Anybody know why the spread of mortgage rate to base is so high at the moment. I know that rates used to be higher, but I don't think there's ever been such a wide divergence between what you can get at the bank and what you pay in mortgage.
Because the banks are greedy, grabbing b'stards who are using record low interest rates to borrow the cash themselves but maintaining (I think) a record difference between that rate and what their SVR is? Rates have gone down of course (so everyone thinks great!) but I think you are right in that the 'spread' has actually increased.
Exactly -they will always have lame excuses like th epower companies but the bottom line is they want to make as much money out of you as they can. You have crooks who go to jail and even bigger crooks like solicitors and banks who make shedloads at our expense.
Im not daft, clearly they are not to blame for the entire mess but they set the wheels in motion and were incapable of self regulation.
The thousands of people who got themselves into huge debt and just went bankrupt created a massive black hole but how did they get access to the sort of credit to get in such a pit in the first place. It wasn't a receptionist at the council earning sod all that was to blame yet it is people like that who have suffered because of something not of their doing
Sorry, really don't get this at all. Which bank managers frog-marched thousands of people into branches and forced them to take credit cards & loans and then go out and max them to the hilt????
FFS...take some responsibility for your lives. Stop trying to keep up with the Jones's and believing that you have a right to everything.
There are people in genuine poverty who deserve help. There are others who lived it up on money they never, ever had.
Yes, credit was cheap & too easily available and was a huge contributor to the mess we are all in, across vast swathes of the planet.
A little ironic that people moan about the mess and, in the same breath, that it's now harder and more expensive to get anything out of the banks.
There isn't a single poster on this board or person in the country that is living from day to day...there might be some smug people that think they have no debts, money tucked aside in investments, a nice safe pension set up... They are deluding themselves.. All this tinkering with banks and what they can and can't do is like stopping boots from selling aspirins because there is a cocaine problem in the country...they real casino money is elsewhere these days and has been for years...
so much I don't agree with I hardly know where to start. But since you recall bankers past work, let's focus on that. If banks still operated to some of the values they had in the past we wouldn't be in this mess. I remember having a bank manager. I remember going through some hoops to get a credit card, and even more to get a mortgage. They lost all those cautious values, and consumed us all with our own greed
Prague - sorry, you talk a lot of sense on other threads, but this is ridiculous. I've changed one word in your post, because it makes just as much sense as the one you used.
I got myself into a cycle of debt & credit cards when I was starting work in the mid-80s and took 7 years to really get myself sorted out. I had forgotten how I had been brought up...to save for the things that I wanted. I got myself back to that, have no debt or credit cards and enjoy my life.
I find myself now sitting down with the "youngsters" I work with trying to get them to understand why they spend all day moaning about the fact they have no money a day after the monthly pay day. Thinking nothing of all the credit & store cards they are using to purchase things they want...NOT things they need!!
I remember my dad being on 3 day weeks at Ford. He got himself work labouring & picking up shifts in bars just to put food on the table. We weren't badly off, we were healthy & we had food & clothes for school. We didn't have the toys every kid wanted, but we had what we could afford.
We had too many years of sustained growth. Too many people, globally, believed that they had a god-given right to go out and spend money they didn't have on "things".
Sorry...but the masses, which did include me for a while, are as much to blame as anyone.
Tel:
It's match day, not too much time to respond, but:
I agree with you that people ALSO need to take their share of the blame. In my case I didn't get tempted. But I knew they were and are trying. I know senior marketing people who have worked for banks - both of them left, disgusted. Perhaps the fact they are both women, has something to do with it.
Otherwise if the banks are such reasonable responsible businesses, how do you explain:
1. Sub prime mortgages
2. £40 to receive money sent over the Internet within the EU, £-£, no currency conversion?
Bring back Captain Mainwaring. Proper old school bank manager.
When I wanted to borrow some money for my motorbike to get to work back in 1980 - I had to make an appointment with my bank manager, be interviewed by him and was then given the nod on the massive sum of £300.
15 years later, I applied to the same bank by post for a credit card, got one sent in the post four days later and they'd given me a credit limit of £25k.
In those 15 years my salary had gone up five fold, but the credit they were prepared to give me had gone up by 83 times. No questions asked, just here's the money - go fill your boots.
The answer is for this country to actually start producing things again and banks to be like banks used to be - to help make that happen.
What are we going to produce that the rest of the world would want and can afford?
Good question, but Germany has answers. It's not just Siemens , Miele and BMW. It is hundreds and thousands of SMEs making stuff.
