Corridors of Power and Drug-taking Methodists

TruckerT

Yet another ruling body has been shown to be incompetent, and/or corrupt.

It started with the banks (who continue to be a ruling body, despite continuing revelations about their illegal activities), and then there was the MP expenses rip-off. The NHS is clearly an extremely risky proposition, and the Police are no better. HMRC apparently do deals with mega tax avoiders, whilst benefit claimants can't even get through on the phone. Now we learn that the FSA allowed somebody with banking experience similar to Terry Wogan's to take over an ethically run bank.

I understand that FSA has been superseded, but what difference will that make?

TruckerT

michaels

Apparently he had good connections within the Labour party though so obviously he was a suitable candidate, after all if a third in history makes you a suitable candidate to be chancellor....

Loughton_Monkey

None of this surprises me.

I once did some consultancy work for a British arm of a North American 'Friendly Society/Insurance Company', which positioned itself as having extremely high moral values.

My first observation was the nature of its main product - a Universal Life Policy - the likes of which I have never seen before. To call it a 'rip off' would be a huge understatement. The hidden charges were tremendous, and the headline 'flexibility' was a misnomer. The newest units were charged at astronomical %ages and any withdrawal forced full loss of newer units with penalties, rather than the older units that had paid their charges.

The company always sponsored a charity. The year I was there it was Esther's 'Child Abuse'. The American CEO was eventually dismissed for (a) general expense fiddles, (b) a long standing affair with his 'Fraternal Director[ess]', and (c) the annual 'incentive trip' for the 12 top salesmen [nicknamed the Dirty Dozen'] for which during the relevant year, they had gone to Thailand and outlandishly laundered the invoices for child prostitues through the books.

After the dismissal, the UK board was embroiled in regular board meetings aimed at recovering 'credibility'. I didn't know most of the external members of the board, but on my very last day, while outside having a smoke, I glanced into the window of one of the directors' cars. It was strewn with girlie magazines, the likes of which only come mailed in brown paper envelopes. These, however, had the wrappings removed. Being the helpful guy I am, I got the receptionist outside, showed her, and left it to her to phoone upstairs and 'give advice' to the car owner.

antrobus

Ah yes, the Crystal Methodist.:)

Quite a scandal really, news just in confirms that the chairman of the Co-Op has felt obliged to resign over the issue. The Treasury Select Committee appears very upset. . The Rev Flowers has been suspended from the Labour Party and there are mentions of a £50k bung to Ed Balls.

There may be repercussions.

TruckerT

antrobus wrote: »

Ah yes, the Crystal Methodist.:)

Quite a scandal really, news just in confirms that the chairman of the Co-Op has felt obliged to resign over the issue. The Treasury Select Committee appears very upset. . The Rev Flowers has been suspended from the Labour Party and there are mentions of a £50k bung to Ed Balls.

There may be repercussions.

It would be nice to think that any repercussion will not be a taxpayer funded £multimillion inquiry, whose forlorn brief will be, yet again, to find a way to ensure that 'it can never happen again'.


Other news just in is that the Ministry of Justice has, for the last 7 years or so, been handing over many millions of pounds to G4S in return for services which were never provided. I would like to add the Ministry of Justice to my original list of incompetent/corrupt ruling bodies.


TruckerT

Loughton_Monkey

antrobus wrote: »

Ah yes, the Crystal Methodist.:)

Quite a scandal really, news just in confirms that the chairman of the Co-Op has felt obliged to resign over the issue. The Treasury Select Committee appears very upset. . The Rev Flowers has been suspended from the Labour Party and there are mentions of a £50k bung to Ed Balls.

There may be repercussions.

Quote of the day goes to Brookes Newmark of the Treasury Select Committee:

“The Rev Flowers’s judgment was clearly impaired if he was prepared to give Ed Balls £50,000. Mr Balls should now ask himself whether it is right to accept that money, and consider giving it back.”

TruckerT

Loughton_Monkey wrote: »

Quote of the day goes to Brookes Newmark of the Treasury Select Committee:

Please tell me you made up the name Brookes Newmark!


TruckerT

Loughton_Monkey

TruckerT wrote: »

Please tell me you made up the name Brookes Newmark!


TruckerT

It gets worse: Brooks Phillip Victor Newmark is American and a critic of QE.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooks_Newmark

Cornucopia

This issue is possibly, ultimately one of our society's greatest failings - it encompasses so much that is just plain wrong.

I see it in many large organisations who start with an almost imperceptible shift in values away from serving the customer and delivering shareholder value to a kind of corporate self-defensive naval-gazing. Once the organisation has made this shift, it begins to see external factors (including its customers) as peripheral to its prime purpose: self-belief and self-aggrandisement.

When "issues" arise its natural response ceases to be the normal, human reaction of sorrow or regret for what it has/has not done, and a healthy practical desire to sort things out. Instead, there are new priorities of denial of the issue, denial of the importance of the issue, denial of technical culpability for the issue, challenging the veracity and motives of the complainant, challenging the role of the regulator, and ultimately seeking to do anything and everything which avoids being forced to recognise the flaws of the organisation and setting out to fix them.

I used to see it as mere cynicism, but it seems to run deeper than that now that the rot has migrated from the private to the public sector, and into the very regulators and watchdogs that were intended to enforce artificial integrity (in the very real absence of the genuine article).

Scrootum

Do we know who at the FSA gave the nod on his appointment?

Loughton_Monkey

Cornucopia wrote: »

This issue is possibly, ultimately one of our society's greatest failings - it encompasses so much that is just plain wrong.

I see it in many large organisations who start with an almost imperceptible shift in values away from serving the customer and delivering shareholder value to a kind of corporate self-defensive naval-gazing. Once the organisation has made this shift, it begins to see external factors (including its customers) as peripheral to its prime purpose: self-belief and self-aggrandisement.......

Throughout my career, I has personally witnessed an awful lot of "sleaze" by my bosses. Not (in most cases - except for two extremely noteable ones) the type normally reportable to regulators, but more of the type that 'the board' would dislike. Most frequent and typical is on the sales side. Evidence of mis-selling is now well known, and blind eyes were always turened.

On a smaller, but insidious note, many sales directors succeeded by routine, out-and-out encouragement to stitch up the customer (by aggressive selling) and equally stitching up the company by out-and-out lying on proposal forms. [Most dramatic being a life insurance salesperson selling a large policy to her sister, on a "clean" proposal, despite the sister being in a Cancer Hospice with <6 months to live. The salesperson didn't even get a reprimand. Wasn't even mentioned. All part of the 'game'!!!!]

But my main point is that quite often, the 'bosses' have got there mainly because of this sleaze rather than in spite of it. With politicians this is 'absolute'. But generally honest senior employees like myself would generally be seen as 'trouble makers' by underwriting properly or pointing out systematic sales mis-practice......