Shooting's too good for them...
Friday, February 6th, 2009 12:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
caddymanLet me see if I’ve got this right.
The global economy is supposed to be coughing up blood; all the major economies are in or facing recession at best and though we are supposed to play three wise monkeys on the issue, the UK economy in particular may or may not be dropping out of recession into full-blown depression.
The situation is such that unemployment lines are growing, incomes are falling, production is through the floor and businesses are going bust.
My limited understanding of the situation leaves me at something of a loss to see quite how we got where we are, other than it seems to have started because a bunch of negligent bankers – maybe even criminally negligent bankers – in the United States loaned staggering amounts of money to people and institutions that had no hope in hell of ever paying them off, or at least could only sustain repayments as long as the economy was growing.
Isn’t this a glorified pyramid scheme? Aren’t they illegal?
Anyway, having indulged in a little sub-prime lending in the land of euphemism, these liabilities seem to have been sold on to other banks worlds wide who in turn have felt the credit squeeze when it became apparent that no one was going to honour these loans. And then everyone starts calling in debts no-one can pay and the whole house of cards collapses. And none of this even touches the probability of any frauds that may have contributed to the downfall of the banking sector.
I seem to recall that the banks – along with any other number of industries – have been able to creak along in one fashion or another on the back of impossibly and incomprehensively huge infusions of public money. Or rather, governments have borrowed against future tax income to bail these people out.
We don’t even know if these back-breaking bail outs will even work: it’s far too early to say.
So when I read in the Times a headline: Stampede by banks to beat bonus crackdown and that Lloyds and Barclays (following the example of the Royal Bank of Scotland, who I recall were early beneficiaries of the handouts from the public purse) are going to push out millions of pounds in bonuses to traders and senior bankers before threatened crackdowns come into force, well…
Outrage over so-called fat cats has largely passed me by in the past, but for a bank – Lloyds – that has received £17 billion in rescue money because of its culpability in the global scam that lends money to beggars , to even think of paying out bonuses of hundreds of millions of pounds for performances that should have them sacked at best and brought up before the beak at worst.
I have never seen myself as a socialist; if someone works hard and well, I see no reason why they shouldn’t earn whatever they can get for it, but that’s the key. Bonuses and awards should not be automatic; they should be clearly and closely linked to performance.
There are two things wrong: banks are gratuitously rewarding themselves for failure and they’re doing it with our money, not their own.
Come the revolution…
The global economy is supposed to be coughing up blood; all the major economies are in or facing recession at best and though we are supposed to play three wise monkeys on the issue, the UK economy in particular may or may not be dropping out of recession into full-blown depression.
The situation is such that unemployment lines are growing, incomes are falling, production is through the floor and businesses are going bust.
My limited understanding of the situation leaves me at something of a loss to see quite how we got where we are, other than it seems to have started because a bunch of negligent bankers – maybe even criminally negligent bankers – in the United States loaned staggering amounts of money to people and institutions that had no hope in hell of ever paying them off, or at least could only sustain repayments as long as the economy was growing.
Isn’t this a glorified pyramid scheme? Aren’t they illegal?
Anyway, having indulged in a little sub-prime lending in the land of euphemism, these liabilities seem to have been sold on to other banks worlds wide who in turn have felt the credit squeeze when it became apparent that no one was going to honour these loans. And then everyone starts calling in debts no-one can pay and the whole house of cards collapses. And none of this even touches the probability of any frauds that may have contributed to the downfall of the banking sector.
I seem to recall that the banks – along with any other number of industries – have been able to creak along in one fashion or another on the back of impossibly and incomprehensively huge infusions of public money. Or rather, governments have borrowed against future tax income to bail these people out.
We don’t even know if these back-breaking bail outs will even work: it’s far too early to say.
So when I read in the Times a headline: Stampede by banks to beat bonus crackdown and that Lloyds and Barclays (following the example of the Royal Bank of Scotland, who I recall were early beneficiaries of the handouts from the public purse) are going to push out millions of pounds in bonuses to traders and senior bankers before threatened crackdowns come into force, well…
Outrage over so-called fat cats has largely passed me by in the past, but for a bank – Lloyds – that has received £17 billion in rescue money because of its culpability in the global scam that lends money to beggars , to even think of paying out bonuses of hundreds of millions of pounds for performances that should have them sacked at best and brought up before the beak at worst.
