ARmy Rumour SErvice

Originally Posted by alib

And duck houses, do get a sense of proportion. Is there one case involving millions? Did this mostly petty stuff really threaten the entire British economy with collapse?

With the banks we are talking about a billion here, a billion there and then sometimes even the sort of real money the Irish state's been left holding the tab for due to a systematic culture of appallingly low ethics that the same state has chosen not to criminalize in the way Iceland did. They've only pursued a few developers who look more like victims of unscrupulous banking practices in some cases. On the other hand our senior politicians seem to be able to get away with trousering brown envelopes with an immunity denied British MP's who feel the need of a bit of tax payer assistance with moat cleaning.

The banks, "a few developers" - who bought the products? EVERYONE was loving the free money in both the UK and ROI and jumped into the property market feet first.

Millions bought into the bubble - only a few get the blame. In some ways I don't blame the bankers I blame the people that bought their products thinking that a four bed was really worth 5 X the average local salary.

Caveat Emptor and all that Latin type stuff IMO.

Originally Posted by FARMBOY

The banks, "a few developers" - who bought the products? EVERYONE was loving the free money in both the UK and ROI and jumped into the property market feet first.

Millions bought into the bubble - only a few get the blame. In some ways I don't blame the bankers I blame the people that bought their products thinking that a four bed was really worth 5 X the average local salary.

Caveat Emptor and all that Latin type stuff IMO.

The idiot who kept on peddlingt the nonsense that he'd personnelly ended "Boom and Bust" and was personnlly respsonsible for this mass wealth sharing pontz scheme..?

Originally Posted by Kitmarlowe

The idiot who kept on peddlingt the nonsense that he'd personnelly ended "Boom and Bust" and was personnlly respsonsible for this mass wealth sharing pontz scheme..?

Agreed. Broon helped but markets are driven by the activity of individuals, nobody made people take on debt or mortgages that were not sustainable - Broon may have encouraged the gullible to believe that boom and bust had gone, but good old human greed helped many into the mindset where it's easier to blame the bankers rather than themselves for the personal financial mess they are in.

All will be corrected. Buy farm land and gold. Out.

Originally Posted by FARMBOY

The banks, "a few developers" - who bought the products? EVERYONE was loving the free money in both the UK and ROI and jumped into the property market feet first.

Millions bought into the bubble - only a few get the blame. In some ways I don't blame the bankers I blame the people that bought their products thinking that a four bed was really worth 5 X the average local salary.

Caveat Emptor and all that Latin type stuff IMO.

That's very liberal of you, spreading the blame so widely, I get it, society is to blame gov, that ain't a fair cop. I'm sure you apply that to drug dealers as well.

Thing is if you bought a four bed at the height of the Irish boom you are probably in serious financial trouble and are paying for your sins. You may well be being sued by the same bank for non-payment of a mortgage that if they had shown any due diligence would never have been offered. These are now largely state owned institutions which you are basically working a day a week to pay up the vast debt they racked up to foreign bondholder.

Meanwhile the eigits who eagerly loaned you and 20% of the Irish homeowners the money that kept those prices rocketing up are mostly fat and happy employees who made very nice bonuses off loans only a fool would consider prudent. There's been no mass firing of senior people who are either incompetent or rogues let alone prosecutions and they are only slightly less comfortable now.

Life isn't fair of course but the young couple who were desperate to get on a soaring property ladder have learnt their lesson the hard way, they're wiped out and they'll likely die poor miserable pensioners who are painfully careful with money. I see no reason at all why I would not do the same thing again in the bankers very expensive loafers. Never give a sucker an even break and if you have a whole polity of suckers so willing just to turn the other cheek repeatedly you are going to do what comes natural and fuck them.

I don't blame the bankers, they're victims of a set of vastly generous incentives and low risks of personal loss that few could resist, the flesh is weak and men sin. They were larger actors in a moment of exuberantly foolish capitalism who enjoy a very privileged position having ideologically captured government. It's a bit like being a Priest in Dev's theocracy, treated with immense respect by fawning Culchies, the worst they risk for tampering with a pretty choirboy is a confrontation with an angry parent, a slap on the wrist from the Bishop and a Parish move, with new sensuous opportunities ever few years. And the good times rolled on and on for decades. It's the servile eigit who like mothers in deference to Father Murphy's status blame the sinful tempting child and insist there nothing fundamentally wrong with the status quo that I find a mite perplexing.