I look around my house. Nearly all German machines with one exception. The hi fi. Amp and CD by Creek, speakers by Maidstone based KEF. Glorious kit.so we can do it, if we try.
Im not daft, clearly they are not to blame for the entire mess but they set the wheels in motion and were incapable of self regulation.
The thousands of people who got themselves into huge debt and just went bankrupt created a massive black hole but how did they get access to the sort of credit to get in such a pit in the first place. It wasn't a receptionist at the council earning sod all that was to blame yet it is people like that who have suffered because of something not of their doing
Sorry, really don't get this at all. Which bank managers frog-marched thousands of people into branches and forced them to take credit cards & loans and then go out and max them to the hilt????
FFS...take some responsibility for your lives. Stop trying to keep up with the Jones's and believing that you have a right to everything.
There are people in genuine poverty who deserve help. There are others who lived it up on money they never, ever had.
Yes, credit was cheap & too easily available and was a huge contributor to the mess we are all in, across vast swathes of the planet.
A little ironic that people moan about the mess and, in the same breath, that it's now harder and more expensive to get anything out of the banks.
You are right in that no one was forced to take credit, but they were given credit by supposedly professional people whose job it was to regulate the amount of credit they allowed. They failed to do that because all they could see was the interest coming in, and the bonuses that they got as a result of their staff selling these cards and loans. Senior management was only interested in sales, nothing else. At my wife's branch even the typist was given a sales target!
If a solicitor or doctor had acted in such an irresponsible, gung-ho manner they would have been sued, and struck off.
We could start by producing what we want, then we will find the rest of the world will want it too. 30 -40 years ago, people in this country preferred to buy British - this was destroyed by complacency (from companies and Unions), Goverments not seeing the bigger picture and not protecting what needed protecting which contributed to a change in culture.
Now, when we buy something, most of us don't even think about where it was made. We have to find a way to get that cullture back. Ed Milliband made a thought provoking speech about this a few months ago, unfortunately he said what needed to happen but not how to make it happen.
For me, it has to come from a British Mark that is promoted. So you have Gold British - 100% British products, Silver British, 75% and Bronze 50%. Then instead of printing money and giving it to banks to sit on, you put that same money aside for discounts -to an upper limit. If you want to buy an Axminster Carpet for instance (which has just gone bust after about 300 years of trading) It is 100% British so they can give you virtual vouchers when you buy to give you say a 20-30% discount. This will surely stimulate demand.
Apply this and the money goes into the economy, propping up British businesses, but foreign business that employ British -like Nissan - people are incentivised too. When a pound is spent, it creates revenue, it gets spent again and again. When it sits in a bank vault, it does nothing.
We need to take the banks (which have been totally discredited) out of this! In a time of crisis, balance sheets of the major players grow as they are risk averse, banks themselves only wnat to lend to people who don't want to borrow. Those who wnat to borrow, are seen as too big a risk! We can't put the small amount of money we have to effect things in their hands.
Your intelligent defence of banks are well worth reading and pondering, however you haven't convinced me. Especially your comparison with Apple.
Remember I mentioned how my Czech (Austrian parent) bank is charging me £40 for incoming international transfers?
So. The top bankers pay themselves these bonuses and one of their defences is that these bonuses are in line with those paid in other sectors of business. And you mentioned that HSBC have lower margins than Apple.
However Apple have such margins because they create high value products which people want to buy -and as someone says above, no one forces them to buy them Whatever you think of Apple overall, you must concede that the design and technical work that has gone into this is of the highest level. As it is with Samsung as well. They deserve the profits they make, and as Nokia found out, it could all disappear if they dont stay right on top of their game.
In contrast my Czech bank makes its margins by deducting ridiculous amount from automatic incoming transfers, as well as making money on the currency conversion and the interest on the incoming money which sits in my account. Where's the added value in that? Why should a CEO get a bonus of a penny for a business model which relies on that kind of near-theft?
Why don't you change banks or the method of making transfers.
I am doing exactly that. I have started using Moneybookers. However most of my week has been taken up with persuading Moneybookers that I am not a money launderer. There's another problem with Moneybookers too, even after I finally got through that. If you want to use them to send money to anyone else, e.g deposits for apartments in Croatia, those people have to register with Moneybookers in order to get the money. The two I have tried have both resisted.
You also know, as do the banks, that changing banks is a hassle. And there isn't a co-op bank, or anything like it, in the Czech Republic.
