http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/news ... nkers.html
It's refreshing to see a politician putting the needs of the country ahead of short-term political gain.
Bankers might be unpopular at the moment, but they contribute massively to the exchequer. IMHO, it would make no sense to risk scaring off the goose that lays the golden eggs...
Jeff
David Cameron: no 'revenge' on bankers
Jeff
Bankers are unpopular because their greed contributed massively to the huge downturn in the economy. The tax payer bailed the banks out,they changed the way they do business and as a consequence the man in the street is being squeezed.
People are losing their jobs, their homes and their families. If you are lucky enough to have kept your job there is a good chance you have had to take a pay cut or reduced hours. If you have a small business you can't get finance to help you expand or get through the tough times.
Meantime it's business as usual in The City. Cameron is the same as every other politician. It's about enforcing their will and holding on to power. The way Cameron is pussyfooting around these W****** is shameful.
Our reliance on the financial services industry is the reason this Country is in such a mess. If we didn't rely on their tax revenue we wouldn't be pandering to them.
In this Country we used to make things. Cars, motorcycles, tooling, machines, ships. In my City (Coventry) we had Peugeot x 2, Jaguar (x 3 factories) Austin, Triumph, Alvis, Triumph MC's, Massey Ferguson,
All of these factories had 4 or 5 thousand good jobs that spanned generations. In 1961 there were 81,000 people employed in the city involved in the Motor industry and supply chain. They are all gone now, the factories are now shopping centres and housing estates. The good jobs that a man could raise a family on are now supermarket jobs that pay barely above the minium wage.
We have cheaper products at what cost? No jobs, rely on the scumbags that hold the cash (bankers), our society in decline and with no hope for our kids.
Hooray for the bankers and pathetic Governments that have ground our once great nation into the ground. If the City of London is what our country is relying on to provide prosperity for the next 25 years then we are deep in the shit my friends.
Rant over. Sorry if I have offended anyone, but I feel strongly about this.
Bankers are unpopular because their greed contributed massively to the huge downturn in the economy. The tax payer bailed the banks out,they changed the way they do business and as a consequence the man in the street is being squeezed.
People are losing their jobs, their homes and their families. If you are lucky enough to have kept your job there is a good chance you have had to take a pay cut or reduced hours. If you have a small business you can't get finance to help you expand or get through the tough times.
Meantime it's business as usual in The City. Cameron is the same as every other politician. It's about enforcing their will and holding on to power. The way Cameron is pussyfooting around these W****** is shameful.
Our reliance on the financial services industry is the reason this Country is in such a mess. If we didn't rely on their tax revenue we wouldn't be pandering to them.
In this Country we used to make things. Cars, motorcycles, tooling, machines, ships. In my City (Coventry) we had Peugeot x 2, Jaguar (x 3 factories) Austin, Triumph, Alvis, Triumph MC's, Massey Ferguson,
All of these factories had 4 or 5 thousand good jobs that spanned generations. In 1961 there were 81,000 people employed in the city involved in the Motor industry and supply chain. They are all gone now, the factories are now shopping centres and housing estates. The good jobs that a man could raise a family on are now supermarket jobs that pay barely above the minium wage.
We have cheaper products at what cost? No jobs, rely on the scumbags that hold the cash (bankers), our society in decline and with no hope for our kids.
Hooray for the bankers and pathetic Governments that have ground our once great nation into the ground. If the City of London is what our country is relying on to provide prosperity for the next 25 years then we are deep in the shit my friends.
Rant over. Sorry if I have offended anyone, but I feel strongly about this.
Jeff, I think you need to be slightly less gullible than you seem to be by your comments here.
What were you expecting a tory prime minister to say about banking bonus to Daily Telegraph?
He would be crucified if he had say something different. What the country and indeed western world went through in recent years wasn't an economic crisis but banking crisis through sheer incompetence of the very same bankers that you're defending.
I believe it was Cameron who said 'we're in it together' and if that was true then how come ordinary people are made to bear the brunt of the cuts while bankers who profited from bets they made but left country to bear the risk remain unaffected.
I'm not sure whether its a good anyway to rely on one particular industry as a source of revenue. Given that banks' balance sheet is way bigger than the country's there's a serious systemic risk and that is borne by unproportionally by ordinary tax payers. We can't rule out Iceland type impact to Britain if we have to sustain another banking crisis.
I voted conservative and most probably will vote them again but I don't like the idea that the country can be held at ransom by clueless bankers.
What were you expecting a tory prime minister to say about banking bonus to Daily Telegraph?
He would be crucified if he had say something different. What the country and indeed western world went through in recent years wasn't an economic crisis but banking crisis through sheer incompetence of the very same bankers that you're defending.
