HOW LONG ARE WE GOING TO LET THE BANKS RIP US OFF?
Posted by Caledonian Jim in Daily Posts
Mervyn King (pictured above) the Governor of the Bank of England, has launched a blistering attack on Britain’s banks, describing the £1 trillion plus taxpayer support given to them as “breathtaking”. In a rare controversial outburst, in which he made his clearest call yet for the banks to be broken up, King warned that the British people will be paying for the cost of the credit crunch and recession for a generation. ”To paraphrase a great wartime leader, never in the field of financial endeavour has so much money been owed by so few to so many. And, one might add, so far with little real reform,” he said. King’s remarks came as several banks, which either weathered last year’s storm, or only survived because of big government bailouts, are preparing to pay out billions of pounds in bonuses.
And at the same time the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling (pictured above) has openly criticised Goldman Sachs over its plan to pay huge staff bonuses so soon after the financial crisis nearly crushed the banking sector. Speaking at an event in London this lunchtime, the chancellor cited the Wall Street giant as an example of a bank that “manifestly” failed to appreciate how the City landscape had changed. “What happened with Goldman Sachs last week sends the wrong signals,” said Darling, who was attending an event at Canary Wharf. “I’ve spoken to all our banks and none of them would be standing here today if the taxpayer hadn’t put their hand into their pocket.” Quite right he is too.
While there has, as Mr King, been no real banking reform, the banks have changed their practices in one significant way. They’re using the current crisis as an excuse to crucify businesses and individuals by withdrawing existing credit arrangements, charging punitive rates of interest and rip-off arrangement fees for any new deals they deign to provide, instructing their property surveyors to deliberately down-value securities in order to justify higher charges, destroying livelihoods and repossessing homes, and cynically pulling up the drawbridge on the credit market at a time when the economy needs a boost most. For such selfish, arrogant institutions to be paying themselves bonuses while they penalise businesses and the man in the street and do nothing to help the taxpayers who bailed them out is an obscenity and it’s high time the government and/or the Bank of England stopped it. But in addition to an understandable knee-jerk reaction about these bonuses, the more fundamental issue that needs sorted out NOW is to change lending attitudes so that banks stop profiteering and start supporting the taxpayers and businesses.
The BBC last night stood by its decision to invite the leader of the right-wing British National Party (BNP) Nick Griffin (pictured above, posing in front of one of his pathetic Churchillian “V for victory” posters) on to the political discussion programme Question Time, despite 11th-hour attempts to block his appearance. A specially-convened BBC Trust panel met to consider appeals against the ruling that his participation in the flagship political programme should go ahead. There has been widespread controversy about Mr Griffin’s appearance on Question Time tonight, with a protest rally to be held in London and further demos planned during the filming of the show. In particular cabinet minister Peter Hain, that well known champion of democracy – provided you agree with him – has been trying to get Mr Griffin excluded from the programme. Now this blog has no time for the BNP – but democracy is democracy and you can’t pick and chose which legally constituted political parties get airtime and which don’t. Indeed, perhaps the only thing more of an affront to democracy than the BNP is an attempt by a self-appointed arbiter of opinion like Peter Hain to tell us what to think and to tell us what we can and can’t see and hear. Hopefully Griffin will make a fool of himself and then an arrogant, petty little gauleiter like Hain can shut up.
In the UK an interactive map (pictured above) offering detailed crime statistics on every street in England and Wales could wipe thousands of pounds off house prices in certain areas, experts warned yesterday. The Crime Map website was launched yesterday to boost the public’s confidence in the police service by giving people more information about crime where they live. A click of the mouse allows users to zoom in on any area they choose and find out about crime levels in the village, town or larger area selected. But today The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) warned that the ‘sensational’ publication of crime data could seriously affect house prices. So to see how much your property has reduced in value, visit : http://maps.police.uk/
The lawyer for Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset Ali Al Megrahi (pictured above) denied yesterday that he had died. The man convicted of downing Pan Am flight 103 in 1988 was released from prison in Scotland earlier this year for (allegedly) humane reasons – nothing to do with oil supplies, you understand. Doctors had given him just 3 months to live after he was diagnosed with terminal cancer. A total of 259 passengers and crew and 11 Lockerbie residents died when the wreckage of the plane from Heathrow to New York rained down on the Scottish town and surrounding area. The 57-year-old Libyan had been serving a life sentence with a minimum term of 27 years. And he’s still alive, despite the presumed prayers of the idiots who released him. The murdering bastard should never have been freed in the first place. When – or rather if – he does ever snuff it, are we going to have the ultimate insult to his victims with the Scottish Justice Secretary who misguidedly released a convicted terrorist murderer invited to his funeral ?
More controversy over climate change. This time, The Government has been accused of exaggerating Britain’s success in fighting climate change by presenting “misleading” figures on carbon emissions (above). Sir Michael Scholar, chairman of the UK Statistics Authority, said that recent presentation of data by the Department of Energy and Climate Change was “unsatisfactory”. In a letter to Tim Yeo, the chairman of the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee, he said that a statistical bulletin released in February “fell short” of the Government’s code of practice. Sir Michael raised serious concerns about the claim that CO2 emissions had fallen by 12.8% compared with 1990 levels. Nearly a third of that fall is made up of carbon credits purchased by polluters in an EU trading scheme and do not represent actual cuts in UK emissions. Without the credits, the fall is a much more modest 8.5%. The government lying to us ? Hard to believe.
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