a) Turned up at the wrong RBS office (no bigwigs there, it was an admin centre) b) That he wasn't allowed in not because the bosses were afraid to answer questions but for data security reasons c) That he acted in an aggressive manner when he turned up and therefore would have also been denied entry on employee safety grounds d) That the order to lock up the doors would have most likely been made by the building security head and not by the CEO of RBS e) That he can't justify his actions by using vague allusions to benefits cuts or the London riots
So in summary, a typical unnecessarily verbose reply that appears clever to stupid people but comes across as arrogant and hysterical to anyone who has achieved higher than Key Stage 3 attainment.
I've avoided posting in here as my views on Brand have been conflicted ever since he emerged as a political commentator.
On the one hand he's clearly motivated by values of community and egalitarianism which have arguably been lost in sections of UK society. He's been successful at shedding light on and engaging new people in political issues.
But then I'm put off by the way he will blanket huge groups of society as corrupt (the "city", the "media") as if they're all one homogenous, monolithic entity. It's the kind of uncritical, simplistic thinking he (fairly in my opinion) attacks groups such as Ukip for when they talk about immigrants.
What's more is that the content on his show - which he has the audacity to tell his huge number of viewers is unequivocally "TRUE" news - is all based on second-hand sources. The media is one big shadowy entity in the grip of the corps when he doesn't like what he's hearing, but when he finds journalistic work he likes, he's happy to take it to further his argument.
His show is also guilty of confirmation bias of the worst kind. For the most part the way he takes one line of argument and feeds it to his followers just annoying. After all, it's mostly stuff that's easy to support.
But occasionally it's dangerous and irresponsible. Today he posted a video arguing that the best way to respond to the Taliban after they massacred school kids is to talk with them. Basically, you massacre kids, so let's listen to what you have to say. Let's talk it out.
He cites Imran Khan as a Pakistani political figure who has called for discussions with the Taliban. He makes references to US drones, inferring them as a contributing factor. Does he mention that drones - for all their obvious ills - pretty much exclusively target Afghan Taliban hiding in Pakistan? Does he mention that huge swathes of the Pakistani population actually see Khan as a facilitator, an apologist for the group that terrorises their society? Does he make any disclosure to his personal connection to Khan? Of course not.
That's an unbalanced take on a very sensitive situation. It's potentially dangerous.
So in summary, a typical unnecessarily verbose reply that appears clever to stupid people but comes across as arrogant and hysterical to anyone who has achieved higher than Key Stage 3 attainment.
So if we don't agree with you, we're idiots. Insightful.
He might not of responded to the points you raised, but at least he tried to respond to some points raised by Jo. Unlike your post which just picks him apart without challenging any of the points he made.
By the way e) was not a vague allusion to justify his actions, he was suggesting it seemed unjust to give a teenager a few years in prison for stealing a pair of £50 trainers but no sentence for stealing millions. Nor was he supporting the rioters.
Again I'm not a fan of his but I'm glad he is at least trying. Most people seem unable to engage his argument because of who is making it. Why is it even him though? Where are our politicians? Oh yeah, all courting the city six months before an election.
I think it's a pretty nicely done response. Of course, all of the figures are invented (trillions!) but its well-written and makes him sound quite reasonable.
So if we don't agree with you, we're idiots. Insightful.
No, that wasn't what I was saying at all. Try reading my post again.
I don't think Brand should be applauded for making a very poor case for his cause and then hiding behind the veil of ignorance when challenged on his hypocrisy or lack of understanding on the issues. His diatribes are the verbal equivalent of diarrhea.
So if we don't agree with you, we're idiots. Insightful.
No, that wasn't what I was saying at all. Try reading my post again.
I don't think Brand should be applauded for making a very poor case for his cause and then hiding behind the veil of ignorance when challenged on his hypocrisy or lack of understanding on the issues. His diatribes are the verbal equivalent of diarrhea.
I did, I even quoted the part where you said it. I found it neither hysterical nor arrogant, so I can't have attained key stage three.
I thought Brand was a comedian but it appears, that he's actually a magician. He certainly uses the tools of a magicians trade: sleight of hand (or brain) and obfuscation. Let's look at his latest missive in detail:
"I imagine the disabled people of our country who have been hit with £6bn of benefit cuts during the period that RBS received £46bn of public bail-out money feel similarly cheesed off." I'm not checking his figures, let's say they are accurate. First he's is not comparing like with like. The cuts to the budget for the disabled (and just about every other public sector) would have happened with or without RBS going pear-shaped. Gordon Brown's profligacy ensured that. The benefits cuts are an on-going "saving". The £46bn was a one-off and, in exchange, the Govt. got an asset that will, no doubt, eventually turn a profit. The comparison is meant to tear at our heart strings. But what are the alternatives? (In fact, from my own experience there are still more cuts that could be made. A severely disabled friend gets 24/7 care in the form of a live-in "minder" paid for by his local council. The fact that he's a highly remunerated barrister that could well afford his own costs appears to be neither here nor there. My sister has severe arthritis and, quite rightly a blue badge. She's in receipt of disability living allowance. She's also a serving police officer. I don't blame her for claiming the money but she really doesn't need it.)
The use of the phrase "faceless bosses". Yeah, right. First the individuals I assume he's talking about are far from faceless (and would likely have been in a different building.) Their faces are out there for all to see with a quick google search. Indeed, in their own field, they would be just as well known as, say a "faceless comedian". Or is Brand confusing celebrity with value to the community I wonder? He's also being rather discriminatory. He has no idea whether RBS might have some high-ranking disabled people or indeed how many disabled people they employ. (Which he presumably would have been happy to see being made unemployed in the event that the Govt. had NOT stepped in to rescue RBS.)
"Trillions of public money lost and stolen and no one prosecuted."
