If banks were so good why did we have to bail them out? here the Irish economy is absolutely in tatters thanks to the actions of the bankers and their friend in Government who forced us to bail them out and keep hitting us every day for taxes. any of you ride on Irish roads lately? they would be in the same standard as Albania or Kosovo, no services no repair and huge increases in road taxes.

It's been quite a while since anyone posted in here in support of bankers/the banks, so I assume your question is rhetorical.
One potential, simplistic, answer is that they were too big to fail - recent news in the UK points towards making this a thing of the past; the UK govn aim to bring in more competition within banking including making it easier to start up new banks on the high street + all the earlier policy about splitting the "casino" aspects (or at least firewalling it) from the real world of the countries' population and its needs in banking. Also, the financial services agency (FSA) is being more or less scrapped (I'm not up to date on this but that is how it comes over to me), with the Bank of England taking a much closer regulatory role, after earlier governments cut away and adopted the laisser-faire approach of other decades.

Of course, in the meantime, we have yet another case study of bad banking practice in Cyprus where they seemed to learn nothing from the case of Iceland.

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Dave

It's too early to say.
The recrimination continues:-
BBC News - HBOS collapse: Ex-bosses face calls for City bans
Possibly the most significant aspect of this latest news item is that the 3 guys in the spotlight:-
a. Are not qualified bankers, but "managers".
b. Have gone on to work in other high level posts - who is it who takes on such talent??

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Dave

Well well well!
One of the miscreants has resigned (and is currently making all kinds of "apologetic statements and moves" that I won't go into detail here), but -
As a poacher he was also a gamekeeper.

While running the HBOS bank that collapsed it seems that he was also on the board of the regulator:-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financi...ices_Authority

Adair Turner - Executive Chairman
Deputy Chairman - vacant, following resignation of Sir James Crosby
Andrew Bailey - Managing Director, Prudential Business Unit
Martin Wheatley - Managing Director, Conduct Business Unit
Lesley Titcomb - Acting Chief Operating Officer, the FSA
Carolyn Fairbairn - Non-executive FSA Board member, Director of Strategy and Development at ITV plc
Peter Fisher - Non-executive FSA Board member, Managing Director of BlackRock
Brian Flanagan - Non-executive FSA Board member, formerly a Vice President of Mars Inc
Karin Forseke - Non-executive FSA Board, formerly CEO of Carnegie Investment Bank AB
Sir John Gieve - Non-executive FSA Board member, Deputy Governor, Financial Stability of the Bank of England
Professor David Miles - Non-executive FSA Board member, Managing Director and Chief UK Economist at Morgan Stanley
Michael Slack - Non-executive FSA Board, Director of the British Insurance Brokers' Association
Hugh Stevenson - Non-executive FSA Board member, Chairman of the FSA Pension Plan Trustee Ltd
Mick McAteer - Non-executive FSA Board member, Director, Financial Inclusion Centre

Almost as a side issue, there are lots of indicators that the "old boys club", mentioned earlier in this thread, still exists.

But, the knifes are out at present and they are stabbing for the bankers; those who were part of the regulation system are lined up to be next for judgement by the Parliamentary committee.

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Dave

Rothchilds continues to be named as being at the heart of the issues.


Meanwhile the discussion continues, not least on BBC which is running a 3 part series on channel 2 about the history of the past few years - the first past, tonight, covered the LIBOR scandal which was known to governments and financial regulators back in 2008 even though it blew up in the public perception only last year.
Those with access to the BBC programming can see more about this at BBC Two - Bankers and there is more discussion about the issues at:-

DEBATE: Can we trust bankers to help the national recovery? - OpenLearn - Open University

3 banks identified at the heart of the LIBOR fiddling have been Barclays, RBS and UBS. The latter of these 3 is yet to be dealt with by the regulatory authorities.
It is somewhat encouraging that criminal investigations are under way in both the US and the UK.

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Dave

Yep, watch that programme, whether or not you like the BBC - (there's a bit of BBC sensationalism in it). I've only watched yesterday's, about JP Morgan and MF Global. But will definitely watch the rest. Thanks for the tip, Dave.

Only a year and a month ago, big bank CEOs were still lying about the state of their trading.
From the US Securities and Exchange, Mar 2013: JP Morgan had “a trading operation that piled on risk, ignored limits on risk taking, hid losses, dodged oversight and misinformed the public”.
'Misinformed' is US-speak for 'lied'.

According to the same programme, the EuroZone countries owe $11,000,000,000,000.
To whom, exactly?
Why does no investigative TV programme or journalist start asking? Or looking?

Ponder why the Met Police have just asked to be allowed to use water cannon. After concluding about 5 years or so ago that it was of no use.
Is it 'just' a frightener? Or is there something down the pipe? It's one, or the other.....

Imagine for a moment if the western world's engineering professions operated with the same behaviours as the world's financial professions.
Anyone want to hang around within reach of the London Shard? Or take a high-speed train through the Chunnel?

From the Chief Executive of the UK Financial Conduct Authority, during the programme: "There's no question whatsoever, we won't spot everything and there will be failures and there will be scandals in the future hopefully(!!) somewhat less than in the past......." (My emphasis).
Any likelyhood such a thing would ever need to be said about the construction of the HS2 rail line and rolling stock when it gets underway?
Or the next 'super passenger air-liner'?

Capitalism relies entirely on the integrity of captains of the financial industries, in the same way as civil construction relies of the integrity of engineers.
It seems to me that captains of financial industry have very little or no respect for capitalism, (consumed by greed?), and capitalism is doomed until that changes. If ever.

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TTR250 - London to Cape Town

It used to be said that only Doctors and civil engineers bury their mistakes, and the engineers can bury them deeper.

So, tonight the 3rd and final episode will provide a review of mis-selling by the banks over the last 30 years, or thereabouts.
Yep, I'm up for this, having also been involved, as a consumer, in the endowment mortgage thing years ago.

In the meantime, this guy takes his pension and runs, putting in a good word for his co-workers as he departs.
Call to stop demonising bankers - MSN Money UK
How many times in how many occupations have we heard "that it is all the fault of the system".

Incidentally, during the interview contained in the link above, the outgoing bank of England boss did point out what some economists have said; the current UK govn scheme to encourage a boost in housing mortgages has the potential to bring on yet another bubble in housing defaults which, in this case, will be funded by the usual source - the taxpayers. All this in preparation for an election that is only 2 years away.

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Dave

The banks don't care about us, the bigger picture or the country, rather in the manner of Sebastian vettel, they'll apologise in public to try and save face, but the only thing they are interested in is satisfying their own ambition, which generally means screwing as much money as possible out of the rest of us.

Well, having received another lesson in the failure of people to read each other's post I come back to look at this tired bit of ranting and find the Masonic emblem and wisps of "the Rothschilds".

Gentlemen (!) you can't have it both ways. Either "THEY" are all powerful or . . . they are not.

Oh, never mind.

"A silly obsession is the hobgoblin of a small mind."

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Orange, it's the new black.