[MikeTV]

Originally Posted by karkus30

Well so far regulation has failed and decent Political leadership doesn't appear to be in the ascendency.

How true.

Originally Posted by karkus30

That optimism will result in status quo, the rich will continue to get richer and the poor will enjoy greater cuts in the services they once took for granted. Banking is a big money business, big money is power. The more powerful, the more money and the reverse of that is true. The greater the power the less need to worry about regulation. The only thing the banks need to do is to restore confidence in them and just like the church once did, they will watch their coffers over flowing.

The only way to stop that happening, to stop the public pay outs and disparity in earnings is to break that power. You can no more regulate lightning as regulate banks. Remove the cause and you don't have to contend with the lightning. Nothing will change, regulation will mean diddly squat to the banks except a permission to carry on as normal.

I don't think an unfettered free market solves it either - I think it caused it. What we have reached is the endgame in monopoly, and I don't think that free market principles offer any solutions (whether libertarian, or otherwise). I think the only real solution is intervention, to break up monopolies and restore genuine competition.

Originally Posted by karkus30

I'm suggesting that it doesn't need to be that way and I will keep on suggesting it as long as I have the ability to type words on a PC. If that annoys you thats just tough ****.

lol. Good for you. But you might receive criticism.

[karkus30]

Originally Posted by MikeTV

How true.
and I don't think that free market principles offer any solutions (whether libertarian, or otherwise). I think the only real solution is intervention, to break up monopolies and restore genuine competition.

How do you break up monopolies then ? Monopolies form because Governments allow and support them. We already have a monopolies commission and rules against monopolies forming, but successive Governments have allowed the cartelising of banks in a huge, big official way. It's not been an under the counter job. They have quite clearly stated how it will work and that it will be supported at all times by the use of tax payers money.

I think you just agreed with me. You just don't have an answer to how to stop monopolies and cartels forming, but we agree in principle that there must be competition in order to prevent monopolies existing. We don't have a free market, we have cartel banks supported by Governments. The Government 'regulates' instead of allowing free competition because it sees free competition as harmful to the stability of banking. Despite the fact that we can already see how successful regulation was. They created the current system because they felt that smaller banks were less stable. Read the history. What your suggesting is the complete antithesis of what banks and Government want.

I'm shocked I'm reading this. Your actually calling for a free market in which smaller banks compete. I was under the impression you supported the large cartel banking system under more stringent regulation. Now you come out with that bombshell. Are you just messing about ?

I'm not miss reading this am I ? " the only real solution is to break up the monopolies " I'm assuming you are including banks ?
"restore genuine competition" I can only assume you mean a free market, because that's the only place genuine competition can exist.

Can I add. A free market doesn't mean there is no regulation. Regulation and law remain firmly in place. The only difference I can see is that it's probably likely that initial regulation requirements will not be needed in that culture. It's a bit like taking away guns and giving back soft toys. You can still say you mustn't hit each other with soft toys, but actually soft toys don't make good weapons.

I don't care about criticism, I'm outspoken anyway. Radicals never get an easy ride, so you are wasting your typing finger. I remain in the hands of the moderator for the purpose of deciding the tone and subject of my posts, it's neither your or my responsibility.

[keydude]

Originally Posted by karkus30

Moral obligation? What are you on about.

With power comes responsibility.
Without regulations, bankers had the power to give themselves unjust bonuses, for unnecssary risks.

As bankers proven to have no moral, the power need to be stripped before repair takes place.

[karkus30]

Originally Posted by keydude

With power comes responsibility.
Without regulations, bankers had the power to give themselves unjust bonuses, for unnecssary risks.

As bankers proven to have no moral, the power need to be stripped before repair takes place.

I think you just quoted Spiderman.LOL if Spiderman is available then it's a different story :-)
With regulation the bankers had the power to give themselves bonuses.
It's a business not a church.
How do you strip that power then ? Tell them they can no longer have bonuses to take risks? It might be a surprise but business is all about risk taking. If the first man had not taking the risk of hunting an animal we would not be here. Risk is inherent in life and consequently so is reward.

[MikeTV]

Originally Posted by karkus30

How do you break up monopolies then ? Monopolies form because Governments allow and support them. We already have a monopolies commission and rules against monopolies forming, but successive Governments have allowed the cartelising of banks in a huge, big official way. It's not been an under the counter job. They have quite clearly stated how it will work and that it will be supported at all times by the use of tax payers money.

