economic situation is dire

[TheDon]

(and spending commitments).

You mean like how they pledged to match Labour's spending pound for pound, yet now complain that labour spent outside their means? Surely an admittance that they also would have done the same.

They weren't exactly looking to slam on the brakes of spending were they, not with fine quotes such as this: "At the same time the share of national income taken by the state will start to fall, as the economy grows faster than the government does." That growth really kept up didn't it. They would have been no different, exactly the same spend spend spend that they've gone on to blame Labour for.

Memories are short term in politics. What you support today you slate tomorrow. As long as you didn't actually do it it doesn't matter that you said you would as well.

[TheDon]

Hmmmmmmmmmmm - I wander...?

lonely as a cloud.

What do I win?

[JulieB]

Hector Sants emailed every employee of the FSA to remind them of which political party had vowed in it's manifesto to get rid of them just before the day of the last general election. It was a clear instruction to Canary Wharf to vote labour.

Money Marketing ran the story and I was quite frankly shocked to read that a head of a supposedly independent body should abuse his position in quite such a matter.

But then we've all come to realise The FSA are completely unaccountable to anyone even the Treasury Select Committee who they basically told to do one in July over their retail distribution review after months of painstaking work by MPs led by Andrew Tyrie, who I have to say genuinely talks sense every time I've heard him.

Then today we hear that the new European regulator under MIFID rules will supposedly usurp the FSA rules to allow banks and tied advisers to continue selling using commission. The very financial institutions that have been ripping the public off for three decades! Only independent advice will be punitively restricted in the UK under the FSA RDR. This if it turns out to be true has made Hector Sants look a complete baffoon....... you just couldn't make it up!

[drat01]

12 million pounds were recently contributed to the Tory party. 6 million of that came from the finance sector. For those that say this gvmt are independent from the finance sector

[drat01]

Julie I am not saying you are telling lies but was the email exactly as you say? http://www.moneymarketing.co.uk/home/email-from-hector-sants-to-fsa-staff/1011719.article

It was from oct 2009 - EDIT: that is what the web site says. The email is dated May 2010 - hardly adds to the sense of "scandal" :-)

I suspect your comments are somewhat similar to the spin the Tory party tried to put on it at the time. Ironically Gideon later appointed the same bloke. Which discredits the emphasis you try an put on it even more

[Awol]

Then today we hear that the new European regulator under MIFID rules will supposedly usurp the FSA rules to allow banks and tied advisers to continue selling using commission. The very financial institutions that have been ripping the public off for three decades! Only independent advice will be punitively restricted in the UK under the FSA RDR. This if it turns out to be true has made Hector Sants look a complete baffoon....... you just couldn't make it up!

Julie, I take it you've heard that the little fascist Barosso wants to implement a financial transaction tax across the EU despite their own studies showing that it will actually cost (far) more than it raises, and despite them having no authority to independently levy taxes?

[LondonLax]

Then today we hear that the new European regulator under MIFID rules will supposedly usurp the FSA rules to allow banks and tied advisers to continue selling using commission. The very financial institutions that have been ripping the public off for three decades! Only independent advice will be punitively restricted in the UK under the FSA RDR. This if it turns out to be true has made Hector Sants look a complete baffoon....... you just couldn't make it up!

Julie, I take it you've heard that the little fascist Barosso wants to implement a financial transaction tax across the EU despite their own studies showing that it will actually cost (far) more than it raises, and despite them having no authority to independently levy taxes?

Yes you have to admire his balls.

Suggesting a tax to raise funds to help fix the Eurozone crisis which would hit the UK hardest and damage this countries biggest export industry. To top it off Sweden had already tried this tax in the 80s and found it was a disaster for their tax recipts.

I imagine this is manna from heaven for the euroskeptics in making their case

[jonno_2004]

Nick Griffin comment a bit too silly? Or a bit too much of an 'inconvenient truth'? Fit in with what 'political views on VT'? From the vast array of bollitical opinion on here, I wouldn't like to put a percentage on any consensus.

Interesting to see the IOM comment creep in again, maybe if I removed my location I could avoid the pigeon-holing. Struggling to see what that has to do with anything - I **** hate traders in any case. It is interesting to see when that suddenly becomes appropriate though.

Sorry, I should have picked up the earlier comment.

We should form views about people, including groups of people, on what they do.

Our views on traders, mine, yours, other people's, I would suggest are shaped by that rather than by what some narcissistic **** gabbled out in his 15 minutes of fame.

