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Naomimuse

Listed below are comments made by Naomimuse between Sunday, 6th December 2009 and Thursday, 10th December 2009.

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Time to hug a banker? 3:42pm on 10 Dec 2009 Maybe most of the bank bonuses have been paid prior to the PBR and therefore missed the need for the levy to be paid as the government spun it so well in advance that there would be a tax of some sort? And others will wait until April 2010 so that they miss the levy too. Just a bit of financial planning, really. An odd crown appeasing piece of the PBR, don't you think that might not make a hap'worth of difference to anyone in the banking sector?
How the bonus tax will work 2:33pm on 09 Dec 2009 The bonus tax is just politicking by Labour and the thin end of the wedge for cuts.

The PBR was interesting because it confirmed that Labour admit it is dire.

Alistair Darling did not succumb to levity in any form but plodded on in grave tones.

Gordon Brown looked more uncomfortable than usual. I don't think I have seen him wriggle so much.

The unions are already saying it's unfair. There will be a winter of discontent with public sector workers balloting for strikes. 'Re-aligning' the public sector pensions will be a really difficult thing to do because it affects such large numbers.

What is happening in Eire will happen here.

Darling looked as if he was acting responsibly.

Osbourne levelled his response powerfully.

Writing is on the wall clearly now and backlit.
Efficiently tackling inefficiency 08:18am on 08 Dec 2009 The government needs to admit that there should be cuts of 10 to 20% across the board. It will have to be admitted when the election is over.

Canada cut by 10% across the board. People suffered but Canada is ok now.

Southern Ireland has also cut by 10% across the board. People don't like it but it is necessary.

The same will happen here in the end and will get us back on track.

Call the election now and we can get on with saving the UK and ourselves.

As Gordon Brown is now admitting that he can make 'efficiency savings' he is moving down the track of an admission of 10% + cuts, which only two months ago he lambasted the Tories for suggesting in Parliament, calling them 'savage cuts'.

All it does is prove how wrong this government has been and how it has misled us and parliament for so long.

Not saying the Tories will do any better, but they might and any new blood has to be better than the mob who got us into this.

As to the bonus culture, it needs to be cut from all walks of life - private and public. So much of the public sector runs on bonuses too and there is no place for it.

Now is the time to be pleased to have a job at all and to be working full rather than part time.

A positive view that it will be better when we get to the other side could get us from where we are now to where we want to be.

The first step is for parliament to be thoroughly cleaned up, tax paid and overclaims be paid back in full by MPs.

The second is for all prospective MPs to promise to serve us with honour.

Then we might be able to begin to believe in what the politicians say again.

A forlorn hope? A naive expectation? I hope not, because we deserve better.
Efficiently tackling inefficiency 6:06pm on 07 Dec 2009 We catch the breeze and breezily say we are bringing in new 'efficiency savings'. What a corker!

We reiterate all the previous 'efficiency savings' and put a slightly different slant on some, so that, shhh! no-one will know!

So much puff. So little respect. No. Gordon. We're not stupid.

(Could do better and do study with Mr Memory so that you don't contradict yourself too often.)
We're all bankers now 5:45pm on 07 Dec 2009 Oh dear!

Sadly, much as we thought.

Albeit you speak of the "hopeless inadequacy of Royal Bank's risk controls under its previous management, led by Sir Fred Goodwin." The hopeless inadequacy of the government's triumverate financial services controls, FSA, Treasury, Bank of England, is equally shown here.

And RBS were obviously taking on too much risk before Sir Fred got on his horse and went to take over ABN. That surely makes his position worse than we understood before.

As to insurance for asset protection, it's only worth a candle if all the claims do not come in at the same time and the liquidity ratios are ok...

Again it shows how badly wrong Gordon Brown was to change the role of the Bank of England from the faithful, competent regulator of the banks prior to Mr Brown's insistence on change, and another quango..

Now we'll need a regulator to check on the insurers of the Asset Protection Scheme.

Fiddling whilst London burns - thanks Gordon for ruin.
Is there some 11th-hour relief? 3:02pm on 07 Dec 2009 Thank you for your analysis and statistics, Andrew. Much appreciated.

You say that UAH gives 13 months figures. Is that right or is it 13 lunar months, to take into account the tide cycle?

Also, as climates change and have done as we were all taught at school. We'd all be daft not to agree to that.

Certainly as the glaciers appear to be receding so there is going to be a shortage of water in rivers that are sourced from slow melting glaciers.

And, the polar ice is tending to be on the sloppy side rather than thick and strong so there will be change there.

What is firmest of all the ideas for dealing with climate change is the penchant all the governments seem to have to set up another bubble for taxing carbon. Carbon trading won't solve any climactic change or do anything to address reasons for it, but it will make more money, and more tax, which governments are biting their nails up to their elbows to get right now. Carbon derivatives trading and Carbon bonds will be their main focus.

As to governments and so on. One cannot believe a word they say, and I want to abdicate from being governed by them.
Will biffing bankers also biff Britain? 12:49pm on 07 Dec 2009 #29 Amusedtodeath - Biff - taken from that prime example of literary genius - The Beano. No link to Latin declensions or anything else. Infinitives split at a whim, et al.

