Tuesday 10 February 2009

Another day, another massive bank loss

Can our collective nerves can take much more of this stress?

The roll call of banks reporting losses continues. Today, it was again the turn of UBS, who reported a fourth quarter loss of £4.7 billion - some SwFr8.1 billion.

As each quarter passes, and as the losses keep piling up, it is becoming increasingly obvious that banks were rotten to the core. There was nothing there but smoke, mirrors and some very large bonus payments.

There are some banks, who in the last year, have reported losses equivalent to the profits they reported in the previous 30 years. During those years, bankers took away countless billions in salaries. Today, they have left it to the public sector to clear up the mess. We will be paying for these scams for generations.

It is so unjust, so outrageous that it can not stand.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yes they did take the money, they also paid their taxes and the govts racked in massive monies as well.

It turns out it was a embrace of death.

Anonymous said...

But the embrace encompasses us all.

Anonymous said...

Anger is going to boil over.

Mitch said...

So HMG got its tax(small amount),the bankers got their cash and everyone else gets to pay for the rest of their lives.....hhhmmm thats fair.

Man in a Shed said...

Widespread anger combined with a crisis and distrust of insituions is a heady mix.

I wonder who is planning to take advatnage of this ?

Anonymous said...

@ Mitch: Not only did the bankers get their bonuses, the govt their extra tax revenue to spray around like champagne, but the public got cheap debt for over 10 years, allowing them to spend like a drunken sailor in a whorehouse.

It wasn't bankers and the govt who bought all those plasma TVs, or went on 3 or 4 holidays per year, or became 2 or 3 car households. That was the credit card holders, the mortgage equity withdrawers, the unsecured loaners. It was the buy now, pay 2027 brigade.

And even if you didn't do the excess yourself, you benefited from a society that was growing well above its trend growth level, for 10+ years. Your employer did better, you got promotion, a better salary, a bigger car. It was easy to get a new job, at better money. Or if you were self-employed there was work everywhere, so much so you had to price jobs too high just to try and discourage people. I saw all of that happen, to people I know.

We are all so some extent complicit, because very few of us took the steps to profit from the crash, which we all could have done. Who sold to rent in 06/07? Who sold their stocks in 07? Who shorted the market in 08? Who shorted the pound at $2? Who bought gold at $250/oz? Because if you did you wouldn't be complaining now. If you didn't you must have expected things to continue as they were. And hence you're not much different to the bankers and the govt.

Anonymous said...

you have to agree with sobers.
everybody benefited from the system to some extent.
one must admit that economic systems are just like civilizations, human beings, suns or galaxies. they die of exhaustion.

the current system is exhausted, as lots of other ones did before. there will be something new and different, and it wont last forever either.