But since what he said about their views seems to reflect what people including both critics from the left, and also people professionally in contact with traders, see as their values and how they operate, his comments have raised some interest.

I do tend to judge people partly by what they choose to do. I bring certain prejudices and assumptions to that, as we all do. If I meet an artist, I assume they will have some sense of aesthetics, and views about using visual media to express concepts. If I meet a prison officer, I will assume they have a relatively high respect for control, and will score higher on respect for authority than individualism. And so on.

Those occupations reflect choices. Not totally free choices, because no-one has that, but choices all the same.

Nick Griffin, on the other hand, takes a view on people based on things over which they have no control, and his organisation seeks to incite physical violence against people based on those characteristics, mainly race and skin colour, more recently religion.

Do you not perceive the difference? Do you really, really not?

Oh of course I perceive the difference when you put it that way, but given your previous posts about financial services in general and not just traders I think the line becomes blurred.

Some traders will be 'in the for the kill' as such, others will not, others will see it as a skill they are good at by applying their own intelligence and education and making a fair amount of money to provide for their family in the process (as in any other job). Much like prison officers - some may be in it to exercise a method of control and others may consider themselves the next Percy Wetmore.

You may have a point in relating what the clearing in the woods on BBC News said with certain elements of the Investment Banking fraternity, but not all. I think that making a wide-ranging assumption on any political-based prejudice is dangerous indeed - no matter how 'fashionable' it may appear to do so.

[JulieB]

Julie I am not saying you are telling lies but was the email exactly as you say? http://www.moneymarketing.co.uk/home/email-from-hector-sants-to-fsa-staff/1011719.article

It was from oct 2009 - EDIT: that is what the web site says. The email is dated May 2010 - hardly adds to the sense of "scandal" :-)

I suspect your comments are somewhat similar to the spin the Tory party tried to put on it at the time. Ironically Gideon later appointed the same bloke. Which discredits the emphasis you try an put on it even more

I'm sorry but for the head of a supposedly independent from government regulator to send an email to 3,300 staff on the day of the election which includes the words....

“If the Conservatives form the next government, we know it is their intention to make changes to UK regulatory structure. However, it will undoubtedly take time for them to develop the next stage of their thinking.”

That's surely a nudge nudge wink wink who NOT to vote for? and also an abuse of his position.... I was amazed that the Con/Lib pact then kept Hector Sants on in any capacity after this and the failings of the FSA over the previous 13 years. Cynical me then thought as "one of the boys", he probably knows too much and is best kept "on the inside" and under wraps.

As far as failing to regulate the banks... this was I understand not entirely his fault.... everytime the FSA tried to do something about them, the banks just rang up their friends in the Gordon Brown ran Treasury, who then obliged by ringing their mates in Canary Wharf and telling them to back off the banks and find someone else to regulate.

Things haven't changed that much neither under Mr Hoban the Conservative Treasury minister, who has protected both the FSA and the status of the banks at every turn, despite members of his own party like Andrew Tyrie and Mark Garnier, voicing their alarm.

[JulieB]

Julie, I take it you've heard that the little fascist Barosso wants to implement a financial transaction tax across the EU despite their own studies showing that it will actually cost (far) more than it raises, and despite them having no authority to independently levy taxes?

Yes I had....... another ill thought out, knee jerk reaction to try and paper over the cracks.

The costs of extra burdens of regulation and to keep the regulator in all his plush glory at Canary Wharf, Hundreds of thousands of pounds of art work now apparently adorn their lobby - all paid for ultimately by the consumer............... have pushed up Annual Management Charges on average for most funds from 0.75% in 1997 to now 1.5% and rising.... we already as a nation now have a huge savings and pensions gap, so taxing every single financial transaction will surely add to the demise.

The problem is that whoever regulates or taxes the banks is wasting their time, they are too simply too big. RBS before Lehman Bros crashed had a balance sheet bigger than UK PLC.

It seems to me that it is more like the banks now regulate the economy and their governments rather than the other way around!

[Awol]

I imagine this is manna from heaven for the euroskeptics in making their case

Just another example of the mask starting to slip imo. Very good piece in the Torygraph today ref the Euro crisis and the battle between what the EU want and the efforts to stop them overturning democracy in Europe:

NEIN, NEIN, NEIN, and the death of EU Fiscal Union

Judging by the commentary, there has been a colossal misunderstanding around the world of what has just has happened in Germany. The significance of yesterday’s vote by the Bundestag to make the EU’s €440bn rescue fund (EFSF) more flexible is not that the outcome was a "Yes".

