Peter Reynolds

The life and times of Peter Reynolds

Posts Tagged ‘gambler

Banker Robbers Still On The Loose

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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

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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.