Change where you live? :-)
Not met Czech women nor drunk Czech beer then Pete? :-)
I can tell you why there is resentment, because top bankers do f**k all real work to earn their money KHA. Recruitment consultants find people jobs, people who invent and design I-pads enable me to write this post. All bankers do is make more money for people who are rich already, often at the expense of the rest of us, and when they cock up they still get paid extraordinary amounts of money. The government has given them our money to invest in business and boost the economy, and for the most part they have kept it. They may be few in number, but while they are paying themselves more and more money, they are making people redundant, outsourcing jobs to cheaper markets and then have the brass neck to tell us that it is " for the benefit of the customer". They are shameless unrepentant greedy bastards. They still take enormous "bonuses" even when their companies lose money. Has ANYONE on this forum ever been paid a bonus for making a pigs ear of their job?
I for one would NOT have behaved the way they have, you might, and judging by some of the comments on subjects such as footballers salaries, quite a few others would, but I personally know several people who are contributors to this forum who certainly would not either.
If you had an employment contract that entitled you to a bonus based on some kind of performance and you achieved it, but somewhere else in the company someone lost more than you made, would you agree to let the company keep your bonus?
I think the point that people miss is that money these high performers earn a percentage of what they make. They just make a lot of money.
If you run a market stall and make £5 on every item you sell if you sell a hundred a week you make £500 a week.
If you bring in business to your bank and you get ten percent of what you being in and you bring in £100m then you have earned £10m.
I know the numbers seem obscene, but it's just scaling of 'profit share'.
Anyway I have no particular love for bankers and some of the comments are starting to feel a little aimed at me personally so I think I'll stop posting and allow those that hate bankers carry on without me.
Nothing personal KHA, but a friend of mine who worked for Sir Phillip Green had just that scenario happen to her. She was head of one of seven departments which hit its target, five others did too. One failed, the charming tax avoider used the one failure as an excuse not to pay any of them their bonus. This was during "the good times", the company had made plenty of money and was not being propped up by the tax payer.
If the bankers are already earning seven figure sums, and see their employer losing money overall and that the taxpayer is making up the difference, they could refuse the bonuses? They would still be better off than 97% of the country - especially as they nice Mr. Cameron's top rate tax cut will put another 40 grand + a year back in their pocket from the end of next month. That might go a long way to improving their public image, they have that choice. But they choose to take the money and let everyone else go hang.
I can tell you why there is resentment, because top bankers do f**k all real work to earn their money KHA. Recruitment consultants find people jobs, people who invent and design I-pads enable me to write this post. All bankers do is make more money for people who are rich already, often at the expense of the rest of us, and when they cock up they still get paid extraordinary amounts of money. The government has given them our money to invest in business and boost the economy, and for the most part they have kept it. They may be few in number, but while they are paying themselves more and more money, they are making people redundant, outsourcing jobs to cheaper markets and then have the brass neck to tell us that it is " for the benefit of the customer". They are shameless unrepentant greedy bastards. They still take enormous "bonuses" even when their companies lose money. Has ANYONE on this forum ever been paid a bonus for making a pigs ear of their job?
I for one would NOT have behaved the way they have, you might, and judging by some of the comments on subjects such as footballers salaries, quite a few others would, but I personally know several people who are contributors to this forum who certainly would not either.
your right its the only industry where you can get rewarded for fucking up . in the real world you have your p45.
What has to happen too, is the Government needs to see its money as belonging to one big pot - not lots of little ones/budgets. So if it makes cuts to lots of low paid public sector jobs when there are not jobs in the private sector to absorb, what happens is that savings are made from one pot, but paid out from another pot (welfare) and there is a knock on effect to businesses and communities!
I can tell you why there is resentment, because top bankers do f**k all real work to earn their money KHA. Recruitment consultants find people jobs, people who invent and design I-pads enable me to write this post. All bankers do is make more money for people who are rich already, often at the expense of the rest of us, and when they cock up they still get paid extraordinary amounts of money. The government has given them our money to invest in business and boost the economy, and for the most part they have kept it. They may be few in number, but while they are paying themselves more and more money, they are making people redundant, outsourcing jobs to cheaper markets and then have the brass neck to tell us that it is " for the benefit of the customer". They are shameless unrepentant greedy bastards. They still take enormous "bonuses" even when their companies lose money. Has ANYONE on this forum ever been paid a bonus for making a pigs ear of their job?
I for one would NOT have behaved the way they have, you might, and judging by some of the comments on subjects such as footballers salaries, quite a few others would, but I personally know several people who are contributors to this forum who certainly would not either.
your right its the only industry where you can get rewarded for fucking up . in the real world you have your p45.