I think you just agreed with me. You just don't have an answer to how to stop monopolies and cartels forming, but we agree in principle that there must be competition in order to prevent monopolies existing. We don't have a free market, we have cartel banks supported by Governments. The Government 'regulates' instead of allowing free competition because it sees free competition as harmful to the stability of banking. Despite the fact that we can already see how successful regulation was. They created the current system because they felt that smaller banks were less stable. Read the history. What your suggesting is the complete antithesis of what banks and Government want.

I'm shocked I'm reading this. Your actually calling for a free market in which smaller banks compete. I was under the impression you supported the large cartel banking system under more stringent regulation. Now you come out with that bombshell. Are you just messing about ?

I'm not miss reading this am I ? " the only real solution is to break up the monopolies " I'm assuming you are including banks ?
"restore genuine competition" I can only assume you mean a free market, because that's the only place genuine competition can exist.

Can I add. A free market doesn't mean there is no regulation. Regulation and law remain firmly in place. The only difference I can see is that it's probably likely that initial regulation requirements will not be needed in that culture. It's a bit like taking away guns and giving back soft toys. You can still say you mustn't hit each other with soft toys, but actually soft toys don't make good weapons.

I don't care about criticism, I'm outspoken anyway. Radicals never get an easy ride, so you are wasting your typing finger. I remain in the hands of the moderator for the purpose of deciding the tone and subject of my posts, it's neither your or my responsibility.

Karkus, let's cut to the chase. You believe intervention reduces competition - which may be true. It depends on the form of intervention. But I believe we need intervention to create competition, in the context of the banking cartels. Deregulation meant no intervention. I believe that the free-market (ie. a market without government intervention) resulted in the banking cartels. I also believe that much of the current intervention is doing nothing to stop the banking cartels, but merely strengthens them, and will continue to do so until we introduce reforms like those being proposed by the Vickers review.

Put simply, there is good intervention and bad intervention. What we agree about is there needs to be more competition in the banking sector. Where we differ is in how to acheive that.

[keydude]

There is responsible lending and reckless lending, same goes as risks.

My take on bankers. It is a bit like letting kids to run a sweets shop with no one looking. You pay them sweets by the hour, you pay them bonus sweets by sales. Doesn't matter if sweets are sold on bad credit neither, nor there is a need to see if there is more sweets coming from the factory. If sweets ran out from factory, government will supply at a good rate as if the shortage never happened.

Until tighter regulations are functional, keeping refilling the sweets shop is not the solution. System need to be fixed first.

[karkus30]

Originally Posted by MikeTV

Karkus, let's cut to the chase. You believe intervention reduces competition - which may be true. It depends on the form of intervention. But I believe we need intervention to create competition, in the context of the banking cartels. Deregulation meant no intervention. I believe that the free-market (ie. a market without government intervention) resulted in the banking cartels. I also believe that much of the current intervention is doing nothing to stop the banking cartels, but merely strengthens them, and will continue to do so until we introduce reforms like those being proposed by the Vickers review.

Put simply, there is good intervention and bad intervention. What we agree about is there needs to be more competition in the banking sector. Where we differ is in how to acheive that.

I don't think we differ at all now. I think you are arguing with yourself.

You are quite certain that the banks are currently cartelised monopolies and have said so at least twice.
You agree that the banks need competition and the monopolies need breaking up. You said so twice.

I think the issue lies with our definition of intervention.

Intervention, in my mind, is the Government permitting the monopoly of the banks to persist. They were persuaded by the banks that this would be a more stable institution than those pesky small banks. "too big to fail" wasn't regarded as an insult until 2009. It was actually what the Government believed to be true. Big cartels could not fail because they were linked together under a system which prevented failure. Now we know that isn't true. Large banks can fail catastrophically.

Intervention in your mind appears to be composed of rules and regulations. In other words telling the all powerful banks that they have to behave by giving them a rule book and a set of consequences.

Here's the good news, you can have all those rules and regulations in a free market. That isn't my idea of intervention. Rules are necessary, I'm not advocating removing them. Regulations are not a problem in a free market.

The problem is, we don't and never have had a free market since the 1800s. It's that intervention I'm pointing to and not the rules and regulations which are fine.

Your advocating greater competition, to do that requires a free market, to achieve that requires the Government to drop the current protection and cartelising of the current system otherwise you are not going to get competition. Your going to get the sort of competition where one bank owns multiple outlets with different names, a sort of pretend free market to appease the public. You must have seen that loads of times with retail outlets.

