European Stabilisation Mechanism
http://www.nationofchange.org/european-stabilization-mechanism-or-how-goldman-vampire-squid-just-captured-europe-1337519246
The US is not the Basket Case
See http://publicbankinginstitute.org/. The US is not the basket case. The UK is.
Barclays Customers Beware
Barclays have issued 15 million contactless payment cards, and apparently all new Barclays cards will be contactless. It is possible for a fraudster to read your card details by touching your wallet or back pocket with a moble phone or other device. Barclays claim this does not allow the fraudster to make purchases using your card. Others disagree. See http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/9163969/Barclays-contactless-cards-exposed-to-fraud.html. or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGWFryVh_oE
Will the government do anything? Watcha this space. Meanwhile Barclays customers could consider wrapping their cards in cooking foil. This would block the radio signal.
Monbiot’s latest article at: http://www.monbiot.com/2012/05/07/a-monstrous-proposal/ is a must read for anyone concerned with what is happening to the NHS.
and the commercial confidentiality exemption should only apply when disclosure would seriously damage the company’s competitive position as opposed to an excuse to hide corruption.
Mervyn King ‘Could have Done More’
In the second Today Programme lecture on Wed 2 May, Mervyn King admitted that the Bank of England could have done more to raise awareness of the impending crisis. Many in the media felt this was not good enough; he wasn’t paid for 20:20 hindsight, but for foresight. In the Today Programme on Thursday, Baroness Wheatcroft defended him, observing that Gordon Brown in giving the Bank independence in setting interest rates had transferred its power to regulate banks to the Financial Services Authority, which unfortunately in the run up to the crash appears to have deserved the Private Eye’s label for it of the ‘Fundamentally Supine Authority’. Baroness Wheatcroft also observed that King did speak out at the Mansion House speech in 2007, but no one was listening. No one that ‘mattered’ at least; there were plenty of ‘heretics’ who argued that excessive debt levels spelt disaster.
All this is water under the bridge. What I had hoped for was a more forceful and more explicit message about what should now be done. After all he is in his last year as governor of the Bank; what has he to lose?
His remedies were the three Rs, Regulation, Resolution, and Restructure.
On Regulation he had nothing to offer except requiring banks to hold more capital. The idea that excessive lending to finance spending on existing assets (regardless of the use or otherwise of complex and opaque derivatives and special purpose vehicles) represents a huge systemic risk did not get a mention, and heaven forbid that we should seek to learn from successful Asian economies. Did he not heed what Lord Turner (hardly an heretic surely?) wrote in 2010,
“…If instead we believe that financial markets, maturity transforming banks, and credit extension against assets which can increase in value, are inherently susceptible to instabilities which cannot be overcome by identifying and removing some specific market imperfection, then Professor Kay‘s proposal fails to address the fundamental issues. It would create safe retail deposit banks which would never need to be rescued, but it would leave credit supply and pricing as volatile, pro-cyclical and self-referential as it was pre-crisis. [Turner in 'The Future of Finance: The LSE Report 2010]“
A resolution mechanism to deal with insolvent banks by requiring senior bond holders to take a ‘haircut’ is of course sensible in order to reduce moral hazard. However it is not a complete answer. There might not be enough such bond holders to save retail and small business deposits in a narrow bank, and is it relevant in the case of a casino bank?
Proper restructuring would involve creating narrow banks as proposed by Prof. John Kay, not the watered down version proposed by Vickers and apparently accepted by government. If it were achieved the need for the resolution mechanism would be much reduced. But did he voice a word of criticism against the government for so far failing to bring forward any legislation? I could find no such criticism in his script.
In short his prescription was inadequate, and he failed to berate the government for their inaction at a stage in his career when surely he could afford to do so.
But the fault is not his alone. He clearly understands the strength of the forces at work against him and the 99%. The main fault lies with the moral cowardice, greed, and short sightedness of the coalition government, which will not stand up to the banking lobby. And was Gordon Brown much better?
It’s not just about the bonuses
Click on link below to download PowerPoint presentation.
ItsnotJusttheBonuses : What’s wrong with banks, and what should we do?
The NHS Transition Risk Register
The fact that the Health and Social Care Bill has been passed without parliamentarians being able to see the NHS Transition Risk Register surely destroys any pretensions that Britain is (or ever was ) a democracy.
Civil Servants have argued, as they always will, that if a document intended to advise the government on policy were ordered to be published it would mean that such documents in future would not be full and frank. But what does that say about civil servants? Section 35 of The Freedom of Information Act does provide a qualified of exemption in these cases, but this is subject to a public interest test.
In this case the Information Commissioner ruled that the public interest in disclosure outweighed the argument for not publishing, and the tribunal upheld this decision. The government has the right to appeal, but in the meantime the Bill has been passed.
In my view it is inexcusable that, given the impact of the Bill, parliament (both houses) passed the Bill before the legal argument was settled finally.
My wife and I have no doubt whatever that the next few years will see the principle of universal care free at the point of use will have to be abandoned. As a result we do not expect to receive decent care in our last years and are looking for ways to end our lives painlessly at the appropriate time. We are not alone in this.