I have never seen myself as a socialist; if someone works hard and well, I see no reason why they shouldn’t earn whatever they can get for it, but that’s the key. Bonuses and awards should not be automatic; they should be clearly and closely linked to performance.
There are two things wrong: banks are gratuitously rewarding themselves for failure and they’re doing it with our money, not their own.
Come the revolution…
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(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-06 01:29 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-06 01:34 pm (UTC)I suspect their's will be linked to profit rather than turnover.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-06 01:32 pm (UTC)I'll join with you brother and we can storm the gates, over throw the oppessors, line all the bankers up against a wall and kneecap the lot of them, they don't need to walk straight to work behind a desk.
Seriously, the whole thing is a disgrace, I thought it was bad enough when all the top players at Rover watched the company go to the wall, despite large amounts of public money, and they didn't really care because they'd set them selves straight with huge pension for when the the enevitable came.
This whole banking fiasco is even worse, not helped in this country by the fact that our economy had become dependant on service industries rather than actually producing anything.
Oh Mageret Thatcher thouart mighty yet.
Thy spirit walks abroud and turns our swords in our own proper entrails.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-06 01:41 pm (UTC)My friends list is full of people in fear of losing their jobs. Some are on a wage freeze, some are even facing wage cuts. If the banks can afford bonuses out of their own profits, all well and good; but I see no reason at all why I should be paying them.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-06 01:47 pm (UTC)I don't say I agree with it, mind, just that I think that's the way it works.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-06 02:26 pm (UTC)..The proletariat will end up paying all over again.
"You know the score, pal. You're not cop, you're little people!…"
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-06 03:12 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-06 04:34 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-06 02:45 pm (UTC)you're right, shooting is too good for them. they want drawing and quartering.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-06 02:55 pm (UTC)That smarts...
Date: 2009-02-06 03:06 pm (UTC)They tried to dissuade the Vikings from passing their way on the river to Byzantium. The Vikings were so impressed they demonstrated the blood eagle to the Pechenegs.
I don't know who won or whether it was an honourable draw...
Re: That smarts...
Date: 2009-02-06 05:14 pm (UTC)the Pechenegs also used to make drinking cups out of their enemies' skulls.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-06 03:06 pm (UTC)shame on me.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-06 03:13 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-06 03:16 pm (UTC)i shall be very polite when i go there.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-06 03:03 pm (UTC)It was all just a pyramid scheme and it was all driven by greed. Whether or not it was actively encouraged by the man who held our economy in the palm of his hand for so many years is another question entirely.
That vast amount of public money had to be pumped into the banks... that may well have been the case but it seems that it has occured with few strings attached, hence the fact that this debate is being held now.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-06 03:25 pm (UTC)1) Fine save the
cheerleader save the worldbanks save the economy.2) But when they
WBankers award themselves huge bonuses simply because it's in their contract the Government should quickly draw up a Statutory Instrument to the effect of Up your's matey we own your arse now....3) Since Gordo has less spine that an jellyfish in need of a back brace he leaves it to the media to flag up the issue and the
WBankers concerned to stick to their guns and cite employment law, and threaten legal action, rather than do the honourable thing and rennounce their contractual entitlements.I for one am up for any and all options outlined above involving swords entrails and knee capping ......
Not sure where Eagles come into to it....but I've never seen a Golden Eagle in the wild before so if there's one to be had I'd like to add it to my 'life list'.....
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-06 03:53 pm (UTC)Best bring a disposable action figure...
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-06 04:09 pm (UTC)I know what a Bald Headed Eagle is.
I know who Sam the Eagle is.
I don't know what a Blood Eagle is though.....
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-06 03:26 pm (UTC)JmC
I have this upsetting image of a banker in hysterical laughter reading this
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-06 03:31 pm (UTC)I feel 18 again ...
Date: 2009-02-06 05:21 pm (UTC)It worked too: no one can (or will) account for the first half of last year's rescue package -- $350 bn has simply lodged itself in Grand Cayman.
Also when, for example, a new potentially unfriendly regime takes over, the financial grandees promote a run on the exchanges to demonstrate that they're the baddest motherfuckers in the room.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-06 11:37 pm (UTC)