#44 Uboot - Agree that the bonuses are only a symptom. Also agree that the spin is there so that we do not concentrate on the next set of dastardly acts by this incompetent and uncaring government, with the Autumn Statement on Wednesday.

Lots of air time, paper and blog space taken up with being incensed about bankers getting bonuses, to cover up the greater misdemeanour of having made a bigger mess than they've admitted to so far.

Come Wednesday and a good overnight think about what is being said. Whichever way the words go, the meaning and impact on the UK will not be nice.

All MPs need to sign a declaration that they will serve the country with honour which means they will serve, tell true and not self-serve. All prospective parliamentary candidates and incumbents should sign such a document before the next election. That will tootle pip all those who made profit out of our tax.
A bonus super-tax 12:32pm on 07 Dec 2009 The government is to blame for setting it up that bubbles could and would be blown on the structure, regulation and sheer stupidity of political expediency combined with delusional behaviour.

We all know that.

The banks were given free rein once Gordon Brown had made the Bank of England 'independent' and taken away its remit to control and regulate the banks.

It was that act, combined with the nonsense of creating another bonus rewarded quango, the FSA, that caused the problem in 1997.

Prior to that banks were told how to run their businesses and what not to do by the Bank of England. Many a naughty bank was sorted out with secret funding over a tricky time, but we were not told about it and the old lady of Threadneedle Street, kept them in order like a good nanny.

It is hardly any wonder that banks who always behaved like naughty children who want to push the boundaries all the time and hope they won't get caught.

So, what Gordon did when he de-regulated the banks in 1997 creating the triumverate of Treasury, FSA and Bank of England, was to create a huge playpen so that the banks could run amok.

The Bank of England denuded of its responsibilities toward regulation and running of the banks could only focus on the inflation/deflation ratios, money supply and the global financial system without having any power to do anything other than change the base rate of interest.

As the base rate of interest bears little relation to what banks charge because they charge according to the libor rate, the Bank of England which had done such stoic and valuable work for so many years, was castrated by Dr Gordon Brown.

The new kid on the block, the FSA, was not staffed with the right people to do the job, they had not got the skills, as we all know to our detriment. Both the government and the FSA thought it was a good thing to pay staff bonuses in the FSA anyway and many of its staff came from and go on to work in banks.

The Treasury was too busy believing Gordon's mantra, that he had ended the system of boom and bust - and how delusional that has proved to be.

Meantime, along with his regular mantra of the end of boom and bust, Gordon Brown went on a spending spree and borrowed money whilst also having close lunches with the banks, who were the equivalent of his huntin', shootin' and fishin' pals. These lunches happened every Tuesday at No 10. The bankers could do no wrong, could they?

High level political endorsement of all of them ensured they were not overly scrutinised by the FSA either.

The government was just as wrong when it bailed out the banks and just supported them.

Had it insisted that a portion of the money used in the bailout was targetted specifically toward people and business rather than just shoring up the banks, then some of the disasters that have happened since would have been reduced.

Had the FSA also not jumped in and insisted on further tightening up the capital ratios of the banks and, two months ago, told the RBS not to pay back its interest payment on time, thereby ordering it to be in default and other rather mindless decisions, then some of the problems would have been reduced again.

The desperation shown in its scrabbling around in a bare cupboard for tax take now is acute - because it miscalculated how much it would get in tax take - it had again miscalculated the growth in the economy.
A bonus super-tax 09:15am on 07 Dec 2009 The first tax at supertax rates should be on MPs who have made profit out of tax payer's money to set a good example. That means all the flipping MPs and any who have taken our money to provide for what the Kelly report indicates it thinks are not fair expenses. So pay the original sum back and pay supertax on any and all profit for having 'borrowed' it interest free over the period.

Surely if bank bonuses are to be tax on a super-tax basis, so should all bonuses be taxed on the same basis?

If they were then the FSA, MoD and all the public services who have bonuses would also pay it.

Any tax has to be a fair tax.

The situation we are in is only because of government mismanagement and false assumptions.

This move is not being made to put matters right but to be politically expedient.

The well-trodden path down through unforseen consequences is being trodden again, for a political expedient.

Gordon Brown has cherished all of the bankers for all of his time as Chancellor, and has enabled the City to dominate the UK economy. It is he, and the Labour government who have created this mess.

They need to put it right, and setting an example with a supertax on MPs profit making a good start.
Banks face windfall tax 8:44pm on 06 Dec 2009 Smokescreen successfully created as bashing the banks or the climate sceptics stops scrutiny of how the government got us into this mess in the first place in the crunch.

Also, how it mismanaged the bailouts which led to the current bankers bonuses debacle happened. Did they honestly think that an investment bank would not make profit?

The current flurry of activity is only happening because of government miscalculation - the tax take is going badly into the red, gilts are not selling so having enough money to carry on will mean that more tax must be paid.

So, climate change is a great hope for the treasury as it will create revenue by taxing use of energy and by having carbon trading too. The next bubble...

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