Football managers?
No, they get the sack - albeit with their contracts paid up. Likewise CEOs of big companies, but they are still out of work even if it's with a nice fat cheque.
The answer is for this country to actually start producing things again and banks to be like banks used to be - to help make that happen.
What are we going to produce that the rest of the world would want and can afford?
Good question, but Germany has answers. It's not just Siemens , Miele and BMW. It is hundreds and thousands of SMEs making stuff.
I look around my house. Nearly all German machines with one exception. The hi fi. Amp and CD by Creek, speakers by Maidstone based KEF. Glorious kit.so we can do it, if we try.
And thats the problem. They make high end and made that decision 20 years ago when they had a huge manufacturing base, we went down another path. Once its gone its gone. Germany also has a huge paper economy, just like we thought we must have.
KEF may be UK based (like other Hi-Fi companies) but have they followed moved manufacturing to the far east? I have top of the tree AE speakers, designed in the UK and made on the other side of the world. Its not that we cant make goods the same quality its profit margin before all else.
We are capable of making some of the finest goods, the Germans know this (Bently, Rolls Royce Mini) the Indians Know this (Jag/Land rover). Its a pity we dont
Look at Formula 1 - all the foreign teams (to a lesser extent Ferrari) basically rely on British engineering. It is true- the Germans went high end but if you look at the car industry - we had a 'that will do' mentality as Jeremy Clarkson would put it. Rather than address, we decided to sell everything off (the glorious Thatcher years) but our workers show they can deliver the quality (Mini, Rolls Royce, Nissan). Just they are doing it for foreign companies!
I don't prescribe to the view that you can't get it back. Just that you have to do something imaginative and radical to change tack and our governments of all colours don't seem to have it in them. If you do get radical new ideas, the press tend to shoot them down for some reason.
So if a top punter/trader banker earns their bank £100m and terry fuckwit bankers at the same place lose £100m, giving bad credit out or whatever makes the loss .... the top punter should not get his £10m bonus.... Let me think does he then stay with the bank if he doesn't get a bonus and continue to make dough to cover terry fuckwits losses or fuck off to a fund who will weigh him out properly
I don't prescribe to the view that you can't get it back. Just that you have to do something imaginative and radical to change tack and our governments of all colours don't seem to have it in them. If you do get radical new ideas, the press tend to shoot them down for some reason.
The company that designs chips for mobile phones (Apple, Samsung Nokia and others) is British and very successful but they dont even make a screw. In fact they will admit they haven't got clue how to and are not interested in making anything. They just design and innovate. All very well but its hardly employment for the masses and I doubt very sustainable in the long term Formula 1 does show how good we are but arnt Lotus F1 (not the car manufacturing), all Malaysian, planning to base their team, R&D, construction and everything else in Malaysia?
So if a top punter/trader banker earns their bank £100m and terry fuckwit bankers at the same place lose £100m, giving bad credit out or whatever makes the loss .... the top punter should not get his £10m bonus.... Let me think does he then stay with the bank if he doesn't get a bonus and continue to make dough to cover terry fuckwits losses or fuck off to a fund who will weigh him out properly
I mean you do the math ffs
He could accept that in the real world his million pound salary is fantastic, that he is a very lucky man to be in the position he is in, and show some loyalty to his company. In the meantime he could help his bosses realise that Terry needs to be sent up the river.
Lol ..... I live in reality and unfortunately the world isn't a perfect place where people work and share the wealth equally amongst the not so well off Cuckoo land is probably a better place to be for a peaceful state of mind
It isn't about sharing all their wealth, it is about sharing a bit of it. We currently live in a world where if you don't exploit people, get as much from them for as little you can give, there is something wrong with you. We should aspire to a better world - surely! People who think life is just about money are to be pitied and will never be truly happy.
It isn't about sharing all their wealth, it is about sharing a bit of it. We currently live in a world where if you don't exploit people, get as much from them for as little you can give, there is something wrong with you. We should aspire to a better world - surely! People who think life is just about money are to be pitied and will never be truly happy.
