Sunday 15 February 2009

FSA and the price of failure

Michael Fallon, MP for Sevenoaks and deputy chairman of the Treasury Select Committee, on the UK Banking crisis and the FSA.....

In the end, this was a failure of regulation and of government. Take Brown’s own creation, the Financial Services Authority (FSA). This super-quango employs 2,500 staff, costs us a staggering £415 million a year, and is supposed to supervise the banks. So far, five out of the big 10 banks have crashed – that’s some supervision.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well whaddya know !

Fred said...

The regulators have been a disaster and not fit for purpose.

The ratings agencies have been a disaster and not fit for purpose.

The accountants doing the audits are a disaster and not fit for purpose.

The political and judicial oversight has been bafflingly stupid and destructive.

As ever your blog hits the nail on the head.

It IS good hear a politician be honest about this. It may not warm me to his party but it gives me hope for democracy.

Mitch said...

It strikes me that the FSA did exactly what gordon wanted, stop people noticing what was going on after all if your dog don't bark then there is no burglar about that's what he does.
If your dog has been "dealt with" then he can steal what he wants unmolested.

Anonymous said...

"Owners of capital will stimulate the working class to buy more and more expensive goods, houses and technology, pushing them to take more and more expensive credits, until debt becomes unbearable. The unpaid debt will lead to the bankruptcy of banks, which will have to be nationalized, and the State will have to take the road which will eventually lead to Communism. "

Karl Marx, 1867

Anonymous said...

@Yundansha not kidding?

Timing is always a problem in prediction!

Anonymous said...

Jo, There is some concern that Y's quote is a hoax put about by some clever Dick in the City some time ago. There is also much discussion elsewhere that the word "technology" may not in fact have existed in 1867.

Anonymous said...

Brown should resign - simple as that.
He took credit for the UK's booming economy which was a sham as it wasn't built on anything more solid than hype !

Anonymous said...

Popper @ 08.39

Indeed. This quote cannot be found in Marx's work Das Kapital 1867

The whole and real quote is “The owners of capital will
stimulate the need of the working class to take expensive, collateral loans
to buy their condos, houses and flat screen TVs; and, at the end,
these unpaid debts will result in the nationalization of the banks upon
their bankrupcy, and so the state will be on the pathway to communism from which only Obama can save the free world.”

Anonymous said...

Erm, who said the FSA failed?

As far as I can tell, the FSA did exactly what the FSA was intended to do... i.e. remove the oversight of the BoE from the financial system.

Anonymous said...

@Yud: Thanks - I knew I had seen it somwhere!