Sunday, Jan 27, 2008
Socialise losses whilst privatising profit...
Guardian: This reckless greed of the few harms the future of the many
The current financial markets' freedom embeds short-termism, guarantees lower investment, works against business building and innovation, generates booms and busts, inflates house prices, creates system-wide risk and excessively rewards those who work in them.
Posted by pendulum @ 01:08 PM (696 views) Add Comment
10 Comments
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1. who stole my pension? said...
"Socialise losses whilst privatising profit" just about sums it up.
The banks want us to bail them out, while at the same time they pay the CEO massive salaries or even bigger golden hand shakes while empolying the likes of Tony Blair.
The government and the banks should be punished hard; but instead it will be the young couple with the baby in arms that will been thrown out on to the street.
2. quiet guy said...
A positive step to take us out of this mess would be to change the banking rules for mortgages as follows: Any UK bank that lends money to somebody for a mortgage must keep that mortgage on their books - no more CDOs, SIVs or vapourware abstractions. If the bank makes a bad loan, then the bank takes the loss. I know this doesn't address all the points in Will Hutton's article but it would be a start. Stricter rules about deposits and income multipliers would be a good idea too.
3. stillthinking said...
The reason the government was in favour was because they hand their hands in the till as much as anybody from the tax take, allowing the irresponsible ballooning of the public sector.
4. Icarus said...
All true, but Will Hutton was arguing a few months ago that the UK's 'services' economy was a good thing.
5. who stole my pension? said...
quiet guy good point. Lets keep it simple.
6. mrmickey said...
In other words capitalism needs protecting from the capitalists.
7. it_is_going_with_a_bang said...
Problem being of course when it comes to huge sums of money rules seem to make themselves up.
If all the benefits of running a financial institution like faking the books and ripping off investors was to be removed from UK then you would very quickly see them heading somewhere else to do it.
Thats always been the 'threat' from those with money - Let us do what we want or we go elsewhere.
The very fact that this country has absolutely nothing IMHO to keep it going other than financial services is the reason why A. NR got bailed out and B. Why no 'real' changes will ever be forced through.
Where do Ex PM's go??? Financial Intstitutions.....
8. How High Is His Mortgage? said...
I don't agree with his comment advocating rate cuts. Maybe he has got a large mortgage and want inflation to wipe that out.
9. shipbuilder said...
How the lauded 'free market' really works, eh?
10. wiltshire said...
Attitudes seem to change with time. When the Tories were in power there seemed to be riots and demonstrations and strikes and peace camps all the time. I can't think of that many similar issues for the Liebour party these past 10 years, apart from the Countryside Alliance and the Anti Iraq War March. Well, let's hope the police march is the just the first of many. The time is coming for people to get out of the comfort of their conservatories, out from the glare of their plasma screen TVs and start demanding some democracy in this country. I can see it happening too.