Bob Diamond resigns

[mjdgreg]

Bob has resigned and is looking forward to a severance package of between £20M to £30M and an incredible final salary pension scheme. The world has gone mad. He should be thrown in jail instead. Gordon Brown and Ed Balls should hang their heads in shame at the pathetic regulation of the banks during the last Labour government. They should be thrown in jail as well.

If you have a Barclay's account, do the honourable thing and close it in protest and let them know why you've closed it. Don't just sit on your arse and let them get away with it. If you do, they'll just carry on in the same way. I would recommend the Nationwide as being one of the best out there.

[Filo]

Bob has resigned and is looking forward to a severance package of between £20M to £30M and an incredible final salary pension scheme. The world has gone mad. He should be thrown in jail instead. Gordon Brown and Ed Balls should hang their heads in shame at the pathetic regulation of the banks during the last Labour government. They should be thrown in jail as well.

If you have a Barclay's account, do the honourable thing and close it in protest and let them know why you've closed it. Don't just sit on your arse and let them get away with it. If you do, they'll just carry on in the same way. I would recommend the Nationwide as being one of the best out there.

We`re now over 2 years into the present Dictatorship, but I see no signs of regulation from the present incumbents, in fact the PM has shy`d away from a full inquiry into the scandal, it makes you wonder if likeable Dave has any more skeletons in the cupboard, that he would n`t like to get out!

[Donnywolf]

If you have a Barclay's account, do the honourable thing and close it in protest and let them know why you've closed it. Don't just sit on your arse and let them get away with it. If you do, they'll just carry on in the same way. I would recommend the Nationwide as being one of the best out there.

Perhaps we should move our money to the other Banks who are already implicated OR as is almost bound to happen will be very shortly

[mjdgreg]

We`re now over 2 years into the welcome change of government, but I see no signs of regulation from the present incumbents, in fact the PM has shy`d away from a full inquiry into the scandal, it makes you wonder if likeable Dave has any more skeletons in the cupboard, that he would n`t like to get out!

I don't know how much quicker they could have started the ball rolling to clear up Labour's incompetence. You must do more research before you make inaccurate posts. Or maybe you should just stick to a maximum of 20 seconds.

Labour want a full inquiry that will cost a fortune (no change there then) and take forever so the issue can be kicked into the long grass. Far better that we have a brief inquiry that shows how useless Labour were in power while the issue is fresh in everyone's minds. Gordon Brown and Ed Balls watch out.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10153578

[mjdgreg]

Perhaps we should move our money to the other Banks who are already implicated OR as is almost bound to happen will be very shortly

You sound very much like someone who is going to sit on their arse and do nothing. I've already mentioned Nationwide. There is also the Coop. There are others if you can be bothered to look.

[Nudga]

So how do you feel about the imminent departure of Brian Stock and possibly Coppinger Mick?

[mjdgreg]

So how do you feel about the imminent departure of Brian Stock and possibly Coppinger mjdgreg?

Not in the least bit surprised. I know for a fact that they both think Saunders is a complete joke.

[Nudga]

Really? And where do you get these facts from?

[mjdgreg]

Really? And where do you get these facts from?

I refuse to give up my sources. But trust me, I know what I'm on about. Rovers will definitely be relegated again next year unless they get rid of Saunders.

Saunders out!!!!

[Filo]

Really? And where do you get these facts from?

I refuse to give up my sources. But trust me, I know what I'm on about. Rovers will definitely be relegated again next year unless they get rid of Saunders.

Saunders out!!!!

Your a gambling man Mick, give me some decent odds and I`ll take that bet!

[mjdgreg]

Your a gambling man mjdgreg, give me some decent odds and I`ll take that bet!

No point. Saunders will be gone before Xmas when the penny finally drops with the board.

[Nudga]

Really? And where do you get these facts from?

I refuse to give up my sources. But trust me, I know what I'm on about. Rovers will definitely be relegated again next year unless they get rid of Saunders.

Saunders out!!!!

I don't trust you. You don't have to reveal names, you could have said that you were talking to someone outside the ground who says that his mate was talking to Stock/Copps in the chippy or something. I may have reason to trust you then.

[mjdgreg]

I don't trust you. You don't have to reveal names, you could have said that you were talking to someone outside the ground who says that his mate was talking to Stock/Copps in the chippy or something. I may have reason to trust you then.

You should know that I am very pally with madmick50. If you check out all his previous posts you will see that everything he posted was incontrovertible fact and that all his predictions came to pass. So trust should not be an issue.

