Banks Prank Stank - Barclays in Hot Water

[Rum]

Except it isn't is it? The Coop's shareholders are its members (only). They have an 'ethical investment' policy, rank highest of all UK banks for customer satisfaction and are very competitive in terms of interest rates etc. They are in effect a mutualised bank and people are flocking to it because they don't appear to be at the mercy of the money grabbing manipulation of clever and often, it turns out, dishonest traders.

[Hermit]

The Chair of Barclays has resigned today. Not Bob Diamond, mind you, who was in charge of the department that fiddled the interest rate.

'Justice' of a sort.

The lot of them stink.

I am with HSBC and have been for something like 25 years. I am seriously thinking of switching to the Coop. Anyone any experience of a non-shareholder bank?

Remember building societies? They were "friendly societies". And then they were - what was the term - "de-mutualised"? Because the same type of people as we've been talking about reckoned they could get more money out of them by converting them into banks. And the rest, of course, is history.

But obviously it's another aspect of capitalism that it always tends to reduce customer choice. So, it wouldn't do if we were able to choose amongst too many different types of financial institutions.

It'll be really interesting to hear if your experience with the Co-op is any better, Rum.

I had an account with a building society for years. The service was fantastic, especially so when I applied for mortgage finance. Eventually, the board recommended to demutualise it. A letter I received promised that the no-account-fees policy will be maintained and that customers will continue to receive the society's famed service-with-a-smile. All that was gone 18 months after a vast majority of shareholders voted to accept the accompanying offer of 30 pieces of silver. While I applied for another mortgage I casually asked what happened to those promises. The manager shrugged her shoulders and said: "Well we didn't figure on the influence the new and rapaciously greedy shareholders had on replacing the members of the old board of directors with people of their own ilk." The lack of smiles, by the way, was because nobody had the time for them after the staff cuts.

Pretty much the same happened with our biggest road association, The NRMA, demutualised insurance organisations and other such outfits. Long and short term greed won every single time, usually getting 75 to 80% of the vote. I dread the moment when our best community-based bank, The Bendigo Bank, becomes a target for demutualisation.

[Rum]

Profit is King it seems these days. It makes its subjects a pretty miserable lot it turns out.

[John_fi_Skye]

The Chair of Barclays has resigned today. Not Bob Diamond, mind you, who was in charge of the department that fiddled the interest rate.

'Justice' of a sort.

The lot of them stink.

I am with HSBC and have been for something like 25 years. I am seriously thinking of switching to the Coop. Anyone any experience of a non-shareholder bank?

Remember building societies? They were "friendly societies". And then they were - what was the term - "de-mutualised"? Because the same type of people as we've been talking about reckoned they could get more money out of them by converting them into banks. And the rest, of course, is history.

But obviously it's another aspect of capitalism that it always tends to reduce customer choice. So, it wouldn't do if we were able to choose amongst too many different types of financial institutions.

It'll be really interesting to hear if your experience with the Co-op is any better, Rum.

Well no John, that's inaccurate. Most of them converted to banks because it was the will of the members of such mutual societies to get an extra grand or so on their pocket by allowing them to float on the market. This was a decision not made only once or twice but by nearly all the remaining building societies which did not have shareholders or finance necromancers draining the lifeblood from it's poor customers. "The same time of people" as you vilify were those who kept them going for years who gave it up for short term gain, don't blame the financiers for the short sightedness and greed of oh wait... every-fucking-body.

Only a moron turns down free money.


I

....or somebody who sees what's coming....

[Audley Strange]

Except it isn't is it? The Coop's shareholders are its members (only). They have an 'ethical investment' policy, rank highest of all UK banks for customer satisfaction and are very competitive in terms of interest rates etc. They are in effect a mutualised bank and people are flocking to it because they don't appear to be at the mercy of the money grabbing manipulation of clever and often, it turns out, dishonest traders.

Well yes that is certainly true about the Co-op yes. I will grant you that, I'm sure there was one or two other hold outs, Dunfermline springs to mind but predominantly, as Hermit pointed out, it was the members that sold out.

I'm here calling out these cunts that ruined the economy as financial terrorists. I genuinely think that they are Plutocrats, I am under no illusion about how corrupt greedy and dangerous they can be.

However I resent the "honest but poor" snobbery and the "salt of the earth" mentality of a society that from the lowest to the highest sold its legacy off for some shiny baubles.

You cannot buy what is not for sale. We sold it all off, we were not tricked or conned we did this knowingly and willingly we voted for parties time and time again who did this. We encouraged them and the privateers for an extra pittance in our pockets. Turned out that would be all we would get.

Everyone is complicit and this line of blaming bankers as a group is one step away from blaming "greedy jews" from ruining our economy.

[Clinton Huxley]

£20,000 each. That's what every Brit has given to the banks. Money which they have used to.......piss up the wall the same as always.


Still, the economy can't do without these people.....

[Svartalf]

These are the brightest and the best of the British economy, they deserve everything they get.....

Maybe they should get a close down meeting with a bunch of chavs and such thugs and hoodlums?

[Clinton Huxley]

Diamond Bob has resigned from Barclays.

