Cake - The banker, the tabloid reader & an immigrant

This is so, so true. There are a number of versions of this anecdote and this is one of best I have seen.

Hat tip Cleveland Watkiss via Facebook "The System In A Nut-shell.#2014".

"Why don't defrauding bankers go to jail?

This is "a great rant" on Channel 4 news of BBC Economics editor, Paul Mason, following the report yesterday of yet another Banking Fraud. 5 major banks allowed their traders to fiddle foreign exchange rates to defraud their clients and increase their bonuses. Paul is clearly very angry that we have fraud after fraud after fraud in the City and nothing ever gets done about it. He calls for full and effective regulation of the sector and banks should stop whingeing about being held to account.

I totally agree but think that share owners also must share the blame for failing to act as owners and take responsibility for the companies they own. We in theory appoint the executives at annual AGMs to run these companies on our behalf and it is clear that we can be pretty rubbish at it. We often seem to appoint "numpties" to do this who are at best incompetent or perhaps equally dishonest.

Hat tip to Sunny Hundal on Facebook for clip and a great title.

In my world I see people being jailed for defrauding the state of relatively small amounts of money for claiming benefits and not declaring a partner or a part time job. Yet none of the the bankers who have defrauded the state of billions of pounds have seen any porridge? This is unfair.

UNISON Housing Association Branch Secretary Report 2014 "A tale of two Cities"

This is a tale of two Cities. On the right there is a picture of London investment bankers jeering and taunting "Save our NHS" protesters with bank notes who were in the street below. 

While left is a picture from the crime scene in Lambeth last year when 3 Housing Association workers and a Court official were shot at and 2 seriously wounded while carrying out their duties. 

This was my contribution to our branch annual report as Branch Secretary. 

"UNISON branch Housing management and Social Care members live and work in one city called London. 

Their London is now feeling the full blast of austerity.  They have to deal with the real life consequences of the bedroom tax, benefit caps, massive rents increases and coalition cuts.  At the same time suffering yet another year of either pay reductions or below average pay awards (or in some cases – both).

In their London overcrowding and homelessness grows. We see more and more dependent on food banks for basic survival.

Our London Housing workers have seen attacks on their employment conditions and safety. They  have to pay huge tribunal fees if they are bullied or treated unfairly at work.  TUPE protection is under further attack. 

Yet there is another City also called London. This is a London of the rich and the powerful. Of millionaires who now pay less tax than those who clean their offices. Of financiers who by their recklessness and fraud brought about this recession.   We have executives in our own sector whose mates decide how much they earn and who can earn more in a year than our London low paid members earn in a life time. Who have lucrative bonuses, 12 month severance packages and luxury status cars.

The first step to challenge this tale of two cities is via your union. UNISON is already by far the largest union in our sectors but we must grow. We must organise new stewards and recruit more members. We must get more recognition agreements and facility time. We must train stewards and activists, hold regular shop meetings, communicate and listen to our members and work with residents. We need to re-balance power in the workplace in order to get a better deal.

The next step is political. There will be elections in London and Europe next year. The year after that there will be a General election. For the first time in a generation housing, in nearly all its forms seems to be near the top of the political agenda. People are worried about the cost of living but also  what will happen to their elderly relatives as well as their sons and daughters who cannot afford to leave home. While scandals in schemes run by poorly paid and trained staff such as Winterbourne are I think also beginning to change attitudes.

2014 will see more yet misery for our residents, clients and our members but it can also be the beginning of the end of Two Cities called London".

Never forget: The Banks Caused this Recession...Counter "the vast lie"

"There's a few things Labour should be doing in my view. They have to get a coherent line on the economy,"
Mullin told the BBC's World at One. "Firstly they've got to counter – and my goodness they should have been doing this for a long time – the vast lie which has been allowed to become embedded in the public consciousness that our economic problems were primarily caused by the last government.

"To paraphrase Bill Clinton: it was the bankers, stupid. The only thing Labour needs to apologise for is not regulating the banks sufficiently, and the Tories are not entitled to take advantage of that because throughout they were in favour of less regulation, not more."

Reality Check

So true
 
"A banker, a public sector worker, and a private sector worker are sitting round a table. 

On the table is a selection of 10 biscuits. 

The banker takes nine biscuits for himself, then turns to the private sector worker and says to him, "watch out mate, I think that public sector worker is after your biscuit".

hat tip Teamsters. 

Mad Bankers' Disease: BMA search for Vaccine

                     

 As seen in Norwich City centre last week. I couldn't possibly comment.

Greedy Bankers

"A public sector employee in a union, a banker and a member of the "squeezed middle classes" are sitting at a table.

In the middle of the table there is a plate with a dozen biscuits on it.

The banker takes 11 of them, turns around to the middle-income man and says "Look out for that  union guy.  He's after a piece of your biscuit".

Nuff said?

Today's Evening Standard Business section p 41(amazingly)

Picture

Sack the RBS Board!

I've just struck a blow for shareholding democracy by joining the Facebook group "RSB Directors Resign NOW".

Those (w)bankers on the Board of the bankrupt bank RBS which we as tax payers own say they will resign en mass if the Govt stops them paying out £1.5BN to their greedy banker chums.

We say as shareholders what are you waiting for?
GO NOW!!

Which I thought all sounded a little "sell out reformist" so I'm thinking of forming a group called "Sack the RBS Board". Which will no doubt make all the bastions of capitalism tremble.

Seriously I think that the government should hold firm and not submit to crude blackmail by the RBS Board and if necessary accept their resignation and replace them with people who realise that times have changed and things have moved on.

After all, we are the 84% masters now...

Iceland’s urinal revenge on their missing Bankers

The webs we weave - hat tip thingy to Tom P (no pun intended) who linked to Nudges who credited a Peter Warnock (no hyperlink?).

Pictures of Bankers who “allegedly” fled the Country following the financial crisis are now being placed on the inside of urinals in Icelandic Bars.

Now, following my post yesterday on the “Evil that Banks Do” I hope that people don’t think I am at all anti Bankers!

In fact I have had the privilege of working for two different Banks in my time. The first was admittedly pretty awful and frankly dishonest which ripped off its customers. They sold them completely unsuitable and inappropriate financial products for the high commissions.

While the other Bank was at least while I was there being very professionally and ethically run (It was called at the time I recall the “BCCI in administration”).

Myners blasts “fat cats” Masters of the Universe

Tom P at Labour & Capital links here to a superb interview in the Times with government minister Lord (Paul) Myners.

“I've met more masters of the Universe than I would like to, people who were grossly over-rewarded and didn't recognise that. Some of that is pretty unpalatable. They are people who have no sense of the broader society around them . . . I think there is quite a lot of annoyance and much of that is justified. Let us be quite clear: there has been mismanagement of our banks.”

Of course, Tom also makes the valid point that workers pension funds didn’t challenge these rumination packages. The vast majority of trustees would have not been even aware that their fund managers were actively supporting this "mismanagement". This has got to change in the future.