I'ma struggling to understand what the endgame shall be - Bank bonuses 'to run to bil

[Paddy]

So you think police should be blamed for no stopping all criminals well in advance and criminals should get off free because it's someone elses fault not to stop them?

Members of previous Govt should certainly go to jail for criminal negligence, but so should top bankers of banks that required tax payers support - the whole bonus thing is totally wrong because those banks should use that money to repay taxpayers (with profit for risk taken) and also increase capital base of the bank, ffs - they got fook all their own money yet they lend 10-20 times more!

AtW you are so hypocritical. It is rare if not impossible in the UK to prosecute bankers because they are too wealthy, they pay for the best lawyers and are friends with the judges.

When the Russian government prosecute the wealthy for theft and corruption you then cry foul.

[Paddy]

It's really quite easy to understand - The City makes pots of money for the country, and the Government for the most part pisses money down the drain, mostly to bribe voters and placate would-be rivals in one way or another.

Also, as Clause 9 of Magna Carta is still in force, it would be unconstitutional as well as financial suicide for the Government to meddle unduly with city banks and institutions. Thick as they may be, most politicians can dimly perceive that (well apart from socialists like Tony Benn and his ilk and typical Lib Dems).

As I've often pointed out here in the past, the main blame for the current debt crisis lies with Governments, especially in the US, pressuring banks into making unsound property loans to millions of immigrants and poor people over the last ten to twenty years, which otherwise banks would presumably have been reluctant to do on favourable terms. Remember all that talk in the UK about social funds a few years ago? So even there one can see where Government meddling has led us.

The bankers were given tax payers money to lend to UK business. Instead they used the money to make gains on the Chinese and Indian stock markets so they can get bonuses. They take bonuses on projected profits, not real time profits. Ie Their bonus is tax payers money.

[VectraMan]

So are you saying we should legalise drug dealing and have police come down hard on the users. I like it. Let's tax the users for their irresponsible behaviour.

I think there's a good argument for that.

How is it that Ocean Finance have their own TV channel, and you get TV ads for pay day loans at 3000% APR, yet the mortgage lenders are treated as if they're the minions of Satan for offering more than 3.5 times somebody's salary at a reasonable rate? Seems like the priorities are slightly wrong there, and that's where your point about protecting desperate people should apply.

You can't say the same about anybody buying a house at ridiculously over inlated prices with a mortgage they couldn't afford. Anybody doing that made a choice, perhaps encouraged by peer pressure of parents and anybody who told them to "get on the housing ladder or your life will be ruined", but a choice the same.

[scooterscot]

The bankers were given tax payers money to lend to UK business. Instead they used the money to make gains on the Chinese and Indian stock markets so they can get bonuses. They take bonuses on projected profits, not real time profits. Ie There bonus is tax payers money.

WHS -

[scooterscot]

I think there's a good argument for that.

How is it that Ocean Finance have their own TV channel

They do?

and you get TV ads for pay day loans at 3000% APR, yet the mortgage lenders are treated as if they're the minions of Satan for offering more than 3.5 times somebody's salary at a reasonable rate? Seems like the priorities are slightly wrong there, and that's where your point about protecting desperate people should apply.
.

Because one loan is based on thin air and the other is asset backed.

[AtW]

When the Russian government prosecute the wealthy for theft and corruption you then cry foul.

Russian Govt tends to prosecute unfairly rich men only when they are politically dangerous and refuse to pay them off - in such cases Russian Govt fabricates cases and uses corrupt judges: I can't support that whether in Russia or in UK.

In the UK bankers are not prosecuted because they are very good at having right contracts in the first place that make it impossible to sue them - all the risks are basically yours, however there are existing laws that can be used to make directors of firms personally liable for criminal negligence etc - when very large company goes bust then in my view directors should more or less automatically go to jail (rather than use golden parachutes) unless there are REAL circumstances when they could not have done anything.

[Freamon]

No. Business create money, banks steal it. Or at least they have been for the last year on the interest paid on my savings whilst charging goodness knows what on their other products.

Businesses don't create money. Businesses create wealth. That's the difference.

Wealth != Money.

Banks don't create wealth, they just create money.

[Freamon]

The bankers were given tax payers money to lend to UK business. Instead they used the money to make gains on the Chinese and Indian stock markets so they can get bonuses. They take bonuses on projected profits, not real time profits. Ie Their bonus is tax payers money.

No, the bankers were given tax payers money to stop them going bankrupt.

The whole govt spiel about "banks should lend more to businesses" is just a smokescreen. The fact is, banks don't have the ability or willingness to go back to lending stupid amounts of money to businesses, and businesses don't have the ability or willingness to go back to borrowing stupid amounts of money from banks. The govt knows this, but the "banks are bad for not lending" line helps to shift the blame away from the govt for ******* up the economy.

[Bagpuss]

Governments are the problem, not banks.

You've got to be realistic - you've got to have banks, they do what they do, and they net the UK coffers many billions. It won't do us any good to hack away at them out of revenge or envy.

If banks are taking too many risks with some products, it is up to our government to regulate or legislate against those products. We used to do that when the BoE had full responsibility for supervising banks, until about 2000, and in those days I don't remember people railing against all banks.

Would the powers of the BoE have spotted the rise in the use of dodgy financial instruments? CDS didn't exist before the late 90s, so I doubt there would have been any tools to measure the growth in them. The tools we had were sufficient in measuring the old definitions of money and the expansion of such, but pretty useless with these new get rich quick devices. The liquidity ratios they may have been able to do something about and the likelihood of banks becoming casinos. However given all the power they wield I'm sure any Government (especially a less socialist one) would have been persuaded boom (and tax receipts) would last forever. No I don't buy the "it wouldn't have happened" argument.

Banks were the problem, then to a lesser degree Governments for being duped. That's not to say all Bankers are immoral shysters, some deserve their remuneration.

[Paddy]

Would the powers of the BoE have spotted the rise in the use of dodgy financial instruments? CDS didn't exist before the late 90s, so I doubt there would have been any tools to measure the growth in them. The tools we had were sufficient in measuring the old definitions of money and the expansion of such, but pretty useless with these new get rich quick devices. The liquidity ratios they may have been able to do something about and the likelihood of banks becoming casinos. However given all the power they wield I'm sure any Government (especially a less socialist one) would have been persuaded boom (and tax receipts) would last forever. No I don't buy the "it wouldn't have happened" argument.

Banks were the problem, then to a lesser degree Governments for being duped. That's not to say all Bankers are immoral shysters, some deserve their remuneration.

WHS

When you find out how our banking system really works, you should be furious! First of all, banks operate on a system called the “fractional reserve system.” What that means is the banks only have to have 10% in assets of the money they lend out. So, if they lend you $100,000 to buy a house, all they are required to have in assets is $10,000. By the way, they cannot lend out any of their $10,000 in assets. But here’s the swindle. that $100,000 they lended to you goes on their books as an asset! That means they record your promise to pay as an asset and now they can loan out ten times that much or $1,100,000. Then the process starts again…once they loan out $1,100,000 that is recorded as an asset, now they can loan out $11,000,000…and on and on and on.

So, you might be wondering where all that money is coming from if they are only required to have 10% in assets. The answer is..IT COMES FROM THIN AIR! Literally! Banks print money from nothing. The original $100,000 lended to you by your bank is nothing but numbers on a computer screen which you are expected to pay back from your hard work with interest

TheConspiracyZone : THE FEDERAL RESERVE SWINDLE: WHAT IN THE WORLD IS WRONG WITH OUR MONEY?