This assent was a foregone conclusion, given the backing of the opposition Social Democrats and Greens. In any case, the vote merely ratifies the EU deal reached more than two months ago – itself too little, too late, rendered largely worthless by very fast-moving events.

The significance is entirely the opposite. The furious debate over the erosion of German fiscal sovereignty and democracy – as well as the escalating costs of the EU rescue machinery – has made it absolutely clear that the Bundestag will not prop up the ruins of monetary union for much longer.

Horst Seehofer, the leader of Bavaria’s Social Christians, said his party would go "this far, and no further".

There can be no question of beefing up the EFSF to €2 trillion or any other sum, whether by leverage or other forms of structured trickery. "The financial markets are beginning to ask whether Germans can afford all this help. We must not risk the creditworthiness of the German state," he said.

The best-read story in today’s Handelsblatt is the mounting rebellion against the EFSF in the Bundesrat, the German senate representing the interests of the regions. While this chamber does not have the power to block budget deals, it has begun to express deep alarm about the drift of events.

Marcel Huber, Bavaria’s Staatskanzleichef, gave an explicit warning that the Free State of Bavaria will not take one step further towards an EMU fiscal union or debt pool.

“A collectivisation of debts will under no circumstances be accepted. We oppose credit lines for the EFSF or leveraging through the ECB. Our message is simple and clear.”

Since the existing EFSF is too small to make any material difference to the EMU debt crisis, this means that nothing has in fact been resolved. We are where we started, almost entirely reliant on the ECB to play the role of lender-of-last resort.

Can it realistically play this role after the double resignation of Axel Weber at the Bundesbank and Jurgen Stark at the ECB itself over bond purchases? Can it defy Europe’s paymaster state for long? You decide.

This great eruption of feeling in Germany has been the transforming political and strategic fact of Europe over the summer. Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble is no doubt scrambling around trying to find some formula to breach his pledge that there is no secret plan to leverage the EFSF into the stratosphere.

He will try to pretend that this is not a flagrant double-cross. But his scheming with the French is largely irrelevant at this point. Bigger events are rolling over him. If he really thinks he can dupe the Bundestag yet again, he is out of his mind. And will soon be out of office.

As Bundestag president Norbert Lammert said yesterday, lawmakers had a nasty feeling that they had been "bounced" into backing far-reaching demands. This can never be allowed to happen again. He warned too that Germany's legislature would not give up its fiscal sovereignty to any EU body.

In a sense, the Bundestag vote was much like the ruling by the Constitutional Court earlier this month. It too said "Yes" to the bail-out machinery, but that was not relevant fact. What mattered was the Court’s implicit warning that Germany had reached the outer boundaries of EU integration, that German democracy is under threat, and its explicit warning that the Bundestag’s fiscal powers could not be alienated to Brussels.

Something profound has changed. Germans have begun to sense that the preservation of their own democracy and rule of law is in conflict with demands from Europe. They must choose one or the other.

Yet Europe and the world are so used to German self-abnegation for the EU Project – so used to the teleological destiny of ever-closer Union – that they cannot seem to grasp the fact. It reminds me of 1989 and the establishment failure to understand the Soviet game was up.

Our own Chancellor George Osborne has fallen into this trap. I can entirely understand why he is calling for quick moves towards EMU fiscal union, but such an outcome is not on the table.

Repeat after me:

THERE WILL BE NO FISCAL UNION.

THERE WILL BE NO EUROBONDS.

THERE WILL BE NO DEBT POOL.

THERE WILL BE NO EU TREASURY.

THERE WILL BE NO FISCAL TRANSFERS IN PERPETUITY.

THERE WILL BE A STABILITY UNION – OR NO MONETARY UNION.

Get used to it. This is the political reality of Europe, since nothing of importance can be done without Germany. All else is wishful thinking, clutching at straws, and evasion. If this means the euro will shed some members or blow apart – as it almost certainly does – then the rest of the world must prepare for the day.

It has certainly been an electrifying few weeks.

I happened to be in the room with a group of Nobel economists in Lindau last month when German President Christian Wulff lashed out at Europe, accusing the ECB of violating its mandate and subverting the Lisbon Treaty.

“I regard the huge buy-up of bonds of individual states by the ECB as legally and politically questionable. Article 123 of the Treaty on the EU’s workings prohibits the ECB from directly purchasing debt instruments, in order to safeguard the central bank’s independence,” he said.

“This prohibition only makes sense if those responsible do not get around it by making substantial purchases on the secondary market,” he said.

