10 years since the start of the financial crisis.

[andy_s]

When crime goes unpunished and the incentives to make money continues to transcend responsibility then yes, it will happen again. I can't see how the situation has got better as no one has made it better, we'll be in the same boat with fewer resources the next time an ingenious scam tips the stock algorithms into panic mode.

[sidicks]

andy_s said:

When crime goes unpunished and the incentives to make money continues to transcend responsibility then yes, it will happen again. I can't see how the situation has got better as no one has made it better, we'll be in the same boat with fewer resources the next time an ingenious scam tips the stock algorithms into panic mode.

Which crimes went unpunished?

[andy_s]

sidicks said:

Which crimes went unpunished?

Don't worry, I'm not Citizen Smith, should have used inverted commas. 'Grossly irresponsible', 'professional misconduct' 'pecuniary advantage', 'false accounting' - substitute as you like. Fortunately everyone got away with it; unfortunately this means it'll happen again.

[sidicks]

andy_s said:

sidicks said:

Which crimes went unpunished?

Don't worry, I'm not Citizen Smith, should have used inverted commas. 'Grossly irresponsible', 'professional misconduct' 'pecuniary advantage', 'false accounting' - substitute as you like. Fortunately everyone got away with it; unfortunately this means it'll happen again.

Irresponsibility isn't a crime. Pecuniary advantage and false accounting are.

Can you confirm what evidence you have that the crimes above were proven but not punished?

[andy_s]

sidicks said:

andy_s said:

sidicks said:

Which crimes went unpunished?

Don't worry, I'm not Citizen Smith, should have used inverted commas. 'Grossly irresponsible', 'professional misconduct' 'pecuniary advantage', 'false accounting' - substitute as you like. Fortunately everyone got away with it; unfortunately this means it'll happen again.

Irresponsibility isn't a crime. Pecuniary advantage and false accounting are.

Can you confirm what evidence you have that the crimes above were proven but not punished?

I'll repeat - I should have used inverted commas , see above.
I then gave you some alternatives. If you don't think they acted in a 'criminal' way that's fine, I do - we were ripped off, scammed and confidence tricked for their gain and our loss in an unfair and deceitful way. 'Too big to fail' = 'too big to prosecute'.

The essential point is that it went unpunished and neither the government, the justice authorities nor the institutions themselves have changed much nor did the financial institutions have anything more than some 'tut tuts' along with their early retirement bonus so the cycle will inevitably recur with the certainty of a child kicking a dog again after being given a sweety the last time they did it.

[sidicks]

andy_s said:

I'll repeat - I should have used inverted commas , see above.
I then gave you some alternatives. If you don't think they acted in a 'criminal' way that's fine, I do - we were ripped off, scammed and confidence tricked for their gain and our loss in an unfair and deceitful way. 'Too big to fail' = 'too big to prosecute'.

That's a bold claim without evidence - clearly there was some shocking 'moral' behaviour. There was probably some criminal behaviour too (some people have been prosecuted), but not sure where the evidence is that a) it exists and b) it wasn't punished.

There is no legal basis to prosecute "crimes", only crimes.

andy_s said:

The essential point is that it went unpunished and neither the government, the justice authorities nor the institutions themselves have had anything more than some 'tut tuts' along with their early retirement bonus so the cycle will inevitably recur with the certainty of a child kicking a dog again after being given a sweety the last time they did it.

Except that is nonsense - people lost their jobs, and the nature of bank bonuses being paid in shares is that many people lost massive amounts of money too.

[andy_s]

sidicks said:

andy_s said:

I'll repeat - I should have used inverted commas , see above.
I then gave you some alternatives. If you don't think they acted in a 'criminal' way that's fine, I do - we were ripped off, scammed and confidence tricked for their gain and our loss in an unfair and deceitful way. 'Too big to fail' = 'too big to prosecute'.

That's a bold claim without evidence - clearly there was some shocking 'moral' behaviour. There was probably some criminal behaviour too (some people have been prosecuted), but not sure where the evidence is that a) it exists and b) it wasn't punished.

There is no legal basis to prosecute "crimes", only crimes.

andy_s said:

The essential point is that it went unpunished and neither the government, the justice authorities nor the institutions themselves have had anything more than some 'tut tuts' along with their early retirement bonus so the cycle will inevitably recur with the certainty of a child kicking a dog again after being given a sweety the last time they did it.

Except that is nonsense - people lost their jobs, and the nature of bank bonuses being paid in shares is that many people lost massive amounts of money too.

'Shocking moral behaviour' - that's a pretty big understatement

Fair enough, we should be all right then. Let's see.

[So]

sidicks said:

andy_s said:

When crime goes unpunished and the incentives to make money continues to transcend responsibility then yes, it will happen again. I can't see how the situation has got better as no one has made it better, we'll be in the same boat with fewer resources the next time an ingenious scam tips the stock algorithms into panic mode.

Which crimes went unpunished?

RBS and Yorkshire Bank allegedly (for legal reasons) deliberately causing hardship to people and businesses for their own ends.

[loafer123]

So said:

RBS and Yorkshire Bank allegedly (for legal reasons) deliberately causing hardship to people and businesses for their own ends.

And yet every court case has found in favour of RBS.

Unfortunately, when people borrow money and don’t pay it back, they lose the assets held as security.

