Posts Tagged ‘bank’
Vote ‘YES’ Scotland!
If all the people, politicians, institutions, banks and monopoly businesses who are responsible for the terrible injustices and inequalities in our society are so desperate for a ‘NO’ vote, what should that tell you?
That Cameron, all his disgusting, self-serving cronies, Miliband and Clegg are terrified, scared and panicking, what should that tell you?
When all the members of the Fleet Street Mafia: dishonest, manipulative, gutter press editors and seedy proprietors want Scotland to vote ‘NO’, what should that tell you?
When the UK parliament does all it can to prolong the sick perversion of democracy that is Britain in the EU, what should that tell you?
Please vote ‘YES’ Scotland!
Barclays Pays £113 Million Tax, £2800 Million Bonuses
Seeker After Truth
Congratulations to Labour MP Chuka Umunna, who has exposed the truth about the organised crime syndicate known as Barclays Bank. See here for the full story.
Far from contributing to the British economy, in 2009 the bosses of this criminal gang paid themselves nearly 25 times as much as they paid in tax on their ill gotten gains.
Barclays Boss = Liar & Cheat
Nothing better illustrates the deception, fraud and misrepresentation that this den of thieves has perpertrated on the British people. It also highlights the weakness and compromise of Dr Vince Cable, once held up as the champion of the people, now revealed as weak, ineffectual and useless in the face of Barclays’ corrupting influence. As for Cameron, his poodle and all the other cowardly members of our once honourable House of Commons, they are all two-faced, impotent and in shameful, sycophantic awe of the vast piles of shekels that the banker robbers accumulate.
Bank Run On “Revenge Wednesday”, 26th January 2011
FROM INDEPENDENT MEDIA CENTRE UK
On Wednesday 26 January 2011, thousands of people in the UK will try to cause a bank run by withdrawing money from their bank accounts, in person, at high street bank branches.
The hope is that the movement will snowball.
Everyone is welcome. Just print out this article, fill in your details at the bottom, and take it to your bank, preferably around lunchtime, e.g. about 1pm. Even better, print out multiple copies and hand them round. Use email, Twitter, Facebook too.
When the first bank branch says it won’t pay out people’s money, let everyone know, using every means possible. Take photos. Use mobile phones, send tweets, get the journalists in on the picture. This movement is decentralised. It is what you and we make it.
Note that this idea was tried last December, after being suggested by Eric Cantona. Unfortunately it didn’t go very far, mainly because the organisers asked people to “sign up” online. We’re not asking you to sign up to anything. In particular, you do NOT have to give any personal details to anyone. The form below is just for giving to your BANK.
If you can only afford to withdraw 10 pounds, please do it. If you can afford to withdraw thousands of pounds, do that too. EVERY LITTLE HELPS. Banks cannot withstand everyone withdrawing even a tenth of what they’ve got in the bank. LET’S SEND THESE PARASITES A MESSAGE THEY’LL NEVER FORGET. It’s an open secret that they’re holding the country to ransom. Let’s kick ’em where it hurts.
This is the financial system’s MAJOR WEAK SPOT. That’s why the Dutch government is considering making it illegal to call for a bank run. Because they’re SCARED. In 2009 there was a bank run against a Dutch bank. This was considered to be a particularly unpleasant bank, which had been encouraging millions of Dutch people to get into debt who couldn’t afford it. People did a run against it, and it went bankrupt. How sad.
In Britain, you’d be hard pushed to name a bank which DIDN’T try to get people into massive debt they can’t really afford.
Here’s the bottom line: THE BANKS HAVE GOT IT COMING TO THEM.
So please take part. Spread the news. Distribute this article. Print your own. Just do a little bit to help, and we’ll be strong and we’ll blast the damn banks like they’ve never been blasted before.
Please complete the details, and hand it to your bank around 1pm on 26 Jan 2011.
**********************************
NAME: __________________________
ADDRESS:_____________________________
________________________________
ACCOUNT NUMBER: ___________________
SORT CODE:______________________
NAME OF BANK:_____________________
To: the Branch Manager
Dear Sir,
I wish to withdraw ____________ pounds from my account in cash, immediately.
Yours sincerely,
__________________ (signed)
A Diamond With No Pearls
“There was a period of remorse and apology for banks. I think that period needs to be over.”
If this is what Bob Diamond regards as wisdom then he is stupid as well as deeply unpleasant.
Spiv
The spectacle of this ostentatious, overpaid and arrogant Yank defending the banker robbers against their richly deserved condemnation is sickening. Almost as sickening as Cameron and his poodle’s capitulation over bonuses. See here for the full story.
We shouldn’t be surprised really. It was too much to expect that integrity and justice should triumph over the greed and corruption of the banks. They are worthless parasites on society which contribute nothing worthwhile at all apart from an administrative process for transferring money.