[Svartalf]

They just fined the bank? Any senior executive found responsible - or even just culpable - should be fired, end of story.

Like that's going to happen.

They only bent the rules because they aren't paid enough. Give 'em a larger bonus and they will behave.

how about giving them a paid for, all included vacation in a special residence?

[Svartalf]

I made this point in an earlier thread.

Do you think this would have happened, if bonuses were outlawed in the financial sector?
Or would there be bad loans, if there were no bonuses?

If your JOB was what you valued, rather than your bonus, you wouldn't put short-term gain over long-term security. You wouldn't risk your job, if there was no chance of a fat bonus making the risk worthwhile.

And I don't believe all that crap about the talented people going elsewhere. Look where the "talented people" have got us. I would rather they fuck off, and promote some more staid ones in their place.

Not sure you're right about bonuses being the root of all evil... If those were forbidden, they'd still find ways to give inducements to overly "productive" employees, and/or the shareholders would still push for unsound practices to boost profit and share price.

I'm still creeped out to all hell that I generally agree with you.

[Svartalf]

U.S. and British officials are considering criminal charges against individuals and British investigators are probing other major banks including Citigroup in the United States, Switzerland's UBS, Britain's HSBC and Royal Bank of Scotland.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/b ... ine29.html

They have to "consider" very carefully criminal charges, just to make sure that none of the "dudes" can throw any of the "regulators" under the bus in the process. I'd bet dollars to donuts that there is government payola involved here. That's what usually gets these thingies resolved with a fine and not much else.

Straight government graft or party contributions?

[Svartalf]

Punitive fines hurt the innocent share holders, jail terms hurt the guilty party.

"Innocent" share holders? If you buy shares in a company, that ought to be seen as buying some responsibility for that company.

Most people "own" stock through various pension and retirement funds.

a) At any rate, the fund operators need to be thrown into gen pop with a large "kid fiddler" sign on their back
b) if you give your money to crooks, you get hurt, that's always been the case, just ask the people who invested with bernie madoff.

I have an interesting solution to this problem.

"Hello, bankers ... next time you screw up the economy whilst protecting your own arses with fat bonuses salted away in offshore tax havens, you'll be introduced to my pet Cochliomyia hominivorax ..."

Yeah, you telle'm what Hitler did to the greedy bankers

He let them prosper so long as they invested in the armament industries, building, and chemicals?

[John_fi_Skye]

Except it isn't is it? The Coop's shareholders are its members (only). They have an 'ethical investment' policy, rank highest of all UK banks for customer satisfaction and are very competitive in terms of interest rates etc. They are in effect a mutualised bank and people are flocking to it because they don't appear to be at the mercy of the money grabbing manipulation of clever and often, it turns out, dishonest traders.

Well yes that is certainly true about the Co-op yes. I will grant you that, I'm sure there was one or two other hold outs, Dunfermline springs to mind but predominantly, as Hermit pointed out, it was the members that sold out.

I'm here calling out these cunts that ruined the economy as financial terrorists. I genuinely think that they are Plutocrats, I am under no illusion about how corrupt greedy and dangerous they can be.

However I resent the "honest but poor" snobbery and the "salt of the earth" mentality of a society that from the lowest to the highest sold its legacy off for some shiny baubles.

You cannot buy what is not for sale. We sold it all off, we were not tricked or conned we did this knowingly and willingly we voted for parties time and time again who did this. We encouraged them and the privateers for an extra pittance in our pockets. Turned out that would be all we would get.

Everyone is complicit and this line of blaming bankers as a group is one step away from blaming "greedy jews" from ruining our economy.

(Good post. Sadly.)

[Rum]

Except it isn't is it? The Coop's shareholders are its members (only). They have an 'ethical investment' policy, rank highest of all UK banks for customer satisfaction and are very competitive in terms of interest rates etc. They are in effect a mutualised bank and people are flocking to it because they don't appear to be at the mercy of the money grabbing manipulation of clever and often, it turns out, dishonest traders.

Well yes that is certainly true about the Co-op yes. I will grant you that, I'm sure there was one or two other hold outs, Dunfermline springs to mind but predominantly, as Hermit pointed out, it was the members that sold out.

I'm here calling out these cunts that ruined the economy as financial terrorists. I genuinely think that they are Plutocrats, I am under no illusion about how corrupt greedy and dangerous they can be.

However I resent the "honest but poor" snobbery and the "salt of the earth" mentality of a society that from the lowest to the highest sold its legacy off for some shiny baubles.

You cannot buy what is not for sale. We sold it all off, we were not tricked or conned we did this knowingly and willingly we voted for parties time and time again who did this. We encouraged them and the privateers for an extra pittance in our pockets. Turned out that would be all we would get.

Everyone is complicit and this line of blaming bankers as a group is one step away from blaming "greedy jews" from ruining our economy.

I'm not.

[Svartalf]

I am an accomplice to what? I don't have savings or bank products or anything much for the crooks to play with... and the way things are going, I might want to go for gold if I had cash reserves.
At any rate, the only reason I have a bank account is because I need one to get my pension (and my salary before then) and pay the bills.