Will they NEVER learn ? ( The fat-cat bankers ).

[Papaumau]

Banking firms have put two-fingers up at Chancellor Alistair Darling's bid to curb fat-cat bonuses !

Most US investment banks with UK branches plan to load the costs of his 50-percent windfall tax onto shareholders while continuing to pay out billions of pounds to senior staff. The treasury could now rake in an astonishing £5billion  - far more than the original first estimate by Darling.

UK and European banks have admitted in an anonymous poll that the stance on the tax will be driven by what  US firms do.

_________________________________________________ ______________

It appears that the US banks have learned nothing from the past two or three years and that they will just continue on their merry way making all of the same mistakes that they already made.

Even chimpanzees learn from their mistakes, but it would seem, not the dyed-in-the-wool bankers. 

[John]

Its called creaming off.

Brown and his puppet Darling never got a grip on this
when they committed billions of pounds propping
up Banks.

[Papaumau]

The true and full story here:

Brown and Darling - after the fact - did what every other sane country did in order to protect the regular savers and customers of the banks. There were no monetary protections put in place for shareholders.

If we had taken the same "do-nothing" stance of the Tories - in opposition - many of our banking institutions would have gone under and many billions of pounds of ordinary savers money would have been lost with great damage being done to the whole British banking sector. ( As did happen in Iceland ).

This situation was NOT of the making of Brown or Darling, it was of the making of the reckless and greedy bankers in America that took too many risks and who indulged in the sub-prime mortgages scandal that shook the banking sectors in every country right across the world.

The banking regulations that should have or could have put a stop to this before it happened were previously destroyed by Ronald Reagan and Maggie Thatcher long before this crash occurred.

Blair, Brown and Darling could have arbitrarily and unilaterally in Britain tightened up these weakened safeguards in the banking sectors if they had had the courage but they did not have the courage to go against the polices of the powerful money-men in America.

The rest is history !   

[John]

Have you ever thought of getting a job in the Labour Spin Department?

It does not make sense, contains facts spun round wrong propositions.

So Brown and Darling are so weak and clueless that they have to
follow on?

They gave independence to a Nationalised Bank, the Bank of England.
This signalled a less regulated market. British Banks became involved with
rolling out debt on the markets. The US picked many of these up,
for easy profit. But their own sub-prime lending that had led to large
commissions and bonuses, failed. Our rolled out debts were then found to
be as toxic as sub-prime.

But not before creaming off had taken place and Bankers left with loaded
pockets and pensions. Singing Good Old Gordon, Eyes Shut Gordon...

[Papaumau]

Don't kid yourself on that Britain is still a world power or that it still has a massive empire...it hasn't ! All of this previous clout has gone and Britain is now in the hands of the megalith countries around the world.

Yes we may have a very active money market in the London square mile but that is not controlled by us it is controlled by the big-money men across the world who are mainly in America.

It is for this reason that I say that Britain should join with a greater Europe ASAP so that we can be an active and integral part of this juggernaught and not just left out in the Atlantic ocean on our own waiting to be picked off by the other massive trading blocs.

The international fat-cat bankers, ( to come back to the threadstart ), are a power unto themselves and that is why we can do little to stop them indulging themselves.

If you had listened to Stephen Hester, ( the publicly owned CEO of the RBS group ), as he was quizzed by the Treasury Select Committee yesterday, you would have seen all of this arrogance pouring out of him as he more or less dictated that he was getting ready to pay the top-cats at the bank anything up to £1.5billion in bonuses out of OUR money. 

[John]

Don't kid yourself on that Britain is still a world power or that it still has a massive empire...it hasn't ! All of this previous clout has gone and Britain is now in the hands of the megalith countries around the world.

:::Could not agree more

Yes we may have a very active money market in the London square mile but that is not controlled by us it is controlled by the big-money men across the world who are mainly in America.

:::Could not agree more. There have been attempts to more this market, but London is held to be too central and well known. No other reason.

It is for this reason that I say that britain should join with a greater Europe ASAP so that we can be an active and integral part of this juggernaught and not just left out in the Atlantic ocean on our own waiting to be picked off by the other massive trading blocs.

:::Being Anti Europe does us no favours, we are not independent so why not
make a real effort to make the best of it. We would be safer with the Euro,
a currency that has held its value throughout.

The international fat-cat bankers, ( to come back to the threadstart ), are a power unto themselves and that is why we can do little to stop them indulging themselves.

