Gordon off the pace on bank debts

matthewcb

So Brown gives the banks £37 billion and *then* asks them to come clean?

It's obvious he's trying everything and anything to boost his popularity in the short term so that a snap election can be called.

louiser123

im not financially savvy enough to fully understand all the talk of the recession, but i do wonder if any other ideas were infact looked at by the idiot who is brown before it was decided on a bank bailout? i know something had to be done but i to be honest feel extremely peeved if not flamin angry that our money has gone to bail out these banks, they then stick the finger up at brown when they have the money and then here he goes again.

banks are a business just as any business, but these businesses have the public by the short and curlys and always have. everyone needs a bank account for salarys to go to, savings to placed so they are "safe" laughable statement that one i know!!! but safer than stashing under the matteress!!

i would have liked to see the banks go bust and start again with something new, something in the interests of us the general public. after all its our money these numpties are playing with!!

i know its far from that simple but it just seems to me like every other business that is in trouble has to call in the administrators and deal with it, banks however just go for tea at number ten with open hands and come out with a pot of our money!!! disgraceful!

Conrad

Can someone answer this for me?

The only categories of mortgage lending that have reduced are the risky categories, so is the Government initiative designed to reintroduce risky categories?

Generali

Conrad wrote: »

Can someone answer this for me?

The only categories of mortgage lending that have reduced are the risky categories, so is the Government initiative designed to reintroduce risky categories?

Yes. Which directly opposes the last 5 or so years of movement in regulation.

For a while now, regulation has been moving towards what is known as a 'risk based approach'. That is to say you look at your business, identify the potential risks and then try to see what would happen to your business if bad stuff happened.

Now some very bad stuff has happened that few people predicted which tells the banks using their now updated models that they took on too much risk. As a result they want to reduce their exposure to risky clients. The trouble is, the Government wants them to carry on lending to all and sundry as they think that this is the way to keep the economy going until the next election.

It looks like the Government will be a majority shareholder in most top tier UK retail banks by the end of 2009. As a result I guess they'll have the whip hand. That'll mean more lending to consumers and less to business.

Vote 'em out before they make a mess of things that just can't be fixed. Unfortunately, Cameron is no Thatcher. He's the best on offer right now though.

brightonman123

how can RBS have made such huge losses- wasnt the 21st bailout taken into account?

or are the directors totally incompetent / neglifent / fraudulent?

alarm bells must surely have rung early on. they have most of us by the balls, its now time for the FSA / govt / police maybe to take action to protect OUR banks.

Generali

brightonman123 wrote: »

how can RBS have made such huge losses- wasnt the 21st bailout taken into account?

or are the directors totally incompetent / neglifent / fraudulent?

alarm bells must surely have rung early on. they have most of us by the balls, its now time for the FSA / govt / police maybe to take action to protect OUR banks.

What action do you think could be taken, please?

Conrad

Generali wrote: »

Yes. Which directly opposes the last 5 or so years of movement in regulation.

Exactly.
I'm not sure anyone in Government has joined up the dots. The FSA preach responsible lending, so how will the circle be squared?

Take this key principle laid down by the FSA, it's one of 6 core 'Treating Customers Fairly' tenats;

'Where consumers recieve advice, the advice is SUITABLE"

Returning to responsible lending is at odds with Government aims, no?

Generali

Conrad wrote: »

Exactly.
I'm not sure anyone in Government has joined up the dots. The FSA preach responsible lending, so how will the circle be squared?

Take this key principle laid down by the FSA, it's one of 6 core 'Treating Customers Fairly' tenats;

'Where consumers recieve advice, the advice is SUITABLE"

Returning to responsible lending is at odds with Government aims, no?

Joining the dots is a good way to put things I think. It's like there's this massive panic where ministers are trying to plug holes in a dam (damn???) rather than thinking about what the problem really is and what can be done about it.

savemoney

Its absolutely scandalous that RBS is allowed to get tax payers money for bad debts. Most of it last year was because they paid well over the odds for a ABN Amro in Holland

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1121365/RBS-loses-28billion-YEAR-Darling-warns-British-economy-collapse-second-bank-bailout-fails.html

Let them go

bubblesmoney

baby_boomer wrote: »

Times - Gordon plays the patriotic card on bank lending

The man who for 12 years has sat at the head of the financial regulation system for the UK pretends to be shocked that 80% of UK bank lending went abroad.

Where did he think the banks had been making the £billions that he raked off to the Treasury while he supported the City and praised it for being an international leader :rotfl:

And here's Liam Halligan in the Times reiterating his stance that the banks should fess up

".......this ghastly episode will only end once senior bank executives are forced, under threat of custodial sentence, to FULLY DISCLOSE to one another and the authorities, on the basis of all available evidence, the extent of their sub-prime liabilities.I accept that's not easy. The toxic debts have been sliced, diced and securitised – then sold on many times. Millions of trades must be unravelled, often across international borders.

But this onerous task must be done. Then the losses must be written-off. Only after such purging will the banks begin to rebuild mutual trust – allowing the interbank market to reboot, so restoring the credit lines that are so vital to the broader economy. And all this needs to happen BEFORE more public money is spent recapitalising our banking sector.

I know what I'm saying is drastic. But this is a drastic situation. In the UK and US, in particular, the banks aren't playing ball. They think they're more powerful than our elected officials, and for the last six months they have been getting away with hiding losses and burying mistakes while screwing many billions of pounds out of taxpayers......"

brown seems to be surprised does he???

It was also discovered that RBS, which could reveal losses of up to £30 billion, was part of a group that offered a £2.8 billion loan to Oleg Deripaska. The oligarch, who has links to Lord Mandelson, the Business Secretary, and met George Osborne, the Shadow Chancellor, in Corfu last summer, used the money to buy the Russian metals firm, Norilsk Nickel.

wasnt this the same deripaska that browns present hatchet man when he was in the EU gave selective tax breaks so that only deripaskas company got a monopoly exporting aluminium to the EU earning him nearly 50million a year extra just in tax breaks forget the extra money earned as a monopoly with exclusive tax breaks. Look at the pot calling the kettle black.