Diamond also says that banks should be allowed to fail and not be bailed out by the taxpayer. The man is clever. I’ll give him that. As clever as any cheap, wide boy, conman spiv. He says that Barclays took no money from the taxpayer but he knows full well that his own reckless, roulette wheel gambling was only possible because the taxpayer had no option but to stand behind him.
I will not shrink from the truth. Men like Bob Diamond are unfit to be in charge of banks. I would prefer him and his cronies to be in jail but I would be content with lifetime disqualification and, in his case, deportation.
The Robin Hood Tax
Isn’t Bill Nighy absolutely fantastic?
Go here for more information and to sign up to the campaign.
Banker Robbers Still On The Loose
If I considered it as the plot for my next novel, I would discard it immediately as being completely unbelieveable. It is outrageous. The story of the way the banks have wriggled and wormed away from their responsibilities is the biggest scandal the world has ever seen.
The Very Worst
Today the shameful figures are revealed of the number of complaints that our high street banks receive. See here. It is an appalling litany of failure and disrespect of customers. Complaints are at the very bottom of their priorities. They are inefficent. They have bonus systems that discourage staff from accepting complaints. Santander, which so many used to know as the Abbey or Alliance & Leicester, cannot manage to answer even half of its complaints within two months! It is shocking. It hasn’t got better since we all bailed them out. It’s got worse. Oh, except for the bonuses. They just get bigger and bigger all the time.
These problems, affecting the modest balances of ordinary people, may seem trivial in the context of the billions that the banks have already cost us but they are not. They are crucial. This is real money belonging to real people and needed to pay real bills. It’s not the cocaine, champagne, Ferrari fantasy of some City boy ponce. These figures indicate precisely the contempt, the utter disregard which bankers have for us even though it is we, ordinary people, who have been called on to rescue them from their catastrophic mistakes.
Actions Not Words!
Where is Vince Cable now? He is the biggest disappointment of the coalition government. His brave words as recently as the LibDem conference are all hot air. He has let us all down. His promises were empty.
We want the banks split up so that they are no longer too big to fail. Only today, in Ireland they are realising that their nation is still held to ransom by its bankers. So is ours.
We want retail and transaction banking separated entirely from casino investment banking so that there can be no more threat to our economy from the spivs and gamblers. We don’t want any of these sharks anywhere near our money. John Diamond, the putative new head of Barclays has made a £100 milion fortune on the back of the taxpayer and the banking crisis. He is not a fit and proper person to be in charge of a British bank. The government should ban him immediately.
Wide Boy Spiv
Late last year the Office of Fair Trading let the banks off a £40 billion hook. These were the extortionate charges illegally debited from customers’ accounts over the previous six years. See here. This was in addition to the £850 billion cost of the original bailout. See here.
How much more are they going to get away with?
When will David Cameron, Nick Clegg, George Osborne and Vince Cable stop dithering?
Stop the banker robbers now!
Barclays’ Biggest Banker Robber Plans Smash ‘n’ Grab On Britain
The Unacceptable Face Of Banking
We don’t want Bob Diamond in Britain. He’s to be the next chief executive at Barclays Bank. See here. He’s not the “right sort of chap” for us or, if you prefer, he doesn’t have “the right stuff” for Britain. He’s a wide boy and a high stakes gambler. We don’t want him anywhere near our banks, our savings or our overdrafts. Why can’t he just go back to the land of the free and the home of the brave and chowdown with all the other cowboys? He’s the wrong man for Britain.
It’s people like Bob Diamond who were directly responsible for the banking crisis and for bringing the world’s economy virtually to its knees. He won all his bets so he’s alright. Let’s be clear though, it’s his behaviour and those like him that is to blame for the massive cuts that we’re all facing. He has robbed our parents of their pensions, hamstringed our business world, destroyed our children’s jobs and sabotaged their children’s education. He is laughing all over his flabby, smug face at our expense.
He’s won a £100 million fortune on exactly the sort of gambling which has destroyed our economy.
Vince Cable should stop posturing. He was great in opposition but it seems, even in government, all he can do is snipe from the sidelines.
I say, deny Bob Diamond entry into Britain on the grounds that he would be a danger to the country. Barclays may claim that it has accepted no help from the taxpayer but its exploitative business model depends on blackmailing us with its size and importance to the economy, just like all the banks.
What we needed to do was clamp down hard on their excess, split them into smaller pieces, separate casino investment from banking services, force them into accountable lending policies, severly limit earnings levels and make it clear that they work for us, not vice versa.
We may already be too late. Britain’s banks continue to be out of control.
Banker Robbers Bonus Blackmail
We’re told that the banks have to pay big bonuses in order to retain and attract the right staff. We’re told that unless we shell out millions to these mysterious unnamed individuals, these “masters of the universe”, that we can kiss goodbye to the money we’ve already put in. We’ll be damaging our own investment.
Twaddle! Rubbish! Bulls**t! Bollo**s!
