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allmyfault

Listed below are comments made by allmyfault between Sunday, 15th November 2009 and Saturday, 5th December 2009.

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RBS bonuses: Handbags at dawn 7:16pm on 05 Dec 2009 Perhaps if an explanation of what exactly these guys in Global Banking do from day to day, might help the man on the Clapham omnibus take a view on whether they are worth it. I suspect they are somewhat less of the calibre of Torres, Rooney, Fabregas or Drogba, than lucky minor squad members of the Premier League top-four, pampered and deluded.

Even I can figure out how to make a fat profit borrowing Mervyn's moolah at 0.5%, fractionally-reserving that 20-fold and investing it in Australia at 3.75% or better.

So what else do they do?

I suspect that anyone of real talent in RBS Global has already scarpered. Who wants to be associated with a zombie bank like RBS, when you can have the glamour of Goldman Sachs or the boutiques?
RBS board to quit if chancellor vetoes £1.5bn in bonuses 10:18am on 03 Dec 2009 #310 .... short-sighted people.....

The government did not pay at 10p per share; from memory it was 65p in Oct 08, and then more later in the 30's?
In the past two years RBS share price has dropped from (even far more stellar heights than) £5 down to £2, and then precipitously to around 50p before the final 'down-the-plughole' to 10p.
Despite the billions of visible and secret funding they have been given to improve their balance sheet, they can't hold at 50p.

There is no current profit for the taxpayer in RBS shareholding, indeed there is a massive loss.
Don't hold your breath for any profit in the next 5 years either. The only people who will be making money out of RBS is, surprise, surprise, those employees on a fat bonus.

Hence the anger.

Sorry, I'll stop posting for the day.
(Must try not to keep dodging other deadlines)
RBS board to quit if chancellor vetoes £1.5bn in bonuses 09:47am on 03 Dec 2009 O.P.M. (Other people's money)

Big disease in this country and our culture.
The government, the local authorities, the Health Service, the Banks, the Pension Funds.

None of them really care, 'cos they don't see it as their money being wasted.

It isn't. it's ours.

P.S. I am prepared to be a Director of RBS, would be obliged if you forward my name on to your contacts in the business.

Regards,
RBS board to quit if chancellor vetoes £1.5bn in bonuses 09:40am on 03 Dec 2009 It isn't so much the bonuses as the exorbitant and cartel fees the investment arms of these banks are charging. The customer is getting ripped off.
If the Monopolies Commissions (or whatever they are called now) in the US & UK tackled it from that direction, these excessive profits wouldn't arise.

It is the profits and the risk that is unhealthy, these monopoly profits engender greed. Accordingly the 'stellar' investment bankers don't have any loyalty to their companies, nor any great concern about their viability. Just the filthy lucre.

Call their resignation bluff, in the coming re-alignment and meltdown there is only room in the market for some of them. Let the market find out who of them has any real talent. Most of them just have an address-book of wealthy and dumb contacts.

System change, please.
Dubai: Wholly avoidable crisis 10:13am on 01 Dec 2009 #72 (the logic of Dubai?)

I should be working, but I am distracted by all this, it is a big deal.

Just like the govt. wanting to set up mega-casinos all across the country a few years ago -remember that hair-brained scheme?
Just like the 2012 Olympics, just like Heathrow expansion, just like the 2nd Forth Bridge, just like the PFI/PPP Schools rip-off, just like quantitative easing, and just like Dubai, these things don't come about because they are essential or desperately needed. They don't come about because govt.s are imaginative and competent. They come about because the banks want to make money. The Western Banks and their lobbyists fueled this 'greed-is-good' atmosphere. They were luck to find a pair of clueless naifs like Tony & Gordo, and in the US they had Clinton and Dubya, hypnotised by the promise of wealth and glory.

Work for 40 years and then have the promise of 25 years on full pension?
Live in the same house and watch it double in value every 7 years?
Have credit cards to the value of your annual salary?
Do you think that all happened because we work hard and have cut red-tape and inefficiencies? Nope, it happened because the US investment banks wanted free rein to hoover up even more obscene amounts of money than they had historically been allowed to do. Remember when a salary of £100k sounded a lot, well apparently £10 million now isn't a big deal. In what world does that seem reasonable.

It isn't a conspiracy theory, it is just a natural instinct to want to be wealthier, healthier, and happier. The problem is when some snake-oil salesman offers you it for 'free'
Government and central banks are supposed to look out for this, and keep it under control.