Just to put some meat on the bones, banking is NOT self-regulated. It really never has been but the postion was properly legislated for in the Banking Act 1979 (which has since been replaced by two new pieces of legislation and there's another up-coming.) It's probably the most regulated industry there is. But the regulation did not work. The over-arching problem in my view is two-fold (maybe three). First, the FSA (and the Govt.) sees its role as regulating the industry practitioners. This, in my view is wrong-headed. Instead, what should exist is product regulation. Unfortuately politicans and regualtors (and, of course, banks) see this as something that would stiffle innovation and growth in the industry. Just think: if there had been product regulation rather than airy fairy concepts like "treating customers fairly" we may never had had dodgy PPI schemes, interest swaps and packaged mortgage products. The FSA could have banned them before they started. Second, under the last administration the FSA was not permitted to take robust action against banks. It was required by its masters at the Treasury, namely Gordon Brown and Ed Balls and Ed's wife, Yvette Cooper, to maintain "a light touch" regulation. This was seen by those who remembered the 1970s secondry banking crisis as completely bonkers and so it has proved. But, hey, that's politicians for you. Third, (maybe) the punishments for wrong-doing handed down by the FSA were never sufficient. They were easily affordable and the detrimental press coverage was always tomorrow's chip wrappers. Perhaps if the FSA had had the balls to hit all rule breaches with hefty fines -and God knows there have been enough of them (If you doubt this search FSA Final Notices) - then reckless behaviour would have be nipped in the bud by the mere threat of action. I always thought that a good place to start would have been for FSA fines to be precisely and blatently linked to the bonuses handed out by errant banks. In that way it would have been for shareholders to decide whether the fine should be paid out of shareholders funds or their directors' remuneration. It would then have become obvious even to the most stupid of bankers (there's also plenty of those - asking them to fully explain the jargon they use has long been a favourite pastime of mine!) that a short-term profit may end up with long-term grief. Now, what's around the corner? Well more of the same I fear. The current encumbent of 11 Downing St is well-meaning in his attempt to put right the fiasco created by Gordon Brown when the latter took regulation away from the Bank of England. So, the FSA is to be split into two. From April we will have the Prudential Regulation Authority (effectively to be a subisdiary of The Bank of England) and The Financial Conduct Authority (what's left of the FSA). Of course, the actual staff will be the same, they will just be sitting in different buildings and human nature being what it is there will be gaps in knowledge and information that is not properly shared between The City and Canary Wharf. So, you and I can easily foresee that there will inevitably be some dreadful "falling between two stools" disaster in due course. By then, the policitians will have changed again and the regulators will be playing musical chairs again and regulation will probably be back where it all started at the Bank of England.
Comments
FFS...take some responsibility for your lives. Stop trying to keep up with the Jones's and believing that you have a right to everything.
There are people in genuine poverty who deserve help. There are others who lived it up on money they never, ever had.
Yes, credit was cheap & too easily available and was a huge contributor to the mess we are all in, across vast swathes of the planet.
A little ironic that people moan about the mess and, in the same breath, that it's now harder and more expensive to get anything out of the banks.
It's match day, not too much time to respond, but:
I agree with you that people ALSO need to take their share of the blame. In my case I didn't get tempted. But I knew they were and are trying. I know senior marketing people who have worked for banks - both of them left, disgusted. Perhaps the fact they are both women, has something to do with it.
Otherwise if the banks are such reasonable responsible businesses, how do you explain:
1. Sub prime mortgages
2. £40 to receive money sent over the Internet within the EU, £-£, no currency conversion?
When I wanted to borrow some money for my motorbike to get to work back in 1980 - I had to make an appointment with my bank manager, be interviewed by him and was then given the nod on the massive sum of £300.
15 years later, I applied to the same bank by post for a credit card, got one sent in the post four days later and they'd given me a credit limit of £25k.
In those 15 years my salary had gone up five fold, but the credit they were prepared to give me had gone up by 83 times. No questions asked, just here's the money - go fill your boots.
No wonder so many people got into such a mess.
I look around my house. Nearly all German machines with one exception. The hi fi. Amp and CD by Creek, speakers by Maidstone based KEF. Glorious kit.so we can do it, if we try.
If a solicitor or doctor had acted in such an irresponsible, gung-ho manner they would have been sued, and struck off.
Now, when we buy something, most of us don't even think about where it was made. We have to find a way to get that cullture back. Ed Milliband made a thought provoking speech about this a few months ago, unfortunately he said what needed to happen but not how to make it happen.
For me, it has to come from a British Mark that is promoted. So you have Gold British - 100% British products, Silver British, 75% and Bronze 50%. Then instead of printing money and giving it to banks to sit on, you put that same money aside for discounts -to an upper limit. If you want to buy an Axminster Carpet for instance (which has just gone bust after about 300 years of trading) It is 100% British so they can give you virtual vouchers when you buy to give you say a 20-30% discount. This will surely stimulate demand.