These people aren’t doctors or scientists or lawyers or architects – or even plumbers or electricians. They’re blaggers. Nothing more, nothing less. All they’re doing with these ridiculous claims is trying to blag us all over again. Their job is little different from that of an advertising salesman who sits on the phone all day and maybe makes £1000 or £2000 a week. In fact, many salesman have much wider knowledge, better people skills and sharper brains than these wide boys in the city that have nerve, greed and little else to offer.
This is just an attempt to blackmail us. There are tens of thousands of bright, keen, hungry people out there who could do these bankers’ jobs with very little difficulty. In fact, fresh new blood that hasn’t been corrupted by the past would be a much better idea. We could recruit from the world of advertising, from market traders flogging fruit, vegetables, meat, fish and “knock off”. Why not just pick a few MBA graduates at random or take the top banking graduates from last year and give them the big jobs?
Con Man
None of these people could do any worse than the sharks who got us into this trouble in the first place. Those, like Stephen Hester of RBS, who have taken over recently are no better. They’re still infected with the same ways as before. After Chief Thief Goodwin has had his turn in the trough they’re just elbowing through for their own go.
There is no special expertise or skill required to be a banker. Don’t let these charlatans and sons of charlatans tell you any different.
Don’t wait for the RBS directors’ resignations. Sack them now for having the audacity to try and pull the wool over our eyes once again.
Chav City
Bootiful
I have no sympathy at all for those stupid enough to have got themselves caught up in this vulgar triumph of cash over taste. By definition that means that the banks are heavily involved, once again debasing and diluting the real wealth created in the real world.
Something about Dubai had a bad taste from day one. The sort of acrid, bad taste that you know there’s something deep, deep down that is bad.
In fact that’s the only thing to say about Dubai – bad taste.
Peter Reynolds 
A Fundamental Problem At The BBC
with 3 comments
I am very close to being the BBC’s biggest fan. It is a remarkable and entirely unique institution. Somehow it occupies a place between the state and the people which I can find no comparison for. It would be easy to define it as some sort of socialist idea but it is genuinely independent from the state. I do, however, have some concerns about its accountability. I am very concerned about the way it handles complaints.
No Complaints Accepted Here
I have grown up with the BBC and I trust it. In fact, I think that it’s done a better job of maintaining Britishness and values of integrity, tolerance, fairness and justice than any UK government of any political complexion. That’s why the curmudgeons in all political parties turn against it. I think Jeremy Hunt’s recent attacks and comments were particularly poorly judged. He hasn’t a had a good start in government at all has he?
I made a complaint to the BBC recently and I am very, very unhappy about the way it has been handled. The subject is not relevant here. I shall write about it in future but for now it would distract from my point. I am horrified to discover that the BBC does not handle complaints itself. They are outsourced to Capita in Belfast which describes itself as “the UK’s leading outsourcing company…at the leading edge of redefining and transforming services to the public.” For me that needs a huge pinch of salt, a mountain in fact and even then I’m choking on it.
Handling complaints should be at the very heart of an organisation. It is the essence of your brand. There is no more important management function. Contracting them out is an abdication of responsibility. More than that, it is a complete failure of integrity, a massive mistake. If an organisation is truly committed to meeting its customers’ needs it must be as close to them as possible. This irresponsibility strikes at the very heart of everything I value about the BBC. I am deeply disillusioned.
If this disastrous decision had resulted in a well administered service then that might be some consolation but not a bit of it. It is dreadful. Every bit as bad as any horror story you’ve heard about British Gas, BT or yes, even a bank. This is the British consumer experience at its very worst.
Not What It Used To Be
In sharp contrast to the rest of the BBC’s websites, try making a complaint online. It’s like something from the very early days of the internet with clumsy, badly aligned fields and an archaic feel. I almost expect to hear a modem whistling away in the background. From a complainant’s point of view it’s quite useless. You don’t get any option to save a copy of your complaint or email it to yourself. You don’t even get an acknowledgement once you’ve completed it so you’re left with a completely unsatisfactory feeling of uncertainty. Did they get it or not? Will I get a reply? When?
It gets worse. Complaints are lost. They don’t get answered at all. They certainly don’t get answered within the 10 working days promised. One answer I received was just laughable in its anodyne, crass simplicity. It was nothing more than an patronising acknowledgement of what I was “unhappy about”.
Useless
I could go on even further but I won’t. It does get even worse and it becomes embarrassingly so when Capita start to trot out the oldest excuse of all about “system problems”. It is an excruciatingly bad, defining example of appalling customer service. I’d say it takes the biscuit.
All this is the inevitable result of outsourcing your complaints procedure. That aspect of business that should be one of your most important tools. What’s worse is that Capita are absolutely useless at doing the job.
It is no exaggeration to say that, for me, this rocks the very foundations of everything I believed about the BBC to the very core. It is not the organisation I thought it was. I feel betrayed. I am “disgusted of Tunbridge Wells”. In fact, I am very, very, very disgusted of Weymouth, Dorset.
Written by Peter Reynolds
August 12, 2010 at 2:37 pm
Posted in Business, Consumerism, Politics, technology, television, The Media
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