

HMS Coventry was one of two frigates sold to Romania.

In September 2005 The Guardian reported that banking records showed that BAE paid £1 million to Augusto Pinochet, the former Chilean dictator.[157] The Guardian has also reported that "clandestine arms deals" have been under investigation in Chile and the UK since 2003 and that British Aerospace and BAE made a number of payments to Pinochet advisers.[158] In 2003, HMS Sheffield was sold to the Chilean Navy for £27 million, however the government's profit from the sale was £3 million, after contracts worth £24 million were placed with BAE for upgrade and refurbishment of the ship.[159]

BAE is alleged to have paid "secret offshore commissions" of over £7 million to secure the sale of HMS London and HMS Coventry to the Romanian Navy. BAE received a £116 million contract for the refurbishment of the ships prior to delivery;[160] however the British taxpayer only received the scrap value of £100,000 each from the sale.[161]

BAE ran into controversy in 2002 over the abnormally high cost of a radar system sold to Tanzania.[162][163] The sale was criticised by several opposition MPs and the World Bank;[164] Secretary of State for International Development Clare Short declared that BAE had "ripped off" developing nations.[165][166] In December 2010, leaked US diplomatic communications revealed that Edward Hoseah, the Tanzanian prosecutor investigating misconduct by BAE, had confided in US diplomats that "his life may be in danger" and was being routinely threatened.[163]

In January 2007, details of an investigation by the Serious Fraud Office into BAE's sales tactics in regard to South Africa were reported, highlighting the £2.3 billion deal to supply Hawk trainers and Gripen fighters as suspect.[167] In May 2011, as allegations of bribery behind South Africa's Gripen procurement continued, BAE partner Saab AB issued strong denials of any illicit payments being made; however in June 2011 Saab announced that BAE had made unaccounted payments of roughly $3.5 million to a consultant, this revelation prompted South Afric

It's a bit long, but you get the idea: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BAE_Systems

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Dave

+ anyone for a spot of money laundering? I do recall there have been one or two cases that have come to light.

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Dave

I think there are examples of bad people in every walk of life and profession.

But more so in banking and finance than possibly any other.

Probably to do with the type of people who go into the industry, the opportunity and the culture of greed, bonuses and lack of moral, ethical leadership at the top. This still does not mean everyone in the field is a wrong 'un. But a lot are.

I make no judgement about Colebatch or any other individual when I say this, unless they have been dishonest or unethical - some will have been prosecuted, some not - and only they will know.

Just sayin', that's all.

You can pick selective events that occur in any set of organisations and then use that to extrapolate that they and everyone who works in those industries is defined by those events. Doesn't make it so.

Take another set of organisations that have garner much negative press of late, churches, judging by the press you would think everyone who works in churches are either pedophiles or covering for pedophiles. This ignores the extensive not for profit work they do in the welfare sector. In my country (Australia) the welfare sector would collapse under the weight of demand if weren't for churches the money and volunteer workers that they deliver.

The crash in the housing market wasn't caused by bankers, it was created by everyday people overpaying for houses. The lending practices that encouraged this were an initiative of the US government to get people into their own houses.

BTW the person who I heard predicting that it would all go pear shaped (and actually gave a specific date) was - wait for it - a banker!

I'd counter that the continuing sexual abuse scandals within the Catholic church worldwide indicates certain fundamental flaws in that institution, as well as in an unacceptably large proportion of individuals among its hierarchy. This goes beyond the actions of just a few.

I'm all in favor of taking personal responsibility. When I took a mortgage at one of the now-defunct giant banks at the heart of the mortgage implosion (chosen because I had a previous mortgage with them prior to their decision to concentrate on re-selling packaged sub-prime loans by deceit), they insisted that I accept highly-deceptive, potentially very destructive loan terms. In other words, they tried their best to deceive me. They then packaged this loan with other of a substantially lesser quality, assigned an inaccurate risk rating to the package, and sold them under even more deceptive terms to investors. There is no mystery about any of this--it's a matter of public record.

In other words, they engaged in fraud at multiple levels--from the executives who adopted that strategy all the way down to the mortgage writer in the local office who tried his best to hide the truth about his product, then admitted that this was all he was now permitted to offer to me. The scale of the fraud at that specific bank ran to many billions of dollars. I don't tar all "bankers" with the same brush, but it seems to me that much of the US banking system has been run similarly, to the detriment of most of the world.

Now, why do you suppose people might be peeved at "bankers?" Why would they be irritated by actions and attitudes within much of the church hierarchy? Do these responses seem unreasonable, in light of recent events (which continue to unfold and most of which presumably remain hidden)?

Railing about the fact that life as we know it would be impossible were it not for "bankers" misses the point. Life as we know it would probably be impossible were it not for scientists, engineers, mathematicians, teachers, farmers, heavy equipment operators, politicians, lawyers and (yes) soldiers as well. That doesn't mean we should maintain a grateful silence in response to institutionalized misbehavior by any of them.

IMHO, of course.

Mark

Mark, this is not meant as a criticism--your post is a good addition to this thread--your post brought raised a couple of interesting points (to me): First, what do you mean by your bank "insisted" that you accept disadvantageous loan terms? Why didn't you simply go to another bank, there is no shortage? Second, from your very brief explanation above, it sounds like you chose the bank that you dealt with because it was convenient for you (you had a previous mortgage with them). Once you realized that they were trying to deceive you, did you continue doing business with them, and if so, why? It seems to me that consumers are responsible for determining what is in their best interest, and for not dealing with mortgage lenders, or anyone else, once they've demonstrated that they are trying to hide the ball.