So, the only way to competition can be a free market and we don't have one. I'm happy you can have all the rules and regulations you want to impose on the banks in that free market. Does that sound like a plan ?

It still won't happen in reality, but just between us.

[karkus30]

Originally Posted by keydude

There is responsible lending and reckless lending, same goes as risks.

My take on bankers. It is a bit like letting kids to run a sweets shop with no one looking. You pay them sweets by the hour, you pay them bonus sweets by sales. Doesn't matter if sweets are sold on bad credit neither, nor there is a need to see if there is more sweets coming from the factory. If sweets ran out from factory, government will supply at a good rate as if the shortage never happened.

Until tighter regulations are functional, keeping refilling the sweets shop is not the solution. System need to be fixed first.

So, a rule book written by bankers, for bankers is your solution. I'm a damned sight more sceptical. I'm sceptical because I happily break the speed limit and risk prison and financial penalties far harsher than bankers get as a result. If I can do that just to drive a bit faster then just think what bankers are prepared to do to maintain their power and lifestyle. Absolutely anything.

Think outside the box. They enjoy a cosy cartel, that cartel makes them strong. Remember united we stand, divided we fall. Until we break up the monopolies and cartels they will continue to dominate. It is their Achilles heel and they know it. I don't want to destroy banking I would like to bring fairness, equity and opportunity back to those who provide the production in the first place. That's you and I. We tried regulation and rules and they lobbied their way put of it.

[MikeTV]

Originally Posted by karkus30

You are quite certain that the banks are currently cartelised monopolies and have said so at least twice.
You agree that the banks need competition and the monopolies need breaking up. You said so twice.

And I am more than happy to say it any number of times.

Originally Posted by karkus30

I think the issue lies with our definition of intervention.

Intervention, in my mind, is the Government permitting the monopoly of the banks to persist.

To everyone else, allowing monopolies to exist without intervening is, by definition, non-intervention.

Originally Posted by karkus30

Intervention in your mind appears to be composed of rules and regulations. In other words telling the all powerful banks that they have to behave by giving them a rule book and a set of consequences.

Here's the good news, you can have all those rules and regulations in a free market. That isn't my idea of intervention. Rules are necessary, I'm not advocating removing them. Regulations are not a problem in a free market.
...

I'm happy you can have all the rules and regulations you want to impose on the banks in that free market. Does that sound like a plan ?

But who decides what those rules should be. Should we be given a chance to vote on them? And who is going to enforce the rules? Perhaps we need a democratically elected government to arrange all that, and enforce the rules?

Originally Posted by karkus30

The problem is, we don't and never have had a free market since the 1800s. It's that intervention I'm pointing to and not the rules and regulations which are fine.

That simply isn't true.

[keydude]

That's why everything is a smoke screen, all manipulations/action ends up effectively as tax taken by the government to hand out to the few selected rich, unless there is change.

[la gran siete]

all this "free" market tosh is only designed to be of most benefit to the richest amongst us.Its Laissez faire economics that exacerbated the great depression but the richest suffered not one iota.Free means do what the **** they will at the expense of others

[sidicks]

Originally Posted by keydude

That's why everything is a smoke screen, all manipulations/action ends up effectively as tax taken by the government to hand out to the few selected rich, unless there is change.

Maybe you could provide a breakdown of government tax take and how it is spent.

How does the 'handouts to the rich' category compare to say benefits or education or defence or healthcare??

[karkus30]

Originally Posted by MikeTV

And I am more than happy to say it any number of times.
To everyone else, allowing monopolies to exist without intervening is, by definition, non-intervention.
But who decides what those rules should be. Should we be given a chance to vote on them? And who is going to enforce the rules? Perhaps we need a democratically elected government to arrange all that, and enforce the rules?
That simply isn't true.

I maintain that one of the key organisations creating monopolies are Governments. Unwittingly or not, it was the Governments that allowed bank cartels. If what you say is true then they could not exist, but they do. The banks began to form cartels once the bank of England was in place. Go read the history of UK banking and US banking, it's all clearly laid out.

A free market has competition, that's what you advocated, that's not what we have. A free market means no cartel of banks, no bail outs, no fixing of interest rates. I believe we still need rules to enforce that.

