Jail Reckless Bankers?

RobTang

Generali wrote: »

Why would a railway stop running because of bankruptcy? Rangers still play football in the same infrastructure having been wound up.

A railway is vastly more expensive to run than a football club.

You're going to loose a massive portion of your staff to start with, pretty soon your not going to have enough maintenance crews to keep things running, so there will be less and less working trains to actually bring money in.

Then you have to convince your primary supplies (say electric and diesel) to continue to supply you without possibility of payment, all they need to do is stop supplying you and all the trains are dead.

antrobus

RobTang wrote: »

A railway is vastly more expensive to run than a football club.

You're going to loose a massive portion of your staff to start with, pretty soon your not going to have enough maintenance crews to keep things running, so there will be less and less working trains to actually bring money in.

Then you have to convince your primary supplies (say electric and diesel) to continue to supply you without possibility of payment, all they need to do is stop supplying you and all the trains are dead.

None of which actually happened in practice.

P.S. Am I the only one who realises that the UK railway system has actually gone bankrupt in living memory.

P.S.S. OK entered 'railway administration'. Same difference if you ask me tho'.

macaque_2

Generali wrote: »

At the same time a bank director has a fiduciary duty to shareholders. They need to make as much money as they can for shareholders.

Banking is largely about risk and reward; you can no more remove risk from banking than you can from road crossing.

A lot of the problems were caused by banks outsourcing risk to ratings agencies. That was a stupid decision with hindsight. I don't recall many saying in 2005 or something that Moody's et al were using broken models.

If banks had given a jot for anyone beyond an inner clique of overpaid sociopaths, things would not be in such mess for everyone. I know a lot of shareholders (and ex shareholders of crippled nationalised banks) will agree with this. I also suspect that you agree with this as well.

CLAPTON

RobTang wrote: »

A railway is vastly more expensive to run than a football club.

You're going to loose a massive portion of your staff to start with, pretty soon your not going to have enough maintenance crews to keep things running, so there will be less and less working trains to actually bring money in.

Then you have to convince your primary supplies (say electric and diesel) to continue to supply you without possibility of payment, all they need to do is stop supplying you and all the trains are dead.

No, the receivers/administrators would continue to run the railway and then sell it at whatever price the market decides.

Railways have a good cash flow and a ready captive market; obviouly share holders are wiped out and existing suppliers would take a haircut but new bills could be paid quite easily.

With the banks it was abit different as there weren't ready buyers and making them bandrupt would ruin a lot of 'innocent' companies and create huge unemployment

ruggedtoast

Jail ALL bankers.

Even retail bankers, cashiers and those who work in the bureau de change of.the post office.

Tough on bankers. Tough on the causes of bankers.

chewmylegoff

What we need is Tom Cruise. Connect him to a Bloomberg terminal and he'll be able to see into the future to work out which bankers, traders and assorted spivs will gamble recklessly and create massive losses leading to bailouts which result in taxpayer money funded bonuses. Then a SWAT team can abseil through the dealing floor windows and summarily execute the relevant individuals.

CLAPTON

chewmylegoff wrote: »

What we need is Tom Cruise. Connect him to a Bloomberg terminal and he'll be able to see into the future to work out which bankers, traders and assorted spivs will gamble recklessly and create massive losses leading to bailouts which result in taxpayer money funded bonuses. Then a SWAT team can abseil through the dealing floor windows and summarily execute the relevant individuals.

well

that is a more realistic proposal than many expressed on this thread.

grizzly1911

CLAPTON wrote: »

slightly pointelss, but if a supplier removed a key bit of track they would be charged with theft and probably attempted murder.

Romalpa? Stop sign?

CLAPTON

grizzly1911 wrote: »

Romalpa? Stop sign?

ok,

without a court order then

theft, criminal damage, attempted (or maybe actual) murder and trespass

thor

John1993 wrote: »

If we take Northern Rock as an example, it was probably only a handful of people there who decided to try to increase profitability by lending long-term and covering it in the short-term cash markets. With hindsight it was foolish, but was it really criminal? Do you think that anyone doing it knew it would end in disaster but just went ahead?

Well considering how well paid they were, they should have foreseen the problem they were causing. If not then why do they get paid so much? The apologists always claim that without the big bucks they could not attract the talent but you could pay any Tom, !!!!!! or harry the nmw to lose billions. Since 2008 Sir Fred and his chums have proven paying over the top is no guarantee of success.
Anyway being a banker is not that hard, all you need is luck which is why it is often likened to gambling.