If you throw cheap money to anyone, they will spend it, and especially if you tell them their assets are going to increase in value forever. Whether it is a yacht, a holiday-home, a flashy car, or cosmetic surgery, the urge to spend is irresistible. Dubai is exactly the same, writ large.

Dubai has basically never had the oil, Abu Dhabi has 90% of the reserves in the region. Remember they are not all the same country. All Dubai had was a beach and some cheap land, and plenty of time to think up ideas. The tax-free port and the airport hub (half-way from London to the far east and Australia) were great initiatives, the rest came from avaricious bankers promoting the mirage. Our pension-funds were going to share in a wee slice of the profit, and if it failed, well the tax-payer would foot the bill.

Surprise, surprise, it has failed.

Money IS actually the root of all evil. (that and a bit of religion)
I am getting a bit pissed off with all this, and I don’t like the idea of a life in servitude to fund someone else's screw-up.
(there apparently is a profanity filter, otherwise I could have maybe come up with a more descriptive phrase)
Maybe there is someone I can vote for to hose out these Augean Stables, wouldn't that be great.

Regards,
Dubai: Wholly avoidable crisis 09:39am on 01 Dec 2009 My tuppence-worth?

Sterling won't joint the Euro, even in panic.
The euro is under tremendous internal stress. Basically the Germans are funding the sick and wounded -Ireland, Spain, Greece, Latvia and others are absolutely stoney broke. I don't see why the German people will stomach that for too much longer. I am sure you can get solid odds that the Eurozone could split.

The Arabs will look after their own interests. Our stupid banks will go out and try make some fat commission on rescue deals, and the UK & US tax-payers will foot the bill. It isn't a Dubai/Abu Dhabi problem now, its a western bank problem. (Who has the assets, and who hasn't been paid the money?) The Islamic bond will be paid, but not much else.

I would like to see Bobby and his pals out in Iceland, in the shanty-towns around Dubai, in Latvia, sticking a microphone under the locals' noses and asking them how they are doing. I don't think the BBC has done anything whatsoever to explain to the general public what a bankrupt nation looks like, and how the people are actually affected. Their savings, their pensions, their homes, their jobs, -all gone or diluted to spittle. You are a public service BBC, and you are failing in your duty to shine a torch on all this.

(No green shoots, I'm sure you were peddling the government line 6 months ago that by Xmas we would have turned the corner, heading for 4% growth........ (?!!!)

Regards,
British banks and Dubai 9:17pm on 29 Nov 2009 Some good responses to your posting Bobby.

Don't be surprised if the UAE see this as nothing personal, just business.
They will ensure that the Islamic Bond is met before anything is given to Western banks.
We might be then left with a basket-load of half-built multi-storey corporate garish monstrosities as Dubai World dumps their security onto our banks.
Perhaps we can then relocate the most clueless and greedy parts of our financial sector to tax-free Dubai.
That might reduce the 'bearable' pain.

Regards,
Why did Bank of England keep shtoom? 2:56pm on 25 Nov 2009 Merv. uses up a dogs life, he doesn't have many left.
If you lose the trust of your (subjects), your position is less secure.

I can agree that in the hours after that bail-out decision, it perhaps made sense to not publicise the act; however to suppress the information for over a year, and in particular not to declare it when the loans were re-paid? (or were the financial journalists just lazy?) I feel insulted.

We, the taxpayers, have paid for this bail-out and everything else that has followed. If we aren't kept in the loop, don't be surprised when a section of the workforce decides to opt out from the tax system altogether some time in the future.

You only have to look at the unrest in USA with the way their banking system and regulators are behaving. We are at least lucky that Merv. prints the money and then buys it all back before it gets too far out in the market. It will end in the same tears unless he puts interest rates up soon.

Regards, and good luck
Family comes a long way before £61 billion
The Treasury hedge fund 09:23am on 19 Nov 2009 Good on yer Barry for putting your head above the parapet.
Stand outside yourself for a moment, however, and review what happened in all these M&A deals a year or so after they were completed.

If rewards-for-the-boys, asset-stripping, compaction of the businesses and massive increase in debt burdens hadn't occured, then well done to you.

If not, you can still change..........
The Treasury hedge fund 7:05pm on 15 Nov 2009 I smell a rat, Bobby. If Nick Robinson can fly in a keen young assistant to take over his blog while he 'is away', then so can your good self.
Presumably you and the BBC make contingency plans about everything (there's enough bl**din' layers of management for goodness sake), or perhaps the good old Beeb isn't really with the great unwashed having a platform to make response and comment.

Hope all well soon on the Peston family front.

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