Mr Wulff said Germany itself risks being engulfed by escalating debts. Who will “rescue the rescuers?” as the dominoes keep falling, he asked.

"Solidarity is the core of the European Idea, but it is a misunderstanding to measure solidarity in terms of willingness to act as guarantor or to incur shared debts.

"With whom would you be willing to take out a joint loan, or stand as guarantor? For your own children? Hopefully yes. For more distant relations it gets a bit more difficult."

More distant relations?

“All I heard was Germany, Germany, Germany. There was nothing about Europe. It was astonishing,” said Myron Scholes, the winner of the 1997 Nobel Prize.

Indeed it was. Fellow laureate Joe Stiglitz said that if President Wulff’s views reflected the outlook of the German government, monetary union would have collapsed already.

Well yes. Quite.

Some of us "eurosceptics" (or the people who were correct that EMU couldn't work without political union) have been saying since 2008 - to howls of abuse - that it would be Germany that eventually sank the Euro.

*pulls pin from outrage grenade....*

Fact is that Maggie Thatcher an the Tory right has been proven totally correct over this issue...

[snowychap]

That's surely a nudge nudge wink wink who NOT to vote for? and also an abuse of his position

Is it?

Isn't he just making it quite clear to the employees (to whom he ought to have some duty of care) what the likely scenario would be for the organization (and therefore their jobs) post election?

I'd imagine (and hope) that any other chief of any other organization would also be relating that information to staff if one party or more (who could possibly or were even likely to win the election) said they would bin the respective organization.

[JulieB]

That's surely a nudge nudge wink wink who NOT to vote for? and also an abuse of his position

Is it?

Isn't he just making it quite clear to the employees (to whom he ought to have some duty of care) what the likely scenario would be for the organization (and therefore their jobs) post election?

I'd imagine (and hope) that any other chief of any other organization would also be relating that information to staff if one party or more (who could possibly or were even likely to win the election) said they would bin the respective organization.

Well I've spoken to an awful lot of people in the financial services industry and everyone was not amused by this...... whilst Mr Sants is fully entitled to his own private political leanings ....the FSA is to be supposed to be completely independent of parliament and non-political.

Getting back on topic interesting that Andrew Tyrie - Chairman of the TSC is now openly questioning Mr Osbourne's plans for UK growth, in this morning's papers..

Anyhow it's a lovely day...too nice to be staying in debating the mess the global economy is in.

[VILLAFC2000]

Has any body on here lost there jobs recently or is any one having to give their notice in.

Apparently we are heading in for a depression and not a recession.

" A recession is when you neighbour loses you job and a depression is when you lose your job"

Not a lot of people seem to be loosing their jobs at the moment in comparison to the retracting growth in the economy, Surely this is a good thing...?

[drat01]

Julie I am not saying you are telling lies but was the email exactly as you say? http://www.moneymarketing.co.uk/home/email-from-hector-sants-to-fsa-staff/1011719.article

It was from oct 2009 - EDIT: that is what the web site says. The email is dated May 2010 - hardly adds to the sense of "scandal" :-)

I suspect your comments are somewhat similar to the spin the Tory party tried to put on it at the time. Ironically Gideon later appointed the same bloke. Which discredits the emphasis you try an put on it even more

I'm sorry but for the head of a supposedly independent from government regulator to send an email to 3,300 staff on the day of the election which includes the words....

“If the Conservatives form the next government, we know it is their intention to make changes to UK regulatory structure. However, it will undoubtedly take time for them to develop the next stage of their thinking.”

That's surely a nudge nudge wink wink who NOT to vote for? and also an abuse of his position.... I was amazed that the Con/Lib pact then kept Hector Sants on in any capacity after this and the failings of the FSA over the previous 13 years. Cynical me then thought as "one of the boys", he probably knows too much and is best kept "on the inside" and under wraps.

As far as failing to regulate the banks... this was I understand not entirely his fault.... everytime the FSA tried to do something about them, the banks just rang up their friends in the Gordon Brown ran Treasury, who then obliged by ringing their mates in Canary Wharf and telling them to back off the banks and find someone else to regulate.

Things haven't changed that much neither under Mr Hoban the Conservative Treasury minister, who has protected both the FSA and the status of the banks at every turn, despite members of his own party like Andrew Tyrie and Mark Garnier, voicing their alarm.

Julie with all respect that is absolute and utter rubbish, that shows more about your political allegiance I suspect than anything else.

If the email was as you are trying yo make out a political one, then the right wing media would have had a party on it. The fact that they didn't shows more that you are trying to make 2 plus 2 equal to 5.

