Banks - Lest We Forget

[Jah Lush]

Remember today it was the BANKS that took our money, we paid the bail out. We get the cuts. They get bonuses. Bar stewards!

[Brendan]

Bankers

Right w@nkers

[DulwichFox]

How the banks work.

Bit like:-

I steal your property.

I then sell it back to you.

I add interest.

Then I add a Service charge.

Banking in a nutshell

[*Bob*]

Notable recent exceptions aside, the boo-hoo'ing about banks in general is absolute cock.

If you don't want anything from them, they're happy to provide you with a range of must-have services for (largely) free.

But what's that you say? You want money? Rack-up your credit card? Mortgage? Loan?

Then it's going to cost you. What do expect? An interest-free handout?

[Brendan]

When you pay your salary into a current account and draw it out as you need it the bank is not providing you with a ?free? service. You are providing them with the capital they need to run their business.

The fact that they have engineered a situation where it is impossible to exist without making use of this "service" makes it all the more important that they are regulated and not given free reign to bugger about.

[*Bob*]

You're forgetting about why banks started in the first place: most people don't want to keep their hard-earned stuffed in a sock under the mattress. I know I don't. I'd pay someone to keep my money safe. As it is, the trade-off is that they keep it safe on the condition that they can 'use it' in the meantime. So I don't see current accounts as some kind of rip-off.

And there are added benefits - You get a cheque book, which is useful for paying large sums, which is free. Your VISA costs nothing if you pay it off. You can travel to virtually any country in the world, stick your card into a machine and get currency. You can bank online and get all sorts of stuff done - which is free. All sorts of things.

The demand for credit, credit and more credit is as much to blame as the banks willingness to lend it. Almost everybody is to blame. Blaming 'the banks' is just a cop-out.

[Jeremy]

What an insightful post, Jah. It's as if people have forgotten all about it.

Although... I would point out that Lloyds and RBS will not be paying huge bonuses this year - partly due to political pressure, partly because business is still tough. In fact, RBS have lost staff precisely because bonuses have been slashed. That's on top of making thousands of people redundant and selling hundreds of branches.

I could also point out that in general, this is going to be far from a bumper bonus year in the City.

I could also remind you that the banks did not run away with tax payers' money. The government took a lot of equity in return, and will - at some point - actually make a profit from these shares.

[Brendan]

I'm not saying they are a rip off I'm' just saying that they aren't some magic deal that we should thank the magnanimous banks for. It?s a more than fair exchange for the profits banks make.

The fact is though that it has become an essential services so there has to be regulation and accountability to protect the customer otherwise they could just decided to take your money at their pleasure, especially with the limited competition there is in this country.

[peckhamboy]

But if you follow that logic *Bob*, then you're saying that the people who borrowed more than they could afford to repay to buy a house that was worth less than they paid for it are somehow partly responsible for the major financial crisis caused when lots of people couldn't repay their bloated loans. But that can't possibly be right. Vince Cable told me that it was the banks wot dunnit.

And he has, after all, predicted nine of the last one recessions, and he looks like my uncle. So he must be right.

[*Bob*]

Don't get me wrong.. I'm not down on bended knees blowing my bank or anything - even if I could fit it into my mouth, which I doubt.

The banks handed the money out, but it didn't get pressed into people's hands at the point of a gun.

Personally speaking, I sh1t myself taking on any sort of loan, spending nights in a cold sweat imagining the worst possible case scenario (which can be pretty bad 'in my line') and then deciding whether it can be done or not - before taking the plunge.

[Jah Lush]

Edited due to cock up.

[Jah Lush]

Well?

[Mick Mac]

Jah Lush Wrote:

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> Remember today it was the BANKS that took our

> money, we paid the bail out. We get the cuts. They

> get bonuses. Bar stewards!

Jeremy:

I could also remind you that the banks did not run away with tax payers' money. The government took a lot of equity in return, and will - at some point - actually make a profit from these shares.

My thoughts exactly Jeremy. Can't understand the "they took our money" attitude that prevails. We should get this back and more. Its potentially a good return for the taxpayer.

If we are looking at "they took our money" we should be looking in another direction completely - look where our taxes are spent - "they" took our money.

[peckhamboy]

For every cut made, think "Could a tax on hedge funds have paid for that?"

Arguably the hedgies were just as "responsible" as the banks for causing the crisis, by short-selling bank stocks and encouraging runs on banks which exacerbated the liquidity crisis. And they make millions. Why not tax them?

Or look at it another way. What do the cuts represent in real terms? In fact, hardly anything. For the most part, they are reductions in projected increases in budgets, rather than reductions in current budgets. What Labour did, you see, was make plans (knowing that they were not going to have to take the hit of finding the funds) to keep increasing government spending over the next 4-5 years. Of course, without a huge rise in tax revenues, that means increasing an already unmanageable deficit. But now, they're sitting pretty in opposition able to present the reduction of those increases to more manageable levels as wholescale slashing of public spending rather than prudent financial management.

But let's not let the facts get in the way of a good story, eh?

[louisiana]

Don't forget, one of the major ways banks make their money is by conjuring money out of thin air and lending this invented money to people, with charges and interest, thus creating debt as money. This is *not* money they have taken as deposits from anybody. This is fractional reserve banking.

Also, check out bank behaviour in the USA, where the last week's news across the country and across media has been dominated by the story of banks and their contractors fabricating legal documents (i.e. mortgage notes) on a wholesale scale. Which otherwise might be known as fraud. The many and varied consequences of which have included people who own their homes outright (no mortgage or charge of any kind) have had their homes foreclosed (repossessed) due to said fabricated documentation. And a long et cetera. Bank of America and another major bank have now stalled foreclosures states-wide owing to the massive cock-ups being revealed. (And given that HSBC has major interests in this sphere in the US, there may be similar issues there.)

[steveo]

I'd want a huge bonus if I had to work in a bank. What a waste of life

[Mick Mac]

steveo Wrote:

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> I'd want a huge bonus if I had to work in a bank.

> What a waste of life

Good point.

[Brendan]

Lou, are you somehow suggesting that a country that creates money by promising to pay it back to itself with interest is not laying the stable foundation stones for a world leading economy?

Stuff and nonsense.

[Brendan]

You see and then when you need more money what you do is make more available and it magically makes everything more expensive so you owe yourself even more when you have to borrow it off yourself and everyone is even more richerer.

Magic.

[DaveR]

The total cost of the banks bailout amounts to less than 20% of the national debt. Some of that money will be lost, but, as has already been pointed out, a lot of it will come back in eventually, unlike other debt spending which is....spent. If you want tio blame someone for the deficit, blame the guy who started it - Gordon Brown. As Chancellor and then PM he took the UK economy into deficit, so that when the banks did fall over we were almost uniquely vulnerable to lower tax take from financial services + booming debt costs. Still, don't let facts get in the way of a good rant. As you were...

[huncamunca]

um

[Loz]

Brendan Wrote:

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> You see and then when you need more money what you

> do is make more available and it magically makes

> everything more expensive so you owe yourself even

> more when you have to borrow it off yourself and

> everyone is even more richerer.

>

> Magic.

This only seems like magic until you answer the question, "what is money"?

Or, if I have a ?10 note, it says that "I promise to pay the bearer on demand the sum of ?10". If I take it into the Bank of England and demand my ?10, what do I get?

[felt-tip]

gold?

[*Bob*]

A five and five ones.

[karter]

*Bob* Wrote:

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> A five and five ones.

With a bad attitude.