[Nudga]

OK Gollum. Or am I talking to Smeagol?

[Filo]

Your a gambling man mjdgreg, give me some decent odds and I`ll take that bet!

No point. Saunders will be gone before Xmas when the penny finally drops with the board.

Surely there`s a point, is n`t a professional gambler in the game to make some money, by your reasoning this must be easy money for you, tempt me with some decent odds!

[RobTheRover]

All




No

[mjdgreg]

Surely there`s a point, is n`t a professional gambler in the game to make some money, by your reasoning this must be easy money for you, tempt me with some decent odds!

Being a professional gambler isn't as easy as you may think. I am a professional gambler not a bookie. As I explained earlier I can't do a bet with you as you think Rovers will stay up with Saunders in charge. I think Rovers will go down with Saunders in charge. However there is the distinct probability that Saunders will get sacked before the season ends and Rovers will stay up. This layer of complexity makes it impossible to offer you the bet you want.

Also I like to hedge my position if I change my mind about my original bet (I do get it wrong occasionally, hard to believe I know) or if it's going my way take an early profit before the bet has reached it's conclusion. This is called greening up. So I'm afraid the simple way you like to bet is not appealing to me and is the reason why bookies make huge profits. I like to make huge profits out of bookies, and not out of mug punters such as yourself.

[Nudga]

Surely there`s a point, is n`t a professional gambler in the game to make some money, by your reasoning this must be easy money for you, tempt me with some decent odds!

Being a professional gambler isn't as easy as you may think. I am a professional gambler not a bookie. As I explained earlier I can't do a bet with you as you think Rovers will stay up with Saunders in charge. I think Rovers will go down with Saunders in charge. However there is the distinct probability that Saunders will get sacked before the season ends and Rovers will stay up. This layer of complexity makes it impossible to offer you the bet you want.

Also I like to hedge my position if I change my mind about my original bet (I do get it wrong occasionally, hard to believe I know) or if it's going my way take an early profit before the bet has reached it's conclusion. This is called greening up. So I'm afraid the simple way you like to bet is not appealing to me and is the reason why bookies make huge profits. I like to make huge profits out of bookies, and not out of mug punters such as yourself.

But on this occasion wouldn't it be nice just to take a couple of quid off Filo and have the bragging rights and leave him with egg on his face.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Just to set the record straight

We`re now over 2 years into the welcome change of government, but I see no signs of regulation from the present incumbents, in fact the PM has shy`d away from a full inquiry into the scandal, it makes you wonder if likeable Dave has any more skeletons in the cupboard, that he would n`t like to get out!

I don't know how much quicker they could have started the ball rolling to clear up Labour's incompetence. You must do more research before you make inaccurate posts. Or maybe you should just stick to a maximum of 20 seconds.

Labour want a full inquiry that will cost a fortune (no change there then) and take forever so the issue can be kicked into the long grass. Far better that we have a brief inquiry that shows how useless Labour were in power while the issue is fresh in everyone's minds. Gordon Brown and Ed Balls watch out.

Ah yes Mick. Research. You should try it some time before coming out with another one of your mono-maniacal diatribes.

Regulation of the banks. So Brown should have regulated more tightly. Of course, yes with hindsight. But there weren't many people criticising him for not regulating strongly enough back before the crash happened. Everyone is a f**king genius with hindsight, but there were no geniuses about 6 years back. Especially not on the Tory benches.

Take Cameron for example. He was utterly against regulations. Look what he said in a speech in 2006:
"Regulation ends up treating all companies the same whereas different businesses of different sizes, in different sectors, will have significantly different circumstances.

They should be encouraged to freely develop their own responses, tailored to their particular situation, rather than having specific measures imposed upon them.

In too many areas of life today, over-regulation is leading to the death of discretion, the replacement of trust with coercion."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2006/may/22/conservatives.davidcameron

The Tories' own expert on banking, Andrew Tyrie who chairs the Select Committee that will be interviewing Diamond today was screaming back in 2000 that the FSA was a regulatory "Leviathan" that would strangle the City. If only eh?

http://www.andrewtyrie.com/upload/Leviathan%20at%20large.pdf

Here's some text from that paper to show what Tyrie's opinion on regulation was.
"It is all too easy for governments to encourage regulators to over-react. Governments cover their backs, but it is industry, the consumer and society as a whole who ultimately suffer. In financial regulation, as in so many fields, there is a tension between what is politically expedient and what is economically or morally appropriate."