I haven't said we should not have a democratically elected Government. I have suggested that Governments power is trimmed back to rule making and not institution. I fully recognise the need for an elected Government, however they should not interfere with the general working of the market by the use of policies designed to protect the interests of specific groups. They should strive to keep the competition open at all times with no favourites. In effect they should be referees following an agreed set of rules designed to make the market as dynamic and diverse as possible. They clearly shouldn't be telling people how to play, or distorting the market in any shape or form.

It has to be recognised that unscrupulous businesses will try to gain advantage by getting policies adopted in order to protect their business, remove competition and reap higher profits. That is currently what we have with banks and many other areas. I don't say the free market isn't running in some places, amongst some businesses, but it's a long way from universal. If a company can buy the Governments support by lobbying then clearly the free market cannot truly be said to exist. The dice are loaded.

Rothbard suggests that a free market will ultimately squash monopolies, I think we still need a framework of rules to see if that theory is workable.

The banks have not been in free market competition since the 1800s

Below is a section from the treasury select committee report 2010/11 on retail banking alone. Note, even though it's also relevant to commercial banks this minor detail has been omitted.

9. We believe effective competition cannot take place in an environment where firms which are perceived as ‘too important to fail’ are both protected from the discipline of the market place and derive tangible benefits from this status. This moral hazard distorts competition and places new or growing firms at a serious disadvantage. Banks which are perceived as small enough or not systemically important enough to be allowed to fail not only face normal difficulties in breaking into the market. They face higher funding costs compared to those who benefit from this implicit subsidy. Financial stability is also imperilled, as the absence of the threat of failure can actively encourage greater or excessive risk–taking—the moral hazard problem. However, this Report does not deal with these issues in detail. The Vickers Commission is examining the too important to fail problem. They were also examined by the Treasury Committee in Too important to fail—too important to ignore.5

That should be proof enough, that as yet, the free market does not exist in banking and hasn't existed for some time.

[keydude]

Originally Posted by sidicks

Maybe you could provide a breakdown of government tax take and how it is spent.

How does the 'handouts to the rich' category compare to say benefits or education or defence or healthcare??

note, 'effectively as tax'.

I can only wish if everything could be numerically quantified, it probably would be headline news forever. It is done in a way that it couldn't be quantified.

You don't have find someone behind you and to see blood on the floor to know you are being shafted, unwillingly.

Hand out to benefits, education, defence are mostly for everyone and the needed. The bankers work in private sectors and we have to pay for their mistake and they still come out rich.

[karkus30]

Originally Posted by la gran siete

all this "free" market tosh is only designed to be of most benefit to the richest amongst us.Its Laissez faire economics that exacerbated the great depression but the richest suffered not one iota.Free means do what the **** they will at the expense of others

Why do I even bother. A none free market is by design monopolistic. A monopolistic market means that profits are maximised.

Your getting confused between regulation of a market and a free market. A free market is not unregulated it is simply competitive. Competition is what brings lower prices and innovation. You are thinking that a free market means there is no regulation required, while that may prove to be true, as it stands, a free market would need regulation.

At present the Government legislates to protect certain business interests. It does this sometimes because it feels they are vital to the economy and sometimes because they have a 'persuasive' argument ( I will let you decide what might be persuasive ;-)). It often legislates by allowing trade bodies to be the barrier to competition, or by instituting certain criteria that put competition on the cold slab.

Take a look at British Airways. Ostensibly they operated in a free market, but you might like to ask Richard Branson of his perceptions. British Airways are just one of a number of companies operating in the protection of theGovernment. You might want to take a look at the clever manipulation of professional bodies that use the fear of bad practice as the reason for closing the competition down.

I'm advocating getting rid of that Government protectionism. Call it a free market, or something else. Call it a hands off Government and no more accepting holidays and party pledges in return for some nice regulation benefitting the lobbyist in order to improve profit margins.

Why you could possibly object I don't know ? When they chopped British Airways down to size, we could suddenly fly to Spain for a few pence. That's a free market operating in that one area, but there are still thousands of areas where it doesn't operate and the biggest by far is banking. Even DC admits its a bit of a problem. He just doesn't want to solve it because he knows the only way is to reduce the influence the lobbyists have and that means reducing Government influence. As these go hand in hand with the priviliges of Government, election campaigns and protecting friends then you might be sure he would be less than enthusiastic.

[icstm]

Originally Posted by sidicks

Maybe you could provide a breakdown of government tax take and how it is spent.

How does the 'handouts to the rich' category compare to say benefits or education or defence or healthcare??

if I was stirring, I could say that A4E get the benefits money, the companies running the free schools get the education funds, BAE and others get defence and lets not start on how many billions IT firms at their partners made money from NHS computers...