Originally Posted by Krek_Brizzle

The article failed to mention that in China fraud, embezzlement, bribery, counterfeiting etc. are indeed on the list of things one can be executed for. Do we think China is becoming more or less corrupt?

More corrupt, since you ask. Do much business there do you?

Originally Posted by alib

That's very liberal of you, spreading the blame so widely, I get it, society is to blame gov, that ain't a fair cop. I'm sure you apply that to drug dealers as well.

Thing is if you bought a four bed at the height of the Irish boom you are probably in serious financial trouble and are paying for your sins. You may well be being sued by the same bank for non-payment of a mortgage that if they had shown any due diligence would never have been offered. These are now largely state owned institutions which you are basically working a day a week to pay up the vast debt they racked up to foreign bondholder.

Meanwhile the eigits who eagerly loaned you and 20% of the Irish homeowners the money that kept those prices rocketing up are mostly fat and happy employees who made very nice bonuses off loans only a fool would consider prudent. There's been no mass firing of senior people who are either incompetent or rogues let alone prosecutions and they are only slightly less comfortable now.

Life isn't fair of course but the young couple who were desperate to get on a soaring property ladder have learnt their lesson the hard way, they're wiped out and they'll likely die poor miserable pensioners who are painfully careful with money. I see no reason at all why I would not do the same thing again in the bankers very expensive loafers. Never give a sucker an even break and if you have a whole polity of suckers so willing just to turn the other cheek repeatedly you are going to do what comes natural and fuck them.

I don't blame the bankers, they're victims of a set of vastly generous incentives and low risks of personal loss that few could resist, the flesh is weak and men sin. They were larger actors in a moment of exuberantly foolish capitalism who enjoy a very privileged position having ideologically captured government. It's a bit like being a Priest in Dev's theocracy, treated with immense respect by fawning Culchies, the worst they risk for tampering with a pretty choirboy is a confrontation with an angry parent, a slap on the wrist from the Bishop and a Parish move, with new sensuous opportunities ever few years. And the good times rolled on and on for decades. It's the servile eigit who like mothers in deference to Father Murphy's status blame the sinful tempting child and insist there nothing fundamentally wrong with the status quo that I find a mite perplexing.

Slightly tangental to bring in the Roman Church, seems we have a lot to thank Henry VIII for this side of the water. I like being called a liberal too.

Here's the thing, in the last round of serious economic unpleasantness (early nineties) I made lots of silly financial decisions, buying a range of financial products that with hindsight were sheer lunacy, and guess what it was ALL MY FAULT, no one made me do it. Yes the banks made the products but I made the decisions and I did the sums, or so I thought..........

By the way this desparate young man learnt his lessons and in reality was not ruined for life but took about six to seven years to get back on his feet and develop a sound financial knowledge (IMO ) that prevented him from making the same mistakes with similar products in the last housing boom. Retirement does not worry me for similar reasons. The same steep learning curve will apply to the current crop of late twenty somethings and most will learn and some will not come the next housing boom.

Originally Posted by Bouillabaisse

I've always felt that there should be more to this risk/reward system that bankers seem to have. After all, they claim that they get the big bonuses (boni?) as a reward for the big risks they take, but there seems to be little come back for failure. It must be possible to make a league table of bankers - there's a handy metric in how much money they make. At the end of every financial year the worst performing person should be taken out in front of the Bank of England and shot.

I never understood how they justified describing themselves as 'the risk-takers'.

In their professional capacity, it's other people's money they're playing with and it's those people who're taking the risks.

If they're making the same decisions on their own private investments then they're doing so in a private capacity and their reward is any return on their investment, not linked to their salaries, bonuses or any other professional remuneration.

So what 'risk' are they actually taking in their professional lives? Nothing as risk is understood by the ordinary bloke and blokess, so far as I can see.

If it's been sent from my HTC Sensation using Tapatalk then I'm probably pissed.

On Naked Capitalism Are Handcuffs Needed for the Libor Scandal to Register With Bank Perps?

This points out just Bob Diamonds recent ejection from Barclays was a stiff enough dose of jeopardy to make banking CEOs look to their shaky houses more seriously. It's the moral hazard of there being really no hazard for the big fish that was worrying after Lehman.