Tories fighting to protect bankers bonuses

It seems pretty obvious that he's saying that leaving the banks to fail would have resulted in a lot more problems than the ones we currently have.

Instead of our economic system taking a hit, which obviously was far from ideal, what Angus is suggesting would have resulted in the complete crash of the entire system. Everyone would have lost their home, every small business would have crashed, more jobs and corporations would have ended up on the scrap heap.

Now, I expect him to say that because he believes that the complete downfall of western society is the best option and that we should all move to Russia and live in a homophobic, racist, fascist paradise, but despite my dislike of the people who caused this mess, I'm not sure I want what he's offering as an alternative.

 

No mate, although you can see that stock markets have climbed as high as the positions held then and in some case's now exceed that of 2007/08.

What I meant was yes we suffered after the fall and the mess the banks made (lets leave aside the fact the UK could and should have been better prepared for that crash, given the prosperity that a liebour government enjoyed but choose to * away) But for someone too actually think that by "letting them fail" this would have resulted in a better overall outcome is moronic.
When we have bad weather here, people go into a frenzy of buying and hoarding food, can you imagine what would have happened should the banks simply have been "shut down".

 

Obviously I agree with that, but would it not better if we had a system in place where saving banks cannot trade for their own account and stick to their core business (collect deposits and grant credit). Such saving banks could be bailed out if necessary. Other (investment) banks would trade at their own (and their shareholders' and customers') risk.

 

Short answer to that is Yes.

There is complications however and the main factor is human greed ie 2 savers, 1 deposits in a "savings only bank" and gets (being very generous here) 5% PA. Saver 2 deposits in the "other" bank and gets 20% PA (yes more risk etc) Saver 1 will soon forget about the fact they have little to no risk and want to know why they cant get the higher rate, so will switch and no doubt try to lodge a complaint against the adviser/bank they originally used = More headlines that "bankers" are all cnuts.
Funnily enough if this scenario was to be reversed, in a bad year, the saver does not complain weird huh :icon_mrgreen:

One of the other factors is when setting/making interest rates, these savings banks would need to make a return as well, to cover their costs, and to do that they invariably look to invest in the markets so we are back to the beginning again.

 

I,m not going to comment on most of that bullshit post, instead will just stick to a couple of facts you may find interesting....

How would everyone lose their homes ??

What happened in Iceland, the banks were allowed to fail, and financial armagedon never happened.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDexDNn6vSM[/ame]

What happened with the bailout was a bunch of criminals were bailed out by ordinary folks, and allowed to continue their extraction of wealth from the poor to the rich. We should be discussing how much jail time some these Banksters should be getting, not how much bonus,s they should receive.

Britain's divided decade: the rich are 64% richer than before the recession, while the poor are 57% poorer

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...ionwhile-the-poor-are-57-poorer-10097038.html

 

Ignore and deflect , there is a shock :smiley-laughing002:

 

Ponzi,s going well

 

If the banks had been allowed to simply crash and burn, what would have happened to those with savings with those banks? Those who operate daily with those banks?

I remember hearing that the Government would have been responsible for savings of up to £40,000 or so, but bearing in mind that the number of people with £40,000 or less lodged with the banks in question would have run into the millions it's safe to say it would have taken a long time to compensate those affected.

What then? Imagine you are a customer with one of the banks in question. You have your wages paid in every week or month, and a savings account of maybe £10,000, with a working budget of maybe £2,000 from recent wages and suchlike.

All gone.

Mortgage payments, credit card bills, utility bills, money for food, money saved for holidays, car payments, direct debits, all * completely. For millions of people.

Do you know who wouldn't have really been affected by it all? The wealthy.

The wealthy tend to spread their money out over various assets and investments. Very rarely does a millionaire simply store his money in two accounts with a single bank.

They would have been insulated against taking any major hits, and even if they did they would likely have been better placed to deal with it as they normally have more than one income stream.

The short-term effects for those who operate at the lower end of the financial scale would have been catastrophic, and that's not even taking into account any social issues as a result.

When a family with two kids is suddenly told that their savings and monthly float is all gone, and the only course of action from the Government could take weeks if not months (or even years!) you're going to see massive social repercussions.

Families who see their wealth level drop to near zero in the space of a few days won't be shopping, paying their bills, visiting local businesses and so on. The fallout would have been akin to a disaster for millions of people.

The end result of letting the banks fail would have been the government having to go into huge debt (and implementing austerity as a result), only it wouldn't have been to prop up the banks, it would have been to cover the losses of the banks customers, all of whom would have suffered greatly in the short term.

The only real difference is that the course of action taken avoided the situation I mentioned above.

Okay, well, first of all Iceland isn't the UK. Or to be more specific, Iceland isn't London.

Iceland are small potatoes in the grand scheme of things.

You mention Iceland allowing the banks to fail. You do understand that when they did so they didn't simply wave a magic wand and all of the banks debt disappeared, right?

Iceland basically walked away from its debt to other countries, including the UK, costing UK banks around £1.1 billion in compensation payments to UK citizens who had invested money with the failed Icelandic banks.

The Icelandic Government basically took the view of "well, the banks aren't our responsibility, and neither are the people who invested with them."

It's maybe worth pointing out that it wasn't just individuals who lost out in that respect, as British councils had money invested in those banks, meaning that those councils lost millions. Do you know who paid the price for those millions lost? The tax payer, that's who.

In other words, they simply walked away and left other nations that were working with them in good faith to mop up their mess.

As I mentioned though, Iceland isn't London. The walkaway by the Icelandic government caused issues for sure, but if the UK had done the same the results would have been catastrophic.

There's a big difference between a default to the tune of around $60 billion, which is what resulted from the Icelandic situation, and the UK banks foreign liabilities of $4.4 trillion.

That would have sent the western world into a complete tailspin, which would suit you fine no doubt.

After all, you want the destruction of the western system, don't you? It'll open the door for the homophobic, racist, fascist Putin-led paradise you constantly bang on about.

No, that's the version of events that people who don't have a clue like to believe. It's nowhere near as simple as that. At all.

That would be like saying building a car is just a case of opening the hood and throwing in a few nuts and bolts. Whilst those nuts and bolts do play a part, there is a shitload more involved to make everything run smoothly.

Of course any investment bankers who were proven to be involved in wrongdoing should be dealt with appropriately. That goes without saying.

When it comes to bonuses though, it's not quite as cut & dried as simply saying "no more bonuses!". The real world doesn't work that way, as much as we'd all like it to.

 

Aye it is thanks for asking averaged about 21/22 % last year, across the various asset classes and funds I run. On a par with your hot tip the rubble huh ..

I am surprised at you though, trying to have a wee dig about the market falling recently. When according to you anyway you "care" about the average person in the street, you do realise they have had a bit of a financial hit due to the fall ? (pension funds etc) Wait a minute, you don't, as we have already established your grasp for monetary issues can best be summed up by your "LET THE BANKS FAIL" bollocks, as I said you never fail etc etc. You can take a day off you know, your title is safe :smiley-laughing002: