I like the sound of this.....criminal prosecutions for bankers. The boy from Eton wants the Old Bill to take a look at some of those merchants in the city.
David Cameron last night expressed disbelief that financial watchdogs were not pursuing criminal investigations against banks and bankers who have caused the financial crisis. He compared the vigorous nature of inquiries in America to the lack of action among the City authorities. It is the furthest the Conservative leader has gone in demanding closer examination of any potential illegal behaviour by bankers.
He also claimed that Britain was now "the most indebted nation on earth". Mr Cameron told Jeff Randall Live on Sky News: "I think that we need to look at the behaviour of banks and bankers and, where people have behaved inappropriately, that needs to be identified and if anyone has behaved criminally, in my view, there is a role for the criminal law and I don't understand why is this country the regulatory authorities seem to be doing so little to investigate it, whereas in America they're doing quite a lot."
(From the Telegraph)
But does Dave mean it, or is he playing to the gallery?
17 comments:
Alice,
America is not only doing little to punish the banks and bankers, the politicians here are aiding the bankers with the looting.
Be example, CONgress just allowed the 2nd half of the TARP to be issued - $350 billion!
The first $350 billion was wasted propping up insolvent financial institutions, paying year end financial employee bonuses and paying dividends to stock and bond holders of financial companies.
What a sham.
In a fractional reserve system the reserve ratio controls the amount of debt/credit in the system.
Regulators lowered the reserve requirements of banks and thus increased the amount of credit in the system.
Banks then allocated that credit, and it sunk into economically harmful rent-seeking (as LVTers would expect).
The only criminal action was the recklessness of regulators in keeping the purchasing power of their currency stable.
The trail would lead to the treasury and that will never be allowed to happen will it?
Where does he get info on US from?
"Vigorous nature" ??? of what, passing gas???
A huge responsibility is on part of the media, that produce bubbling nonsense instead of reasoned presentation and discussion of difficult issues.
Proceeds of crime act. Confiscate the ill gotten bonuses accumulated on the back of fraud. Its not just for drug dealers.
I agree with Anticitizone1.
Both sides of the House failed on this issue of holding the regulators to account. How on EARTH could average house prices exceed 10x average earnings and not ring alarm bells in the corridors of Westminster ?
You knew it, I knew it, various other sites knew it ...
I feel that it's far more important to focus the fire on the politicians over this - especially Gordon Brown. Otherwise we muddy the waters, diffuse the blame and end up doing exactly what the politicians want us to - nothing.
My only hope is that this depression provides the impetus for people who truly care about our country to step up to the plate.
Of course he doesn't mean it. It is cynical playing to the gallery. Action against the instigators of tripartite supervision though.... that would be welcome
In the U.S., we have systemic corruption in finance and politics.
They are becoming one and the same.
And they both serve and profit from the credit monster. If the beast is not fed new interest via credit expansion, the system will implode.
Did young Dave have Nikky Rothschild's ok to say all this? If not he might find his head in his hands toplay wothone of these days.
oops: to play with one of ..
Sorry, sticky fingers
Brown is either totally thick or in bed with the bankers.
His miracle economy could not have existed without banks lending 10X earnings to fuel the housing bubble.
So, he either just went along with it and everyone though he was a wonderful chancellor or he actively encouraged reckless lending.
The hype was akin to a pyramid scheme and as we know, all these go bust at the end... maybe Gordon thought it would go on for ever... thick tw4t !
I was warning well over a year ago that there'd be a witchhunt against the City. There's no way the government or the public sector would take responsibility for the collapse. And no way they'd give back all the taxes they took off the banks on the way up.
Banks are always an easy target for a populist revolt. People love lending money but hate paying it back. Having spent it, they'll accept any excuse to default on their obligations
"borrowing", obviously.
"And no way they'd give back all the taxes they took off the banks on the way up"
RBS has had its taxes back and then some. I wonder if i can recoup mine for the past ten years?
Lets see how many people they actually convict.... Bets on some trivial violation being found? I wonder if they'll be prosecuting people who lied on loan applications with the same vigour?
roym, RBS paid around 10.5 billion pounds in corporation tax in four years from 2004 to 2007. Can't see figures for the NI business contributions and rates etc.
RBS got around 19bn, of which it has to guarantee to give out 6bn in loans. I bet if you total up all the tax RBS has been directly and indirectly responsible for - ie income tax, rates, VAT, CGT etc - that the government still comes out net plus over 3-5 years.
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