"It is to be expected that major financial firms will be tempted to avoid the impact of an over-burdensome regulatory regime. If compliance costs become too high, large financial institutions can move, relatively easily, to a friendlier jurisdiction. "

He said that Brown's bill to set up the FSA was: "biased in the direction of over-regulation".

Politicians got it wrong. All of them. There should have been tighter regulation. But the ones in power right now are the ones who said that the regulation was TOO tight back then.

Go figure.

[Hounslowrover]

Agree BST.  Gideon would have a better argument if the current legislation he is putting through parliament contained such tightening legislation, but it doesn't.  A Leveson style enquiry would embarrass all politicians, back to Thatcher who tore down the firewalls between retail and casino banking.  Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

[mjdgreg]

It's simply not true that he wasn't being advised to impose tighter regulation. See below a highlighted section proving the point. Anyway the buck stops with the government of the day. I don't care what other politicians were saying. It's the politicians that were in power that should be held accountable for the massive mess we now find ourselves in.  Step forward Gordon Brown. He overspent wildly, leaving future generations with an impossible bill to pay and he caused the banking crisis as I explain below.

Gordon Brown admitted in his last few weeks as Prime Minister that maybe, just maybe, Labour's 'light touch anything goes' approach to regulating the City might have been part of the almighty financial mess Britain now finds itself in. He had always previously insisted that his only failing as far as the banking crisis went was not pushing his own campaign for global reform of the financial system as strongly as he should have done. Unfortunately for him there isn't the slightest shred of evidence of a British reform agenda.

Anyone who searches for this reform agenda will instead find a whole series of quotes that trumpet the City. At the time these quotes were made the City was already careering dangerously out of control. Brown proclaimed the City as 'an outstanding British success story and a triumph in the application of enlightened, New Labour, public policy'.

He wanted to replicate what the City had achieved for the whole UK economy! Indirectly he has achieved this aspiration. The bankers have succeeded in busting the wider economy as effectively as their own organisations.

Who can forget his June 2007 Mansion House speech. With money markets already in meltdown, he hailed 'an era that history will record as the beginning of a new golden age for the City of London'. Even more embarrassingly, a year earlier he had harked back to the Enron scandal to say, 'and I will be honest with you, many who advised me, including not a few newspapers, favoured a regulatory crackdown. I believe we were right not to go down that road ... and we were right to build upon our light touch system….fair, proportionate and increasingly risk based'.

In 2005, he stated that the better model for financial regulation was 'not just a light touch, but a limited touch. We should not only apply the concept of risk to enforcement of regulation, but to…the decision as to whether to regulate at all'.
He now says 'The truth is that, globally and nationally, we should have been regulating them more'.

He then further compounded the problem by bailing out the failed banks. In any other business recklessness on such a scale would have resulted in them going bust. Then even worse, he introduced a zero interest policy which enabled the banks to earn profits and bonuses that matched the best years of the pre-crisis boom.

You couldn't make it up. Brown has proved himself to be a complete idiot who made mistake, after mistake, after mistake. We are all now living with the devastating consequences. He should be tried for treason and the death penalty should be brought back just for him. I will quite happily carry out the deed if necessary.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Go on Mick. Follow through your research. Let us know who these people and newspapers were who wanted a harder crackdown.

I know exactly who they were. You go and do a bit of research and find out for yourself. Then come back on here and tell us.

[mjdgreg]

Go on mjdgreg. Follow through your research. Let us know who these people and newspapers were who wanted a harder crackdown.

I know exactly who they were. You go and do a bit of research and find out for yourself. Then come back on here and tell us.

Piss poor response to my devastating critique of Gordon. I know exactly who they were as well. I'm not going to bore the readers with this information because it is totally irrelevant to the debate. I would have thought that the words spoken of your hero would have been good enough for you.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Forgive me for interrupting your one man back slapping Mick, but you have totally missed the point, as well as missed the opportunity to tell us who called it right on banking regulation.

Brown got it wrong. With hindsight that's obvious. The Tories thought he was too hard. They would have been even lighter which would have been still more disastrous.

The people calling for more regulation before the crisis were the old fashioned statist lefties my friend. THEY were the ones who called it right in terms of seeing where light touch would take us. I assume you are now agreeing with us Lefties then?

But that's all with hindsight. Brown was a real world politician in a real world situation. Had he gone for a harder regulatory approach 12 years ago, and the banks had upped sticks and left as they promised, our economy would have been f**ked.

Arguing from hindsight is the style of a poor intellect Mick. Arguing with hindsight and ignoring every aspect of the issue other than the one you personally want to make a point about is the style of a 5 year old.

