When Bankers Were Good: BBC2 Tues 9pm

1984ReturnsForReal_2

Wheezy wrote: »

Yes, but bendix and John Pierpoints' mate are outside the UK and BBC Iplayer only works on a UK IP address I believe.
I can't watch it at work either cos I'm on a US IP
Solution is to go through a proxy server with UK IP

Ah

Great. Now he can watch it because you told him how.

Thank you for all your help. I am sure Bendi will also thank you personally for the opportunity you have given him to educate himself.

John_Pierpoint

How do we do that?

wouldbeqaulitymoneysaver

Just look at the Bystander Pages of Tatler and you will see zillions of Social Events attended by Bankers, initiated by Bankers who engage in philanthropic acts.
*This is nothing special* This is a misleading PR job by the BBC for their pals the Bankers one of whom did the first Business Lecture namely our cuddly Pal Bob Diamond.

kabayiri

1984ReturnsForReal wrote: »

...
Thank you for all your help. I am sure Bendi will also thank you personally for the opportunity you have given him to educate himself.

Marketeers never thank IT or engineering sub-humans.

Have you never watched that documentary called 'The IT Crowd' ?

Kennyboy66

bendix wrote: »

No. I didnt see the program as I no longer live in the UK.

So let me understand. We have now gone to a position that because modern life is less religious than in the 19th century, ipso facto, bankers must be less religious.

Well, yes, I accept that.

But it is a quantum leap away from Real1984's ludicrous original assertion that modern bankers don't believe in heaven. Why pick out bankers: why not just say, most people today don't believe in heaven?

There is another point where the logic is so weak as to be embarassing. Yes, there were numerous leading industrialists who did good works during that time, including bankers. Similarly, there were numerous who didn't, but they didn't have Ian Hislop making a program about them.

How is that any different from today?

charitable giving was 10% of income victorian times, it is now about 2%. Accepting the point that taxation play a huge part, it is still a bit different from today.

In addition the wealthy give less as a proportion of their income then average (despite having the advantage that they can claim back higher rate tax on their giving).

Labour's share of GDP has fallen in all OECD countries since 1975 and income inequality has soared (echoes of 1920's).

Could you explain how the current mess is caused by the Unions.

Or was it just a trite truism?

dtsazza

Kennyboy66 wrote: »

charitable giving was 10% of income victorian times, it is now about 2%. Accepting the point that taxation play a huge part, it is still a bit different from today.

Absolutely - especially when you consider that taxes are mainly mandated charity, since the majority of one's contribution to the exchequer goes on benefits, pensions, schools, hospitals, etc. for the benefit of society at large. (While taxpayers will get some benefits from this contribution (e.g. roads, criminal justice system) I think it's fair to say that a 50% taxpayer would not be receiving direct services in excess of a fifth of that payment.)

So in the old days, you'd pay around 10% tax and then give a further 10% to charity, for a 20% donation.

Now a high earner is mandated to give 40% to "charity" by law, and then contributes 2% above that, for a 42% donation.

In addition the wealthy give less as a proportion of their income then average (despite having the advantage that they can claim back higher rate tax on their giving).

I bet that's not true once you include the donations to/subsidy from the state - since according to a recent BBC article even the median earner was a net recipient of state funds.

dtsazza

John_Pierpoint wrote: »

We have ended up with a world where in the (say) foreign exchange market, there is far more money moving about than the volume of underlying real physical world trade.

This money is looking for perceived imbalances in the world economy and, driven by greed and competition, descends on weakened, possibly bloated societies, rips them to pieces ready for reconstruction.

It is like watching a packs of wolves attacking a flock of fat or sick sheep.

The metaphor of the markets "attacking" is used quite a lot, and there's a degree of truth in it.

However, what's seldom mentioned is that this is only possible to the extent that the target relies on the markets, and makes themselves dependent on them.

For example, take Italy's recent issues with bond yields. Several leading figures (including members of the ECB) criticised the markets for being "predatory", or other negative adjerctives.

Yet the fact remains that Italy was only in this position because they assumed that they would be able to roll over their bonds. They had borrowed money from the market, which they knew was coming due, and had not planned to pay it back but instead relied on being able to reborrow money from the bond markets. And as far as I can tell, they had no contingency plan in place, for if people didn't want to lend at rates Italy deemed acceptable.

If instead they had arranged to have the money to pay back the bonds when they were due (perhaps taking them out over a longer period if they knew this wouldn't be possible under the original term) - there would be no issue at all.


They were only able to be "attacked" because they made a guess at future market sentiment, staked their entire plan on it, and got it wrong.

John_Pierpoint

dtsazza wrote: »

Now a high earner is mandated to give 40% to "charity" by law, and then contributes 2% above that, for a 42% donation.

According to a recent BBC article even the median earner was a net recipient of state funds.

I just cannot begin to believe the last paragraph, unless the printing presses are working a lot more overtime than I thought.

The reality is that some measures of "Government" expenditure conveniently forget all the mandatory payments, that are really additional tax and take the government spending (taxed or simply printed) close to 50% of GDP. Stealth taxes we all think we know about?
Add:
Payments to the European Union (2.5% of VAT?)? Payments to local government? Parking fees? Speeding fines? meals on wheels? BBC License fee? Self funding agencies issuing permits and checking regulations? PFI (a superb way of mortgaging our children's futures)? Surcharges on energy bills? Carbon permits?

One hell of a lot of extra "mandatory un-mitigated payments" have appeared on our lives, in areas that used to be free. "Perks" that used to be free of tax are now turning the income tax system into the world's second most complex, that nobody understands.

But it is managing to "extract the maximum feathers with the minimum of squawking" from most of the people most of the time.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/interactive/2011/oct/26/public-spending-uk-government-department

vivatifosi

That's a fantastic graphic. Thanks John.

purch

That's a fantastic graphic

It's a graph ?

I thought the missus had slipped a mild Hallucinogenic into my expresso :eek: