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Corridors of Power and Drug-taking Methodists
Comments
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Yes - that is definitely one of the insidious things about it - the extent to which the honourable person becomes a burden to the organisation.0
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Loughton_Monkey wrote: »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......
Were your sales directors from the industry or brought in from outside?"If you act like an illiterate man, your learning will never stop... Being uneducated, you have no fear of the future.".....
"big business is parasitic, like a mosquito, whereas I prefer the lighter touch, like that of a butterfly. "A butterfly can suck honey from the flower without damaging it," "Arunachalam Muruganantham0 -
grizzly1911 wrote: »Were your sales directors from the industry or brought in from outside?
Generally from the industry.
Another sales director had regular 'campaigns' where he deliberately wanted the 'results' well before the business had been processed. So it was on business submitted. This had totally and utterly predictable results - that of hundreds of proposals for more subtle forms of "Mickey Mouse". But of course by the time this could be proven, all the airline tickets, colour TV's, and hotel weekend prizes had well and truly been banked. Seemed to be 'successful' according to the MD....
Same sales director once had a salesman who fell into huge debt, after an affair with a customer. In a rash of desperation [Wonga loans not being then available] the salesman came up with the bright idea of writing tons of business for 'real' relatives. He just used their names. He wrote the business, trousered the substantial commission [paid up front in those days] and paid premiums regularly as a sort of 'loan repayment'.
He got found out. Sales Director recommendation? The company should (a) let him keep all the commission, and (b) give him all the premiums back, and (c) let him have a month off on a guaranteed salary. MD agreed, so as not to 'demotivate' the Sales Manager or the Salesman!0 -
What never ceases to amaze is the astonishing unsuitability of many people in top jobs.Cornucopia wrote: »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).
We still have a self-propagating ruling caste, largely hereditary, which gets power mostly by assuming an automatic entitlement to it."It will take, five, 10, 15 years to get back to where we need to be. But it's no longer the individual banks that are in the wrong, it's the banking industry as a whole." - Steven Cooper, head of personal and business banking at Barclays, talking to Martin Lewis0 -
Loughton_Monkey wrote: »It gets worse: Brooks Phillip Victor Newmark is American and a critic of QE.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooks_Newmark
Born in the USA, at least. But then so was BoJo....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....
That news is not "just in"; it's been around for some time, at least since July of this year, when Grayling made his announcement. It relates to contracts signed in 2004, where apparently MoJ officials knew there was something wrong since at least 2008.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23272708Cornucopia wrote: ».....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, ...
Or, quite possibly, the other way around.0 -
Or, quite possibly, the other way around.
Or that it is present in both and in fact hand in glove quite often."If you act like an illiterate man, your learning will never stop... Being uneducated, you have no fear of the future.".....
"big business is parasitic, like a mosquito, whereas I prefer the lighter touch, like that of a butterfly. "A butterfly can suck honey from the flower without damaging it," "Arunachalam Muruganantham0 -
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'......
Those that ask, shall receive.:)
Co-op Bank to face inquiry, says PM David Cameron
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-250174090 -
Those that ask, shall receive.:)
Co-op Bank to face inquiry, says PM David Cameron
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-25017409
On PMQs today I thought I heard Cameron say that "he (Flowers) broke the bank".
Did I hear that correctly?
If so was it all the fault of Flowers or was he just the icing on a mouldy cake?"If you act like an illiterate man, your learning will never stop... Being uneducated, you have no fear of the future.".....
"big business is parasitic, like a mosquito, whereas I prefer the lighter touch, like that of a butterfly. "A butterfly can suck honey from the flower without damaging it," "Arunachalam Muruganantham0 -
Those that ask, shall receive.:)
Co-op Bank to face inquiry, says PM David Cameron
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-25017409
Ha! I've corrected the BBC report below....Mr Cameron said the government's [STRIKE]first[/STRIKE] second priority was to safeguard the Co-op Bank and ensure its customers and bondholders were protected, but the prime minister went on to question the first priority of Mr Flowers' suitability for the role and his links with Labour.
"Why was Reverend Flowers judged suitable to be chairman of a bank? Why weren't alarm bells rung earlier, particularly by those who knew?" he said.
The prime minister went on to poke fun at Labour's policies to fund more free childcare through a levy on bank profits, suggesting it had been dreamt up after "a night out with Reverend Flowers" and suggested the Co-op had help bankroll Labour politicians for many years and Mr Flowers had been a regular visitor to Downing Street while Labour was in power".0 -
Wow, huge outrage from a country where probably 90% of the population has indulged in legal !!!!!! or recreational drugs or both.0
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