[karkus30]

Originally Posted by icstm

if I was stirring, I could say that A4E get the benefits money, the companies running the free schools get the education funds, BAE and others get defence and lets not start on how many billions IT firms at their partners made money from NHS computers...

Nationalised private hybrids. The Government run these organisations and then let their chosen few feed like loaches on tax receipts. No more efficient, but instead of public service staff getting the money it ends up in private hands without any competition because it's still considered a public service.

[MikeTV]

Originally Posted by sidicks

Maybe you could provide a breakdown of government tax take and how it is spent.

How does the 'handouts to the rich' category compare to say benefits or education or defence or healthcare??

I've had a look into this. In 2009 and 2010 the banks received an implicit subsidy of £220bn, according to the Bank of England. source-Telegraph

And yet the total tax revenue from the whole of the UK financial sector - including the PAYE and NI of every single cleaner and office worker, amounted to £61bn, in 2009, according to the City of London Corporation. source-Telegraph

In other words, the subsidies received by the banks are in no way covered by the tax revenus, even when you look beyond just how much each bank pays in tax, but also add in how much each employee of every bank is paying in tax out of their gross salaries. Although why you would to include that in the numbers is beyond me - of course cleaners pay tax! That's no justification for subsidising a sector! Every sector has employees who pay tax.

So the point is - a sizable amount of public sector spending is going to the banks, and the tax take is a far smaller amount.

[sidicks]

Originally Posted by MikeTV

I've had a look into this. In 2009 and 2010 the banks received an implicit subsidy of £220bn, according to the Bank of England. source-Telegraph

And yet the total tax revenue from the whole of the UK financial sector - including the PAYE and NI of every single cleaner and office worker, amounted to £61bn, in 2009, according to the City of London Corporation. source-Telegraph

In other words, the subsidies received by the banks are in no way covered by the tax revenus, even when you look beyond just how much each bank pays in tax, but also add in how much each employee of every bank is paying in tax out of their gross salaries. Although why you would to include that in the numbers is beyond me - of course cleaners pay tax! That's no justification for subsidising a sector! Every sector has employees who pay tax.

Not quite.....

This isn't an actual subsidy i.e. real money - it is an implicit subsidy:

A paper published by the Bank argued that major banks and their investors would have received the subsidy by benefiting from the state guarantee that large institutions would not be able to fail.

So basically the benefit is due to the state guarantee - for which banks are paying fees, and which costs the government nothing unless the guarantees actually bite which is highly unlikely.

You could argue that there would be an implicit cost through an increase in the cost of government debt, but that hasn't happened - UK debt costs have reduced.

So the compairson is highly flawed (and does not take into account the guarantee premiums and other taxes paid by banks).

Originally Posted by MikeTV

So the point is - a sizable amount of public sector spending is going to the banks, and the tax take is a far smaller amount.

Patently false!


Sidicks

[Squiffy]

Originally Posted by MikeTV

So the point is - a sizable amount of public sector spending is going to the banks, and the tax take is a far smaller amount.

Do you understand the difference between implicit and real?

£0 of this years deficit has gone to the banks. Meanwhile the sector generates over £60bn of tax, sizeable foreign currency earnings and even the guarantee scheme has produced over £5bn profit.

[MikeTV]

Originally Posted by Squiffy

Do you understand the difference between implicit and real?

£0 of this years deficit has gone to the banks. Meanwhile the sector generates over £60bn of tax, sizeable foreign currency earnings and even the guarantee scheme has produced over £5bn profit.

It doesn't matter how much tax revenue is generated by the sector or when. It's tax! Those employees aren't giving it to the government on condition that they give it back to their employers at some point in the form of subsidies. If they were, it would be a loan, not a tax! We pay tax so the government can spend it on hospitals, schools, defense, welfare, and so on. Not to give back to banks.

"In good times, banks took the benefits for their employees and shareholders, while in bad times the taxpayer bore the costs. For the banks, it was a case of heads I win, tails you – the taxpayer – lose." - Mervyn King.

[Squiffy]

Originally Posted by MikeTV

It doesn't matter how much tax revenue is generated by the sector or when. It's tax! Those employees aren't giving it to the government on condition that they give it back to their employers at some point in the form of subsidies. If they were, it would be a loan, not a tax! We pay tax so the government can spend it on hospitals, schools, defense, welfare, and so on. Not to give back to banks.