:::Weak government can only tax and not engage for the benefit of its own people.

If you had listened to Stephen Hester, ( the publicly owned CEO of the RBS group ), as he was quizzed by the Treasury Select Committee yesterday, you would have seen all of this arrogance pouring out of him as he more or less dictated that he was getting ready to pay the top-cats at the bank anything up to £1.5billion in bonuses out of OUR money. 

:::This was because this government while owning 84 percent (at least) did not take control of our investment. They demanded no changes when saving this bank. How stupid is that? Normal for this government, I realise that.

[Papaumau]

It seems that we are not so far apart when we get right down to the nitty-gritty.

The only comment I have to disagree with there is that the government "did not take control of the investment".

I believe that this or any other government are just not powerful enough as things stand to be able to dictate to the world-controlling forces that are the money-men in the banks and corporations.

Not until these forces are neutered by good national and international laws will they ever be forced to behave themselves.

[John]

The Banks or should I say Financial Institutions will never change.

Governments do not want to control the Banking System to the extent
that they can stop creaming them off. That cream comes from our
pockets - one way or another.

Stanford International Bank was an example of this.

Of course governments are powerful enough. They hold the
gold reserve (that Gordon also raided).

We need a new government as soon as possible with some
bottle and vision. That is all that is missing.

[yorkie]

The Wall street Bankers have admitted that they had made mistakes, and except some activities were improper, but they remain defiant over pay.

As you say they have not learned anything, from their mistakes.

I haven't heard much to do with apologies from our Bankers.
I think they are all standing back to wait and see how things will progress in America.

[John]

We must not be deflected by the situation of the Bankers.

Any bonus is only a very small percentage of the money
made by the Banks.

This will be a major reason why they expect and accept
them without a second thought.

We live in an unequal society borne out of an unequal world.

When you analyse that, it is quite understandable.

[Papaumau]

I don't think we are talking here just about the fat-cat bonuses that are being paid out against all of the wishes of the British, the European and the American peoples.

We are talking here about the unlimited power of the money men in Wall-Street and across the world who control why when and how the world's money is invested and spent. When we look at the fantastic power of this group of people it is easy to fall into the conspiracy theorist trap and start to think of  groups like the "Illuminati" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illuminati while actually this idea is much more basic than that as it sees the corporations and the globalists having more power than many medium-sized countries.

In the face of such power many small and medium-sized governments find themselves impotent against such naked influence and they often take the easy way out by simply not meeting them head-on.

President Obama seems to have recently tried to do this by putting Wall Street on notice that they are going to be made to pay back every penny that was put into these actions to save every one of them from collapse.

With a bit of courage and vision just like that I see no reason why our government could not do the same so that the money-men in the London square mile can see that we are NOT so impotent after all.

Be warned...Do not expect The Tories to EVER go against the big money men in this way as that is where most of their financial backing comes from

[John]

Not knocking the Tories are we?

I will mention - whoever takes power they would have to be
especially incompetent to bring a Country down, so much in
a decade, as Brown and his Clowns.

If people have a problem with the bonuses - they should look for
a bank that does not pay them.

Its that simple...

[yorkie]

Do you think the new Virgin Bank will.

[John]

There is always going to be some sort of bonus system and perks.

This used to be expenses and jobs for the family (on paper anyway) as far
as  Members of Parliament are concerned.

As you know Virgin Bank have bought an existing Bank - so
not really Virgin is it?

I would presume as the Industry standard is Bonus driven - they will.

I believe Nationwide do not give bonuses as an example.

It must never be forgotten - that somewhere along the line, they
get the bonus from you.

But as you know due to their greed, Gordon donated billions to keep
some going, so they can still stuff their pockets with bonuses...

[Papaumau]

If people have a problem with the bonuses - they should look for
a bank that does not pay them.

Its that simple...

What an ill-thought-out statement if I ever heard one !

There is NOT a bank that does not do this ! We do not have this choice !

Even Stephen Hester - the CEO of a bank wholly owned by the people - boasts that he plans to pay his top executives and himself millions in bonuses. If we cannot control him what chance do we have of controlling the others ?

Yorkie.....

As Branson just loves breaking the mould when he takes over traditional businesses I would not be a bit surprised if he went a different way if he gets seriously into banking.

I hope that he does and if he does I will be the first one to use his bank !