[big fat yorkshire pudding]

But that's all with hindsight. Brown was a real world politician in a real world situation. Had he gone for a harder regulatory approach 12 years ago, and the banks had upped sticks and left as they promised, our economy would have been f***ed.

Somewhat ironic then that the current Labour view does seem to be against bankers, I mean how often do you hear the line "cosying up to the bankers" when the Tories implement policies to keep them here?

To be frank it's simple for a lot of things in banking there needs to be light regulation, that's better for everyone, needless red tape is an utter nightmare.  But certain things don't fall in that bracket.  I'm still unsure whether rate fixing should be heavily regulated, certainly though you would think it flouts existing competition regulations.  What surprises me though is that this happened firstly during the banking crisis a few years ago, but Ed Balls knows nothing of it..... It equally surprises me that Osbourne knew nothing of it.  That doesn't bode well for two financial politicians who've supposedly looked at every angle, I would've thought it a first place to look as government have so often talked about getting banks lending at good rates (something the Labour side have been huge on), doesn't put anyone in a good light really.

[mjdgreg]

Forgive me for interrupting your one man back slapping Mick, but you have totally missed the point, as well as missed the opportunity to tell us who called it right on banking regulation.

Brown got it wrong. With hindsight that's obvious. The Tories thought he was too hard. They would have been even lighter which would have been still more disastrous.

The people calling for more regulation before the crisis were the old fashioned statist lefties my friend. THEY were the ones who called it right in terms of seeing where light touch would take us. I assume you are now agreeing with us Lefties then?

But that's all with hindsight. Brown was a real world politician in a real world situation. Had he gone for a harder regulatory approach 12 years ago, and the banks had upped sticks and left as they promised, our economy would have been f***ed.

Arguing from hindsight is the style of a poor intellect Mick. Arguing with hindsight and ignoring every aspect of the issue other than the one you personally want to make a point about is the style of a 5 year old.

Your leftie friends didn't call it right. You try and simplify things down to light touch and harder  touch. Way to simplistic. Light or harder it doesn't matter if the way the regulatory authorities are set up is fundamentally flawed.

Shortly after moving to the Treasury Brown set up a tripartite system of regulation. The Bank of England was made responsible for managing inflation, the FSA was given responsibility for supervising financial markets and the Treasury was to design the overall structure of regulation.

This tripartite regulatory model broke so many of the most fundamental rules of management that its eventual failure was entirely predictable. This was pointed out by the Tories and many others at the time and not after the event with hindsight.

For a start the Bank of England was given the wrong target. It was told to monitor the Consumer Price Index rather than the Retail Price Index. The problem was that the CPI does not include housing costs, whereas the RPI does. So year after year the Bank could merrily report that inflation was bumping along around the 2 per cent target while, in fact, there was a massive, unsustainable bubble in house prices, which none of the regulators apparently noticed.

A second concern was that in a crisis you need a 'single line of command' - one person or body must have clear control and accountability. By spreading the responsibility between three quite different organisations in an unclear way, Brown was designing a three-legged camel.

However the most fundamental error Brown made was to give what was essentially a consumer services regulator, the FSA, responsibility for macroeconomic management. A truly monumental mistake that beggars belief (as was pointed out by many at the time).

The whole ethos, background and skill-set of the FSA was based on regulating the selling of financial products - pensions, savings, investments, unit trusts, mortgages and so on. Something they were piss poor at doing. They simply didn't have the knowledge or experience to be given overall responsibility for regulation of financial markets. Unbelievably inept decision.

So to summarise it's not a question of light or harder touch its more  of a question of getting the right regulatory framework in place first. Something that Brown failed abysmally on and we are now living with the consequences.

Your comment 'Had he gone for a harder regulatory approach 12 years ago, and the banks had upped sticks and left as they promised, our economy would have been f***ed' made me piss my pants laughing. Don't you realise that this is exactly what has happened to our economy and your hero is to blame? You talk as if it's a good job he wasn't too hard on the banks or everything wouldn't be rosy in the garden like it is now. Just in case you haven't noticed there aren't any roses in the garden, there are only weeds.

These statements also had me rolling about on the floor laughing 'Arguing from hindsight is the style of a poor intellect mjdgreg. Arguing with hindsight and ignoring every aspect of the issue other than the one you personally want to make a point about is the style of a 5 year old'. This is exactly how you debate! I on the other hand offer up a perfectly reasoned well thought out, backed-up  argument which has weighed up all the evidence and has come to a logical rational view of the situation. 