"In good times, banks took the benefits for their employees and shareholders, while in bad times the taxpayer bore the costs. For the banks, it was a case of heads I win, tails you – the taxpayer – lose." - Mervyn King.

Ok. So all I read there was you ignoring that an implied subsidy is not the same as actual taxpayers money in order to bash the banks a bit more. There is no taxpayers money going to the banks. There was none last year, none this year and in all likelihood will be none next year. Over those three years the sector will be a net contributor of the best part of £200bn.

I'm surprised you think such sums are irrelevant.

[MikeTV]

Originally Posted by sidicks

Not quite.....

This isn't an actual subsidy i.e. real money - it is an implicit subsidy:

A paper published by the Bank argued that major banks and their investors would have received the subsidy by benefiting from the state guarantee that large institutions would not be able to fail.

So basically the benefit is due to the state guarantee - for which banks are paying fees, and which costs the government nothing unless the guarantees actually bite which is highly unlikely.

You could argue that there would be an implicit cost through an increase in the cost of government debt, but that hasn't happened - UK debt costs have reduced.

So the compairson is highly flawed (and does not take into account the guarantee premiums and other taxes paid by banks).




Patently false!


Sidicks

Except that is patently false. It is notoriously difficult to estimate that actual cost to the taxpayer, but according to the BofE report "The range of estimates is broad. The funding advantage approach estimates the implicit subsidy in 2010 to be around £40 billion. The historical and options price contingent claims methods produce estimates of around £30 billion and £120 billion respectively".

That is the actual estimated cost to the taxpayer in 2010, and the benefit to the banks. Not the size of the implicitly guarantee itself, or anything of that sort. Between £30 billion and £120 billion, in 2010.

[keydude]

The government only had to buy up the worst bits of the banking sector, create the favorable trading environment at whatever cost.

Now after a couple of years, these bad bits may get close to break even while the rest of the banking sector ride on this newly created trading conditions to rake in extra profit.

These profits come in at a great cost, and I assume there will be bonuses paid out on these 'profits'.

[MikeTV]

Originally Posted by Squiffy

Ok. So all I read there was you ignoring that an implied subsidy is not the same as actual taxpayers money in order to bash the banks a bit more. There is no taxpayers money going to the banks. There was none last year, none this year and in all likelihood will be none next year. Over those three years the sector will be a net contributor of the best part of £200bn.

I'm surprised you think such sums are irrelevant.

You still don't seem to understand that there is a cost to the taxpayer, and that's what the numbers represent. From the article - "All measures point to significant transfers of resources from the government to the banking system," they added.

[sidicks]

Originally Posted by MikeTV

You still don't seem to understand that there is a cost to the taxpayer, and that's what the numbers represent. From the article - "All measures point to significant transfers of resources from the government to the banking system," they added.

For someone that considers himself to be very intelligent, it is amazing that you are unable to appreciate the difference between an implicit subsidy and an actual cost to the taxpayer.

[Squiffy]

Originally Posted by MikeTV

You still don't seem to understand that there is a cost to the taxpayer, and that's what the numbers represent. From the article - "All measures point to significant transfers of resources from the government to the banking system," they added.

I understand the article. It talks about an implicit subsidy, but this is not an actual subsidy. I will say again. £0 of this years budget deficit has gone to the banks.

If you can prove otherwise, then please do so.

[MikeTV]

Originally Posted by keydude

The government only had to buy up the worst bits of the banking sector, create the favorable trading environment at whatever cost.

Now after a couple of years, these bad bits may get close to break even while the rest of the banking sector ride on this newly created trading conditions to rake in extra profit.

These profits come in at a great cost, and I assume there will be bonuses paid out on these 'profits'.

When recession arrived, and we looked at all of the struggling sectors that comprise our economy, which one did we decide to subsidise with our dwindling tax revenue? We chose the wealthiest, most corrupt, most cesspit-like industry of them all. The one that continually pays itself massive bonuses. The one that has enjoyed year-after-year of unfettered growth and profits with government encouragement. The one that played fast and lose with our life savings. The one that nearly bankrupted the country and caused a global economic meltdown. Yes, they are the ones the government feels the taxpayers should subsidise.

Madness isn't it?

[sidicks]

Originally Posted by MikeTV

Madness isn't it?

Repeating the same rubbish despite having things explained to you certainly is madness...

[neilios]

Oh dear who's been a set of naughty boys then...
Libor scandal: Was the petrol price rigged too? - Telegraph