Thursday, Aug 14, 2008
Better out than in, better late than never. Prem Sikka never said this
Guardian: We must break the prism of corporate interests
It is difficult to see how the corporate elites can offer us a fresh way of thinking about regulation, especially as they have a financial interest in the outcomes. At best, they may make marginal changes consistent with their financial interests. Their values are the source of crisis. They have shown little interest in openness, responsibility, accountability, honesty or ethical conduct. Daily headlines about off balance-sheet accounting, consumer rip-offs, tax avoidance and conflict of interests provide abundant evidence of the bankruptcy of their values and ideas. Huge amounts of wealth have been transferred from normal people to corporate elites and wheeler-dealers through the pensions mis-selling, mortgage endowment, split trusts, protection payment insurance and other scandals.
4 Comments
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1. whiteknight said...
Come off it. I hate them as much as the next man - but if it wasn't for greed and wanting to show the Joneses the latest BMW, kitchen holiday destination, Luis Vuitton bag etc. then they would have a harder time wouldn' they?
2. last_days_of_disco said...
We need to get rid of the "kay sera sera" attitude and go after people for ripping us off.
All we need to do is zealously enforce the laws we already have. This is just window dressing for the masses while the financial
institutions continue to break current laws we have today.
The FSA could be kicking rear all over the city. The Government could appoint and protect people (physically if required) who
would actually act and take people to court and win. The financial institutions in this country are beginning to look much more than
drug cartels than legitimate companies. Its one way of rebuilding public trust in the government. The government and the city
need to fall out big time. Really really.
We should go after these guys, show some courage. The risks are high but the risks of doing nothing are even worse.
We still actually have the ability to take these guys down, but if we don't act we will lose it. We need to ditch the hubris and
acknowledge the massive levels of corruption in the UK and start fixing it.
And the idea that the banks always threaten us with, "we will take our money somewhere else" has to be broken, we have to humble
these guys and make them realize they don't own us. They have been smoking their own stuff too long. This is still a democracy.
People aren't starving in large numbers yet, so this won't happen till then, ho hum.
3. last_days_of_disco said...
errata: "... look much more than drug cartels ..." should be "... look much more *like* drug cartels ..."
4. mark wadsworth said...
Come off it.
The Grauniad doesn't realise that regulations are the last refuge of the Corporatists, i.e. back room deals done between politicians and large businesses. It is relatively easy, e.g. for Sainsury's to comply with working hours and family leave directives than it is for a little shop on the high street. Same goes for US and EU farmers and massive subsidies and trade barriers, US and EU subsidies to Lockheed and Airbus, the EU Directive that says you have to buy a new child car seat every time it grows a few inches (sponsored by The European Child Car Seat Manufacturers' Association); the cosy relationship between The Graun (which derives the bulk of its income from adverts for crappy superfluous public sector non-jobs) and The Labour Party and so on ad infinitum.
Regulations are barriers to entry - they protect existing large businesses (OK, there is a cost to large businesses, but the cost to small or new businesses is much higher, so it entrenches the advantage of large businesses).
*sigh*