A Martian looking in might be somewhat startled to discover that our planet’s financial system had regenerated, even if only superficially, to almost the exact condition it was in before the biggest corporate failure the earth has ever known.
I am not talking economics, I am talking culture. I am talking of a culture in which people get paid vast sums for producing almost nothing, and do it in a way almost no one understands.
It is because the culture has not changed that the economics remain under threat. Stock markets have made up vast amounts of ground, despite the spiral in unemployment and the contraction in profitability.
Global finance has the appearance of a multi-headed hydra. Strangely, the effect of our lack of confidence in, and control over, the financial system is that faith is stalling in domestic politics in so many countries. There is a dwindling belief that any political structure or class is equipped to deal with hydra.
Hold onto your hats. It could all happen again. Next time we will have spent all the funds we had, or didn’t even have, to “save the system”. We shall be on our own, and it may hurt.
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What angers me is that a huge part of the public debt has come from bailing out the greedy people who created the problem but the discussioni about resolving that debt is aimed at the services, not the financial whizz kids.
The arguments are over which services should be cut and what savings (sacking staff) can be made to public services.
Meanwhile the financial geniuses who only survived thanks to public money continue to earn obscene amounts and receive millions in bonuses, mainly in tax ‘efficient’ schemes that contribute as little as possible to the public purse.
It’s time the pain fell on those that created the situation, not the people who rescued them.
Spot on, Jon!
What would be amusing were it not obviously continuing is the distancing from this global financial catastrophe of the people who brought it on, whilst continuing to milk us for all we are worth.
The banking disaster is alluded to always in the third person as if it were something which befell the banking world and over which they had no influence or control – indeed, almost as if they were victims rather than perpetrators. There is clearly no guilt or conscience or remorse as they continue to award themselves ever increasing salaries and bonuses. Gordon Brown has no intentions of tightening it up or bringing in caps to financial reward – he is thinking ahead to his cushy and highly profitable stint as one of them post election.
Are we being naive? The financial sector drives everything else – the NHS, etc., is just a nice add-on. That’s how politicians think, and,sadly, they may be right. The public sector gives us a sense of conscience/morality etc., but life is anything but. Business is brutal, politicians are pragmatic, and we seek a coherent moral narrative. Not a good mix.
Oh! – and while I am in rant mode and having just watched Ch4 News and Gordon Brown finally admit what the world and his dog have known for months – there WILL be cuts to Public Spending and also and yet again, the poorest people in our country will bear the brunt of the reneging on the Housing Benefit. Actually the only time, we don’t hear the word “cuts” is when discussing those responsible for the sorry mess which necessitates them. Again, he made scant reference to the ongoing shortcomings of the banking world – almost a throw away line, while he tried to convince us that we are well on our way to recovery.
I did not think Brown was ever cut out to be a P.M. but I considered he might be a Socialist. What a fool I’ve been!
Apropos of Nothing: it’s just that one of your links (The Daily Beast) is showing this top-drawer model advertising ‘Woven Cable Bracelets’. Does anyone know who she is?
No, nothing has changed in the culture of the banks or financial services in general. I recently attended a local business club breakfast where the speaker was the ‘regional manger’ in Scotland of one of the surviving taxpayer-subsidised big UK banks.
He kicked of by explaining that ‘banking was essentially a simple business’, that banks took depositors’ money and lent it on to appropriate borrowers and that this assured the banks of a good steady business. For good measure he patronised us with some basics on how to make our applications for loans more attratcive to his managers. He further ‘explained’ to us that trust was central and essential to the business of banks.
I thought, ‘well, he is obviously going to get to the honest confession bit where he asks “so what went wrong”‘. But no, he wittered on like this for some time.
This senior representative of a major UK bank was either utterly detached from current reality or utterly lying through his teeth. Certainly, when one emotional business person explained how last year her current bank had enticed her away from her previous bankers – and then this year refused her any further funding on no grounds related to her business – this guy had nothing to offer but a faint sympathetic smile and glib utterances.
The entire bank and financial sector seems happy to simpy wait out the time during which they need to soak the taxpayer before a quick return to the old ‘business as usual’. Their having learnt nothing will ensure another global collapse that, presumbaly, will be sooner than later and worse than the current one.
Jon
I hope you intend to interview Geroge Osborne tonight. From what he said on the Today programme this morning it would appear that, if he becomes Chancellor, he will make public all treasury reports even if they show the government in a bad light.
It would be nice to hear him make that pledge specifically on air. If not, his current outbursts are just more political bluster.
Our culture tells us that winning is the only measure we recognise. Driven by the business of sport and the media, It now influences all our thinking, all our motivations with disastrous effects. It is the myth of meritocracy measured only by this sick criterion -rewarded by money.
Don’t for 1 minute forget the two who,in this country,presided over our once-great countries collapse.I refer of course to SAINT
TONYand GORMLESS GORDON too busy
feathering their own nests to bother about
us. The only time we’re of any importance
is pre-election, afterwards we cease to
exist exept in our own minds!!
[...] Posted in Media Picks by lauramacdonald on September 20, 2009 One year on, Lehman Brothers still haunts us – Intelligent analysis from Jon [...]
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