I believe it was Cameron who said 'we're in it together' and if that was true then how come ordinary people are made to bear the brunt of the cuts while bankers who profited from bets they made but left country to bear the risk remain unaffected.
I'm not sure whether its a good anyway to rely on one particular industry as a source of revenue. Given that banks' balance sheet is way bigger than the country's there's a serious systemic risk and that is borne by unproportionally by ordinary tax payers. We can't rule out Iceland type impact to Britain if we have to sustain another banking crisis.
I voted conservative and most probably will vote them again but I don't like the idea that the country can be held at ransom by clueless bankers.
I did not notice anyone screaming about the cheap mortgages and the gains in the price of their house that came from the financial engineering of the banks.
And to blame bankers for the loss of the car making jobs in Coventry is nonsense.
Try the union practices of the time, and also realise that these jobs have simply gone elsewhere.
As will the jobs in financial services...and then who will pay for all those public servants...
And to blame bankers for the loss of the car making jobs in Coventry is nonsense.
Try the union practices of the time, and also realise that these jobs have simply gone elsewhere.
As will the jobs in financial services...and then who will pay for all those public servants...
Hi Stevemugsgame wrote: Bankers are unpopular because their greed contributed massively to the huge downturn in the economy.
Some bankers contributed to the current mess. But how many people in a large banking company are actually responsible for deciding to sell mortgages irresponsibly, or to buy and sell bad debt? I would say you're talking about a small number of senior managers and directors.
And what about the other people who got us into this mess? Surely some of the blame must go to:
- Gordon Brown, for running up a massive deficit, for doing nothing to kill off house price inflation, and for not ensuring that the banks were properly regulated
- The millions of people who look out mortgages at 5 times their salary in order to buy over-inflated houses.
- The ratings agencies who gave junk bonds a AAA rating
- The Bank of England, for not having raised interest rates years ago to stop rampant house price inflation and rising consumer debt
The financial services sector accounts for about 10% of the country's GDP. Unless we want to boost Switzerland's economy at the expense of our own, we need to make sure that London remains one of the world's key financial centres.mugsgame wrote: Meantime it's business as usual in The City. Cameron is the same as every other politician. It's about enforcing their will and holding on to power. The way Cameron is pussyfooting around these W****** is shameful.
True, but we do, so I'm not sure I see your point...mugsgame wrote:Our reliance on the financial services industry is the reason this Country is in such a mess. If we didn't rely on their tax revenue we wouldn't be pandering to them.
It's a shame that the British manufacturing industry is in decline.mugsgame wrote:In this Country we used to make things.
But when countries like India and China have hard-working and increasingly educated workforces who are willing to work on a fraction of British salaries, it's hard to compete.
All the more reason why we need banking to bolster the British economy.
A character in a novel (I can't remember its name) is asked rhetorically why he feels that, just because he was born an Englishman, the laws of nature are distended in his favour. For years, Britain has been living in a credit-fueled stupor. We thought we could afford to do things like launching wars against countries who were no threat to us, and to spend a billion pounds building the Millenium Dome. But we couldn't and we can't, and now that the reality is beginning to bite, people want a scape goat...
Jeff
Last edited by Iron on Sun Jan 16, 2011 5:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Given the current public anger towards bankers, it would have been very easy for him to have taken a tough line, or to have sidestepped difficult questions by giving non-answers.Photon wrote:
What were you expecting a tory prime minister to say about banking bonus to Daily Telegraph?
He would be crucified if he had say something different.
If there's another massive banking crisis, we're all in deep trouble, whether our banks remain in London or move to Zurich or Singapore.Photon wrote:We can't rule out Iceland type impact to Britain if we have to sustain another banking crisis.
Jeff
I am not blaming the bankers for the decline of British manufacturing. That is down to successive Governments, starting with Thatcher. My point is we rely on banking because of that.payuppal wrote:I did not notice anyone screaming about the cheap mortgages and the gains in the price of their house that came from the financial engineering of the banks.
And to blame bankers for the loss of the car making jobs in Coventry is nonsense.
Try the union practices of the time, and also realise that these jobs have simply gone elsewhere.
As will the jobs in financial services...and then who will pay for all those public servants...
In my 22 years working in the car industry we withdrew our labour twice. We worked hard and made lots of concessions to ensure we had jobs and earned a decent living. I worked at Peugeot, we made the best quality product in the whole PSA (Peugeot / Citroen) group. We made massive efficiency savings and changed our shift patterns on many occasions to fit in with what the company wanted. Our production was comparable with every other PSA factory. ( I have spent time in PSA factories in France, Brazil, Chile and China, and worked in Germany on a new model project) The reason the factory was lost was political. The massive French factories remain intact, this was because it was impossible to close them due to the French Government laws on redundancy. Our government (Labour) did nothing. They stood by over the last 15 years and watched British manufacturing be dismantled.