DocSherlock, drwnite, I don't think anyone is denying that there are some bad apples among the banking lot (as in all walks of life) and that the financial system as a whole is far from perfect.

But that doesn't even come close to meaning that there are more bad people in banking and finance than other walks of life. Take your pick--used car salesmen, building contractors, taxi drivers, lawyers, car mechanics, clergy, government officials, etc etc. Don't know about you, but I've encountered plenty of people in these fields that were hardly paragons of virtue, as well as many that were. Bankers just generate more headlines, and indeed bad bankers probably have more impact on the national (international) economy than your average bad plumber, but that by no means demonstrates that there are more bad people among banking than other spheres.

I was involved in a very time-sensitive purchase at the time, and needed to close quickly. I didn't want to mess around lining up another loan. However, I did rearrange my financial affairs to allow me to get out from under that mortgage quickly, and I stopped working with that bank completely.

I'm a fairly sophisticated consumer of mortgages, and I read the fine print carefully. Had I been otherwise--or had I fewer options--I might have been taken in. Make no mistake about it: that bank was taking advantage of anyone not able to understand, and they were doing it on purpose. They were then colluding with rating companies to defraud the buyers of mortgage-backed securities. Further, a great many banks were doing the same or worse, all across the USA.

Mark

I have little doubt that this is true, although part of the problem (and I'm not referring to you here) was that many of the borrowers either had no idea what they were signing, or were themselves guilty of overstating their incomes or choosing mortgages (interest only, etc.) that they should not have expected to be able to pay. In the big picture, many of the problems only achieved the scale that they did because of this behavior by consumers, so "they" also bear some responsibility.

And of course it is not only mortgages and house buyers; I have a friend, a finance professional BTW, that recently invested a considerable sum into a complex life insurance product. When he tried to withdraw some funds, he found out that if he did so he would lose 80% of his investment due to pre-paid admin fees or something, which apparently the agent did not disclose.

Thats just an incredible statement.

How can you possibly justify that?

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Far be it from me to cast aspersions about someone I don't know a thing about, then again it just goes to show the infinite depth of your obvious inability to ........ get the big picture! Ever been told to relax your sphincter from the blindingly obvious choke hold it has around your neck ? I wont hold my breath but ........ try decipher some of the following!

The Many Ways Banks Commit Criminal Fraud | Zero Hedge

The Many Ways Banks Commit Criminal Fraud



Submitted by George Washington on 07/03/2012 20:57 -0400




The Libor scandal seems to be waking people up to manipulation and fraud by the big banks. There are many other types of fraud they've engaged in as well ... Here is a partial list:

• Committing massive and pervasive fraud both when they initiated mortgage loans and when they foreclosed on them (and see this)

• Pledging the same mortgage multiple times to different buyers. See this, this, this, this and this

• Cheating homeowners - especially veterans - from laws meant to protect people from unfair foreclosure

• Engaging in mafia-style big-rigging fraud against local governments. See this, this and this

• Cooking their books

• Bribing and bullying ratings agencies to inflate ratings on their risky investments

• Pushing investments which they knew were terrible, and then betting against the same investments to make money for themselves. See this, this, this and this

• Engaging in unlawful "frontrunning" to manipulate markets. See this, this, this, this, this and this

• Engaging in unlawful "Wash Trades" to manipulate asset prices. See this, this and this

• Otherwise manipulating markets. And see this

• Shaving money off of virtually every pension transaction they handled over the course of decades, stealing collectively billions of dollars from pensions worldwide. Details here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here andhere

• Participating in various Ponzi schemes. See this, this and this

• Laundering money for drug cartels. See this, this and this (indeed, drug dealers kept the banking system afloat during the depths of the 2008 financial crisis)

• Owning and largely running the Federal Reserve ... which is itself arguably a Ponzi scheme

But at least the big banks do good things for society, like loaning money to Main Street, right? Actually:

• The big banks no longer do very much traditional banking. Most of their business is from financial speculation. For example, less than 10% of Bank of America’s assets come from traditional banking deposits. Instead, they are mainly engaged in financial speculation and derivatives. (and see this)

• The big banks have slashed lending since they were bailed out by taxpayers ... while smaller banks have increased lending. See this, this and this

• A huge portion of the banks' profits comes from taxpayer bailouts. For example, 77% of JP Morgan’s net income comes from taxpayer subsidies

• The big banks are literally killing the economy ... and waging war on the people of the world

• And our democracy and republican form of government as well

Good Lord !

"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of a small mind."

It's difficult to grasp ANY picture when citing or supporting so many arguments that are so FACTUALLY wrong . . . that's it's nearly embarrassing to point it out.

When this sort of thing happened in my graduate classes or in my own training sessions I remember the phrase - "I'm sorry, you've apparently registered for the wrong class. You don't belong here . . . "

Customer deposits are NOT assets ! The only banks which hold a majority of liabilities in customer deposits are either in non-capitalist societies, narco-democracies, or . . . otherwise unsophisticated financial systems . . . which I'm sure we can agree have fewer PUBLIC scandals (about anything). And therefore, if a bank-basher, must be a better place to live, work be educated and seek health care.

Or not.

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Orange, it's the new black.

See Drwnite's comprehensive answer & try not to take this discussion personally because it is certainly not meant as a personal slight on you. I have heard of some heart warming stories of bankers such as the one that spent his money on opening an orphanage in India - there just seem to be a lot more about that are blaggards and rotters.