You on the other hand just seem hell bent on defending your hero at all costs despite all the overwhelming evidence I produce to the contrary. However I do admire you for coming back for more. I'm amazed that you still have the stomach for the fight as once again I have totally bludgeoned you to defeat.

Hopefully some of your followers will point out to you on the quiet that you are trying to take on a far greater intellect and will always be battered to defeat. It's probably time now to retire gracelessly from the battle and send on the next challenger. You have had too many wounds inflicted on you now and I don't want to inflict any more as permanent loss of self esteem is going to be the likely outcome.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Mick, Mick, Mick. You make it so difficult to argue with you. Not due to your intelligence, obviously, but due to your lack of logic.

Example:
1) You criticise Brown for not having regulated the banks correctly.
2) The only possible inference of this is that the regulation that WAS imposed gave the banks too much leeway to make erroneous decisions.
3) But you then say that the problem wasn't that the regulation was too hard or too soft, it was the way it was implemented.
4) But if it was implemented in a way that gave the banks too much leeway to make erroneous decisions, then by definition it was insufficiently severe.

So we're back to the hindsight issue. You (and many others) are saying (with hindsight) that the regulation was wrong. I agree. That much is obvious. What is not obvious is exactly who on the Right was saying that back in the early 2000s. The only criticism from the Right was that Brown was a control freak who was crucifying the banking sector with too severe a regulatory approach.

Hindsight. Every Tom Dick and Harry is a genius with hindsight. True genius is spotting the problem BEFORE it emerges. Point me to someone on the Right of politics who did that. Not Osborne. Not Cameron. Not Tyrie. Who? The one major politician to come out of this with credit is Cable who WAS prophesying trouble ahead. But then he was some way to the Left of much of New Labour.

Hindsight No.2. You criticise Brown for giving the BoE the wrong inflation target. That's a valid criticism. With hindsight. Who was flagging this up at the time that Brown took the utterly unprecedented decision of taking interest rate setting out of political control and giving it to the BoE? Point out the prophets to me Mick, cos I don't know who they were.

Your insistence on using hindsight is what second rate gobshites do. It's like standing in the 21st century, criticising Daimler and Benz for developing the internal combustion engine but not realising that people would get killed without ABS or get lost without SatNav. Bleeding obvious now, but not so obvious then.

And this isn't even your biggest failing. The biggest one is your continued insistence that the problems we have experienced were somehow unique and all Brown's fault. That America, Japan, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Singapore etc, etc etc didn't also have horrific crashes in 2007-09.

Politicians are fallible. Every one. Brown made big errors. But I have seen no evidence, none at all that any alternative Chancellor would have done better. Not during the era when banks should have been better regulated. And unquestionably not when the crisis exploded.

But politicians make errors. Churchill made errors. he f**ked up colossally on Gallipoli and on the Gold Standard. But he is still arguable the finest Prime Minister we ever had. Nye Bevan f**ked up colossally on not screwing down doctors' conditions when he set up the NHS. But he still set up the NHS. What's the old saying? The man who never did anything wrong never did anything? And the man who whines and points the finger with hindsight has the attitude of a five year old who can't understand why the world is not perfect.

[mjdgreg]

Your insistence on using hindsight is what second rate gobshites do.

I assume you are talking about yourself because you are the only one that keeps on mentioning hindsight. The only defence of Brown you offer is that everyone makes mistakes so stop blaming him is laughable.

It's very simple. Brown controlled the purse strings and determined economic policy for 13 years of the Labour government. It doesn't matter whether other people were pointing things out at the time or not. He was in power. He must accept responsibility. The buck stops with him. End of.

He created a 3 legged camel that was nowhere near fit for purpose. He made mistake after mistake after mistake. A chimpanzee would not have performed so badly. The only thing he got right was to keep us out of the Euro, but most of the credit for that must go to Ed Balls. However this was not a difficult decision. On everything else he got it badly wrong. The man is the most incompetent politician in a generation and he has totally ruined the country. How anyone can defend him beggars belief.

[Donnywolf]

Part A

It's very simple. Brown controlled the purse strings and determined economic policy for 13 years of the Labour government. It doesn't matter whether other people were pointing things out at the time or not. He was in power. He must accept responsibility. The buck stops with him. End of.

Part B

The only thing he got right was to keep us out of the Euro, but most of the credit for that must go to Ed Balls.

Does your Part B not contradict Part A totally ?

[mjdgreg]

Does your Part B not contradict Part A totally ?

No not at all. The Euro decision was only one of many decisions he made. He got all the other ones wrong.