What you need to remember is Britain led the way in high tech and high quality manufacturing. Our design and innovation leads the world. It is no coincidence that all of Japans major car makers have design studios in Britain. Most of the F1 teams are based here. Why?
Blaming the unions is a poor show. I suggest that the manufacturing unions have behaved very well considering what has happened. The public workers unions, the transport unions and the Post unions are much more militant. I grant you in the 70's that strikes were plentiful. But Thatchers union laws changed that. Strikes didn't close down industries, that is down to government policy. The Germans have stronger unions than we ever had. They don't work that much different to our workers. British workers are hard working in my experience. It's the same the world over, you do what you are told to by your boss.
I would rather pay more for my mortgage, my food, my clothes and my car. And have a job that I could earn enough money to support my family with. The value of my house is of no interest to me. I do not want to borrow money against it. (another reason why most Britain's are in so much debt and another problem created by the poor regulation of banks)
The reason that the Chinese and Indians labour is cheap is nothing to do with their hard working culture and everything to do with they will starve if they don't. The fact that we contribute to this makes my skin crawl. I buy as many European products as I can, even if it costs more, although I concede it is hard to avoid buying Chinese. As someone who has worked in China briefly I can tell you it is a shocking place. Both India and China are similar in as such you are either rich or starving, there is little in between. There are not many places on this planet where you can walk down a city street and see a child's rotting corpse on the pavement. That image sticks with me often.
Jeff you make some valid points.
So to sum up.....as you said the manufacturing jobs have gone elsewhere, the financial services will go too.
So we are left with a nation of supermarket and public service workers. This is unsustainable. Last one to leave please turn off the lights.
I suggest the only people who want to make a defence for bankers and banking practices are..........bankers.
I'm sure that, in terms of the number of cars produced and the quality of those cars, we're up there with the best.mugsgame wrote: Our production was comparable with every other PSA factory. ( I have spent time in PSA factories in France, Brazil, Chile and China, and worked in Germany on a new model project)
But if you were the CEO of Ford, and were thinking of opening a new factory somewhere in the world, I wonder whether the UK would even be on your shortlist. There are other parts of the world where you can get the same quality of output, but where the wages are far lower.
Britain is great at coming up with ideas. The World Wide Web and the TV, amongst many other things, were invented by Brits. But we don't seem so good at making commercial successes out of those ideas.mugsgame wrote:What you need to remember is Britain led the way in high tech and high quality manufacturing. Our design and innovation leads the world.
I'm sure Chinese and Indian workers would rather have a poorly paid job than none, so I don't have an issue with buying products produced over there. And as China and India become more prosperous, market forces will result in a rise in wages.mugsgame wrote:The reason that the Chinese and Indians labour is cheap is nothing to do with their hard working culture and everything to do with they will starve if they don't. The fact that we contribute to this makes my skin crawl.
Sadly, I think you're right. And I can only see the public sector shrinking further.mugsgame wrote:So to sum up.....as you said the manufacturing jobs have gone elsewhere, the financial services will go too.
So we are left with a nation of supermarket and public service workers. This is unsustainable.
And God only knows how areas like Blackpool will cope, when pretty much all they have going for them right now are public sector jobs!
When the financial crisis hit in 2008, I believed the situation was much worse than we were being told it was by politicians, and I still believe that.
I'm not a banker, but I'm not anti-banker either!mugsgame wrote:I suggest the only people who want to make a defence for bankers and banking practices are..........bankers.
The banks fulfill an essential function. Jeff
An interesting view from Standard Life's Head of Equities:
“Constant interference in corporate lending strategies and pay is unhelpful. Also the Government has to realise that UK banks have to remain globally competitive and thus are allowed to deliver adequate returns to stakeholders. If not, debt and equity funding will become more expensive, consequently reducing their capacity to lend, thus damaging their businesses and the long-term prospects for this country’s financial sector and the economy as a whole."
Hear hear!
From http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/news ... mming.html
Jeff
“Constant interference in corporate lending strategies and pay is unhelpful. Also the Government has to realise that UK banks have to remain globally competitive and thus are allowed to deliver adequate returns to stakeholders. If not, debt and equity funding will become more expensive, consequently reducing their capacity to lend, thus damaging their businesses and the long-term prospects for this country’s financial sector and the economy as a whole."
Hear hear!
From http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/news ... mming.html
Jeff