[sidicks]

andy_s said:

'Shocking moral behaviour' - that's a pretty big understatement

Fair enough, we should be all right then. Let's see.

Are you also proposing to prosecute all those who lied on their mortgage application firms?

[andy_s]

sidicks said:

andy_s said:

'Shocking moral behaviour' - that's a pretty big understatement

Fair enough, we should be all right then. Let's see.

Are you also proposing to prosecute all those who lied on their mortgage application firms?

Are you going to ask many more irrelevant questions?

On that separate issue I'd think that'd be up to the authorities rather than me.

[sidicks]

andy_s said:

Are you going to ask many more irrelevant questions?

On that separate issue I'd think that'd be up to the authorities rather than me.

I’d suggest the same should apply to the bankers, but that didn’t stop you commenting on them!

[andy_s]

sidicks said:

andy_s said:

Are you going to ask many more irrelevant questions?

On that separate issue I'd think that'd be up to the authorities rather than me.

I’d suggest the same should apply to the bankers, but that didn’t stop you commenting on them!

No, it didn't.

[So]

loafer123 said:

So said:

RBS and Yorkshire Bank allegedly (for legal reasons) deliberately causing hardship to people and businesses for their own ends.

And yet every court case has found in favour of RBS.

Unfortunately, when people borrow money and don’t pay it back, they lose the assets held as security.

That's a bit naive to be honest.

[sidicks]

So said:

loafer123 said:

So said:

RBS and Yorkshire Bank allegedly (for legal reasons) deliberately causing hardship to people and businesses for their own ends.

And yet every court case has found in favour of RBS.

Unfortunately, when people borrow money and don’t pay it back, they lose the assets held as security.

That's a bit naive to be honest.

And?

[Ian Geary]

sidicks said:

So said:

loafer123 said:

So said:

RBS and Yorkshire Bank allegedly (for legal reasons) deliberately causing hardship to people and businesses for their own ends.

And yet every court case has found in favour of RBS.

Unfortunately, when people borrow money and don’t pay it back, they lose the assets held as security.

That's a bit naive to be honest.

And?

And...he thinks you're being naive by arguing in favour of the banks' actions on a line by line basis, whilst ignoring that the overall outcome was massively adverse to the majority of people.

Of course, a good argument involves breaking a position down into points that can be tested and determined, such as would happen in a court case (and on any post you are involved in)

Banks that accepted dodgy mortgage applications from people who knew they could not afford to repay can rightly reclaim assets in the event of default.

But my employer takes the phrase fiduciary responsibility quite seriously.

Whilst those banks' staff would have ticked every affordability box very carefully, the outcome was such that it revealed banks had not been as careful as people had expected them to be with their investor's money.

Hence the naive comment: arguing banks were doing everything right when it all went so wrong for them seems an incongruous position for most people on here (though probably not the bankers who lost the value of their bonus shares)

[sidicks]

Ian Geary said:

And...he thinks you're being naive by arguing in favour of the banks' actions on a line by line basis, whilst ignoring that the overall outcome was massively adverse to the majority of people.

I’ve done no such thing. Can you read?

Ian Geary said:

Of course, a good argument involves breaking a position down into points that can be tested and determined, such as would happen in a court case (and on any post you are involved in)

Banks that accepted dodgy mortgage applications from people who knew they could not afford to repay can rightly reclaim assets in the event of default.

But my employer takes the phrase fiduciary responsibility quite seriously.

Whilst those banks' staff would have ticked every affordability box very carefully, the outcome was such that it revealed banks had not been as careful as people had expected them to be with their investor's money.

Hence the naive comment: arguing banks were doing everything right when it all went so wrong for them seems an incongruous position for most people on here (though probably not the bankers who lost the value of their bonus shares)

Except of course no one has argued that whatsoever.

[James_B]

So said:

RBS and Yorkshire Bank allegedly (for legal reasons) deliberately causing hardship to people and businesses for their own ends.

They chose between keeping extending credit to businesses in trouble, or calling in the loans and sending the businesses to the wall.

If they thought that option A would just see them lose ever more then option B was the right one to take.

Nothing illegal, immoral, or dodgy about that.

[JagLover]

BlackLabel said:

Lots in the news about this at the moment. Are things really as bad as some are suggesting?

A decade after Lehman fell, the global economy is not better. It’s worse

The Guardian article is accurate enough in terms of the challenges facing the UK economy and the west more generally.

Those wanting to blame the banks, and a specific financial crises, should reflect on the fact it has been ten years now and the banks have recovered, debt has shot up again, house prices are higher than the 2008 highs in virtually all of the western major cities.

You need to separate the short term and the long term, and also separate the symptoms from the causes.

There was a specific issue in the America sub prime mortgage market in the late 1990s early 2000s, government helped create it in the push to expand home ownership and greed did the rest. The securitisation of the mortgages then put the whole financial system at risk. There was a specific crises that was in part created by the economic fundamentals moving out of alignment.

We are now supposed to believe that growth ten years afterwards is still depressed by this one crises?. Just to put this in perspective a few years after the 1990s recession the UK economy was growing strongly.

Unless we confront where we are going wrong we will likely have another decade of stagnation and articles saying "twenty years since the crash", with a pretence that this stagnation is still due to that long ago event.

[V8 Fettler]

Insufficient investment in SME is one area where the UK is failing, also lack of long term investment in infrastucture that would benefit all e.g. roads.