There is no reference to Labour from anyone other than you and others who are playing a frankly stupid conspiracy game. Maybe a deflection attempt from any sort of scrutiny of Gideon and his obvious backers?

Maybe we are now seeing the real reason why the finance world is so reviled by the public, when there is nothing in the way of accountability and admittance of failure from their own. Teflon could well sponsor that whole industry

[drat01]

Fact is that Maggie Thatcher an the Tory right has been proven totally correct over this issue...

Wrong on so many counts its hard to know where to start.

AWOL you are not a EuroScpetic - more of a Euro hater. Thatcher and the other Ultra Right wing Euro Haters are / were living in a isolationist nationalistic world that is actually quite sinister if you follow it through to its possible conclusion. The BNP and UKIP parties, both which share similar policies over Europe are hiding behind financial crisis that is nothing to do with the euro but more of a World issue to try and force their frankly obnoxious views as being the acceptable and correct ones. It's funny how Thatcher's economic policy that caused utter panic and massive impact with the Pound are now being lauded as some sort of salvation. I remember being abroad at the time when foreign banks refused to accept pound notes for conversion, maybe they were "the good old days"?

The simple reality, and conveniently avoided by those whose backers are so clearly the financial sector, is that this is a world issue. The people with little or no real social conscience are those in the financial sector who's sole aim is to make as much money at any cost. You may well argue that does not reflect the majority but it's certainly the view that many hold, hence the abuse from the man in the street.

This Gvmt talked shite about transparency in the financial sector, how can that be when some of the biggest backers of the Gvmt are the same industry the Gvmt promised to sort out?

The world is still up shit creek, the root cause is still the multi national financial sector. The problem is they still call the shots and are still screwing us all up

[JulieB]

Julie with all respect that is absolute and utter rubbish, that shows more about your political allegiance I suspect than anything else.

If the email was as you are trying yo make out a political one, then the right wing media would have had a party on it. The fact that they didn't shows more that you are trying to make 2 plus 2 equal to 5.

What?!!!.....I am completely and utterley non political as most on here know.

As regards the right wing press...the FSA have been getting away with murder for donkeys years and it has been totally & utterly ignored.

It is ONLY since the new batch of MPs being of all persuasions that the FSA has finally been challenged over it's accountability.

One only had to see the debate on the RDR last year... I don't think there has been quite so much cross party agreement arguing for common sense to prevail on a matter brought before Parliament ever. As noted by Harriet Baldwin in her speech.

Men like George Murdie (staunch labour) and Mark Garnier (Tory) singing pretty much from the same songsheet on the TSC headed up by Andrew Tyrie.

If you worked in financial services you would know exactly what I am talking about. The FSA have been behaving like a bunch of Nazi thugs over the little guys for the past 13yrs whilst letting the big guns get away with practically anything. Until it finally seems that someone at Whitehall has sat up and taken notice.

[snowychap]

Well I've spoken to an awful lot of people in the financial services industry and everyone was not amused by this...... whilst Mr Sants is fully entitled to his own private political leanings ....the FSA is to be supposed to be completely independent of parliament and non-political.

Is it likely, or possible, that those 'awful lot' also have a similar axe to grind against the FSA?

I'm not sure that any quango type organization can be non-political (independent, maybe, though I doubt that too to a large extent).

Whether it can or it can't, just repeating your opinion (in a different way) that he was trying to get all staff members to vote in a particular way rather than what he seemed to be doing (i.e. his duty to keep them abreast of probable/possible outcomes) isn't going to make it right.

[JulieB]

Is it likely, or possible, that those 'awful lot' also have a similar axe to grind against the FSA?

Just go and speak to the Editor Paul McMillan and the staff of Money Marketing and CityWire for that matter. I have... and they are as

incredulous as I am as to how an organisation that is supposed to be the regulator has been allowed to decimate an industry to the obvious

advantage of a particular sector.

I have NO idea what political persuasion journalists are but they have continued to expose FSA failings and excesses for years even though the

mainstream press have passed most of these antics as a mild irritation.

[JulieB]

For the record I absolutely support correct and tough regulation and making the financial services accountable and ethical.

I wouldn't have a business in this area if I didn't conduct my self with absolute integrity and honesty and do the best for my clients.

It's just a pity the bunch of clowns down at Canary Wharf couldn't have drawn their numbers from a wider field than ex Bank staff and engaged and listened to the industry they are supposed to regulate. A respected, fair but tough regulator is exactly what we've needed.