Apply this and the money goes into the economy, propping up British businesses, but foreign business that employ British -like Nissan - people are incentivised too. When a pound is spent, it creates revenue, it gets spent again and again. When it sits in a bank vault, it does nothing.
We need to take the banks (which have been totally discredited) out of this! In a time of crisis, balance sheets of the major players grow as they are risk averse, banks themselves only wnat to lend to people who don't want to borrow. Those who wnat to borrow, are seen as too big a risk! We can't put the small amount of money we have to effect things in their hands.
If the bankers are already earning seven figure sums, and see their employer losing money overall and that the taxpayer is making up the difference, they could refuse the bonuses? They would still be better off than 97% of the country - especially as they nice Mr. Cameron's top rate tax cut will put another 40 grand + a year back in their pocket from the end of next month. That might go a long way to improving their public image, they have that choice. But they choose to take the money and let everyone else go hang.
Football managers?
Football managers?
No, they get the sack - albeit with their contracts paid up. Likewise CEOs of big companies, but they are still out of work even if it's with a nice fat cheque.
KEF may be UK based (like other Hi-Fi companies) but have they followed moved manufacturing to the far east? I have top of the tree AE speakers, designed in the UK and made on the other side of the world. Its not that we cant make goods the same quality its profit margin before all else.
We are capable of making some of the finest goods, the Germans know this (Bently, Rolls Royce Mini) the Indians Know this (Jag/Land rover). Its a pity we dont
I don't prescribe to the view that you can't get it back. Just that you have to do something imaginative and radical to change tack and our governments of all colours don't seem to have it in them. If you do get radical new ideas, the press tend to shoot them down for some reason.
Let me think does he then stay with the bank if he doesn't get a bonus and continue to make dough to cover terry fuckwits losses or fuck off to a fund who will weigh him out properly
I mean you do the math ffs
Formula 1 does show how good we are but arnt Lotus F1 (not the car manufacturing), all Malaysian, planning to base their team, R&D, construction and everything else in Malaysia?
Cuckoo land is probably a better place to be for a peaceful state of mind
The over-arching problem in my view is two-fold (maybe three).
First, the FSA (and the Govt.) sees its role as regulating the industry practitioners. This, in my view is wrong-headed. Instead, what should exist is product regulation. Unfortuately politicans and regualtors (and, of course, banks) see this as something that would stiffle innovation and growth in the industry. Just think: if there had been product regulation rather than airy fairy concepts like "treating customers fairly" we may never had had dodgy PPI schemes, interest swaps and packaged mortgage products. The FSA could have banned them before they started.
Second, under the last administration the FSA was not permitted to take robust action against banks. It was required by its masters at the Treasury, namely Gordon Brown and Ed Balls and Ed's wife, Yvette Cooper, to maintain "a light touch" regulation. This was seen by those who remembered the 1970s secondry banking crisis as completely bonkers and so it has proved. But, hey, that's politicians for you.
Third, (maybe) the punishments for wrong-doing handed down by the FSA were never sufficient. They were easily affordable and the detrimental press coverage was always tomorrow's chip wrappers. Perhaps if the FSA had had the balls to hit all rule breaches with hefty fines -and God knows there have been enough of them (If you doubt this search FSA Final Notices) - then reckless behaviour would have be nipped in the bud by the mere threat of action. I always thought that a good place to start would have been for FSA fines to be precisely and blatently linked to the bonuses handed out by errant banks. In that way it would have been for shareholders to decide whether the fine should be paid out of shareholders funds or their directors' remuneration. It would then have become obvious even to the most stupid of bankers (there's also plenty of those - asking them to fully explain the jargon they use has long been a favourite pastime of mine!) that a short-term profit may end up with long-term grief.
Now, what's around the corner? Well more of the same I fear. The current encumbent of 11 Downing St is well-meaning in his attempt to put right the fiasco created by Gordon Brown when the latter took regulation away from the Bank of England. So, the FSA is to be split into two. From April we will have the Prudential Regulation Authority (effectively to be a subisdiary of The Bank of England) and The Financial Conduct Authority (what's left of the FSA). Of course, the actual staff will be the same, they will just be sitting in different buildings and human nature being what it is there will be gaps in knowledge and information that is not properly shared between The City and Canary Wharf. So, you and I can easily foresee that there will inevitably be some dreadful "falling between two stools" disaster in due course. By then, the policitians will have changed again and the regulators will be playing musical chairs again and regulation will probably be back where it all started at the Bank of England.