Banks are just legal criminals

snow hope · Post by **snow hope** » 20 May 2015, 15:34

They are fined over and over again!

Organised fraud on a global scale - *astards!

*ankers - they seem to be the root of all evil....

Massive multi-billion dollar fines

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-32817114

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 20 May 2015, 15:56

The wonder of it is that JPMorgan, Citigroup, Barclays, and RBS are still allowed to trade, and their directors are still allowed to walk the streets. They must have been all in it together, the banks, the governments and the courts. Oh hang on, that's what the Cameron meant when he said 'We're all in it together".

3rdRock · Post by **3rdRock** » 20 May 2015, 16:52

biffvernon wrote:The wonder of it is that JPMorgan, Citigroup, Barclays, and RBS are still allowed to trade, and their directors are still allowed to walk the streets. They must have been all in it together, the banks, the governments and the courts. Oh hang on, that's what the Cameron meant when he said 'We're all in it together".

Following the election results, I think you'll find that 'WE'RE all in it together' - the brown stuff that is.

Post by **clv101** » 20 May 2015, 19:13

I'm halfway though Ben Goldacre's Bad Pharma. If half of what he describes is true - then the pharmaceutical industry is even more troublesome than the banking industry.

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 20 May 2015, 19:24

clv101 wrote:If half of what he describes is true

It's probably safe to assume that pretty much everything Ben Goldacre writes is true

I expect the GSK China bribery was the tip of a very large iceberg.

http://www.theguardian.com/business/201 ... na-bribery

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 20 May 2015, 19:40

Banks steal our money, big-pharma steals our health, but if you want the really troublesome connection look at big oil:

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/ ... government

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 20 May 2015, 19:52

An interesting opinion: SEC underwriting privileges persist amid bank criminal pleas

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/sec-un ... 2015-05-20

raspberry-blower · Post by **raspberry-blower** » 20 May 2015, 22:50

biffvernon wrote:Banks steal our money, big-pharma steals our health, but if you want the really troublesome connection look at big oil:

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/ ... government

They're all symptoms that we are living in a corporatist state.
If there was any effective regulation the banking sector would have been closed down years ago.
The oil sector went hell for leather on the ecologically and economically disastrous fracking - as a result of being able to gain finance at around 0%.

Corporations are spending vast fortunes to buy back their shares - so that the earnings per share sounds good even though the underlying trend in profits is decreasing.

In short - it is all a charade.

the_lyniezian · Post by **the_lyniezian** » 22 May 2015, 16:09

biffvernon wrote:The wonder of it is that JPMorgan, Citigroup, Barclays, and RBS are still allowed to trade, and their directors are still allowed to walk the streets. They must have been all in it together, the banks, the governments and the courts. Oh hang on, that's what the Cameron meant when he said 'We're all in it together".

If some of those banks had been suddenly forced to cease trading, what of all the savers, employees and shareholders who are not directly complicit in criminal activity, who will be left much worse off as a result? It's not just a few directors with guaranteed seven-figure bonuses and others way up the pay scale.

The only solution is proper reform and regulation of the banking sector, which I'm sure we will agree is not happening to nearly the extent it should be.

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 22 May 2015, 16:45

the_lyniezian wrote:
If some of those banks had been suddenly forced to cease trading,

Oh nobody suggested cease trading. Nationalisation would do the trick.

the_lyniezian · Post by **the_lyniezian** » 22 May 2015, 17:10

biffvernon wrote:
the_lyniezian wrote:
If some of those banks had been suddenly forced to cease trading,
Oh nobody suggested cease trading. Nationalisation would do the trick.

We already nationalized RBS didn't we? Not exactly a panacea for all the ills of the banking sector.

Snail · Post by **Snail** » 22 May 2015, 17:23

RBS wasn't proper or full nationalisation.

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 22 May 2015, 19:49

The bank wasn't nationalised - we just nationalised the debt and let the criminals stay in charge!

Post by **kenneal - lagger** » 23 May 2015, 14:37

The idea of capitalism is that when a company goes bust the good bits of the company are packaged up and sold off to pay off the creditors while the bad bits are closed up. In a corporatist society the whole lot gets a bail out from the taxpayer so everything carries on as before.

The retail parts of the banks would have survived as did Northern Rock but under a different name. There was very little disturbance to the employees and customers of Northern rock after the dust had settled.

From the above, I deduce that capitalism is dead and that we have been firmly ensconced in a Corporatist State, or even world, for many years.

3rdRock · Post by **3rdRock** » 26 May 2015, 18:19

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-32879690

The first criminal trial linked to the manipulation of a key interest rate, known as Libor, has begun in London.

Former City trader Tom Hayes, 35, of Fleet in Hampshire, has been accused of acting in a "thoroughly dishonest and manipulative manner" in his alleged attempts to rig the Libor rates, the court heard.

The former UBS and Citigroup trader denies eight counts of conspiracy to defraud over the period 2006-2010.

Mr Hayes was arrested in June 2013.

Libor - the London Interbank Offered Rate - is an interest rate used by banks around the world to set the price of financial products worth billions of pounds.

Mukul Chawla QC, acting for the prosecution, said: "This case is about the dishonest rigging of bank rates for profit.

"The motive was a simple one: it was greed," said Mr Chawla, who described Mr Hayes as "the ringmaster at the very centre, telling others around him what to do and in a number of cases rewarding them for their dishonest assistance".

'The motive was a simple one: it was greed'.

I'm glad the QC pointed that out to us, aren't you?

Must have a degree in the bleedin' obvious.

Now where did I put that piano wire?