Well, maybe not quite trillions. But last time I checked utter incompetence and uselessness were not necessarily criminal offences and that's why most of the quantifiable losses occurred. (As for the more recent LIBOR and FX issues, well time will tell whether or not there will be prosecutions but bankers have been charged - so Brand is just telling porkies.)
"The banks took the money, the people paid the price."
Not really, that's just too simplistic. Again the underlying issues, like Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, for example, could largely be placed at the door of "the people" who, through outright greed, wanted loans they couldn't possible afford to service. Sure the banks helped them achieve this with some smoke and mirrors accounting - but if the demand had not been there....
There's more but I thought I'd finish with "When I make a mistake I like to apologise and put it right. Hopefully your bosses will do the same to the people of Britain."
Well, of course, the people running RBS now are not the same as the ones that were then, so why should the new incumbents apologise? As for the old ones? well, they did, sort of, back in 2009. Goodwin, former chief executive of RBS, offered a "profound and unequivocal apology for the distress caused." Sir Tom McKillop, the former chairman of RBS also admitted that RBS made "a bad mistake" in buying the Dutch bank ABN Amro in 2007 - a move that is now seen as catastrophic.
So, hopefully, Brand will be as good as his word and apologise for his disingenuous approach, as well as the ignorance and incompetence that he apparently wishes to share with us all.
Before I get a backlash, I'm not defending the banks, far from it, but Brand's approach to the whole sorry mess is becoming more and more laughable by the day.
I thought Brand was a comedian but it appears, that he's actually a magician. He certainly uses the tools of a magicians trade: sleight of hand (or brain) and obfuscation. Let's look at his latest missive in detail:
"I imagine the disabled people of our country who have been hit with £6bn of benefit cuts during the period that RBS received £46bn of public bail-out money feel similarly cheesed off." I'm not checking his figures, let's say they are accurate. First he's is not comparing like with like. The cuts to the budget for the disabled (and just about every other public sector) would have happened with or without RBS going pear-shaped. Gordon Brown's profligacy ensured that. The benefits cuts are an on-going "saving". The £46bn was a one-off and, in exchange, the Govt. got an asset that will, no doubt, eventually turn a profit. The comparison is meant to tear at our heart strings. But what are the alternatives? (In fact, from my own experience there are still more cuts that could be made. A severely disabled friend gets 24/7 care in the form of a live-in "minder" paid for by his local council. The fact that he's a highly remunerated barrister that could well afford his own costs appears to be neither here nor there. My sister has severe arthritis and, quite rightly a blue badge. She's in receipt of disability living allowance. She's also a serving police officer. I don't blame her for claiming the money but she really doesn't need it.)
The use of the phrase "faceless bosses". Yeah, right. First the individuals I assume he's talking about are far from faceless (and would likely have been in a different building.) Their faces are out there for all to see with a quick google search. Indeed, in their own field, they would be just as well known as, say a "faceless comedian". Or is Brand confusing celebrity with value to the community I wonder? He's also being rather discriminatory. He has no idea whether RBS might have some high-ranking disabled people or indeed how many disabled people they employ. (Which he presumably would have been happy to see being made unemployed in the event that the Govt. had NOT stepped in to rescue RBS.)
"Trillions of public money lost and stolen and no one prosecuted."
Well, maybe not quite trillions. But last time I checked utter incompetence and uselessness were not necessarily criminal offences and that's why most of the quantifiable losses occurred. (As for the more recent LIBOR and FX issues, well time will tell whether or not there will be prosecutions but bankers have been charged - so Brand is just telling porkies.)
"The banks took the money, the people paid the price."
Not really, that's just too simplistic. Again the underlying issues, like Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, for example, could largely be placed at the door of "the people" who, through outright greed, wanted loans they couldn't possible afford to service. Sure the banks helped them achieve this with some smoke and mirrors accounting - but if the demand had not been there....
There's more but I thought I'd finish with "When I make a mistake I like to apologise and put it right. Hopefully your bosses will do the same to the people of Britain."
Well, of course, the people running RBS now are not the same as the ones that were then, so why should the new incumbents apologise? As for the old ones? well, they did, sort of, back in 2009. Goodwin, former chief executive of RBS, offered a "profound and unequivocal apology for the distress caused." Sir Tom McKillop, the former chairman of RBS also admitted that RBS made "a bad mistake" in buying the Dutch bank ABN Amro in 2007 - a move that is now seen as catastrophic.
So, hopefully, Brand will be as good as his word and apologise for his disingenuous approach, as well as the ignorance and incompetence that he apparently wishes to share with us all.
Before I get a backlash, I'm not defending the banks, far from it, but Brand's approach to the whole sorry mess is becoming more and more laughable by the day.
Well no. You are defending the actions of the banks really aren't you?
The reason why so many financial institutions caught a cold was because they were selling bundles of frankly useless loans amongst themselves (and others) earning a lot of money in commission for both the bank and the banker. Bankers who, logic dictates on at least one occasion worldwide at least, must have known they were selling someone a pup but stood to gain too much personally from the deal to blow the whistle and bring the house of cards down. Yeah, there was probably a lot of ineptitude and greed blinding reason around but to suggest the global crash was mainly due incompetence is being a overly generous imo.
Instead you prefer to focus your criticism on dirt poor Americans who for the first time in their life, maybe in generations, were offered a chance to provide some security for themselves and their families. Maybe some were "greedy" as you put it but I suspect most were simply financially ignorant and effectively had their lack of acumen abused by those selling them a loan they would always struggle to repay.
I thought Brand was a comedian but it appears, that he's actually a magician. He certainly uses the tools of a magicians trade: sleight of hand (or brain) and obfuscation. Let's look at his latest missive in detail:
"I imagine the disabled people of our country who have been hit with £6bn of benefit cuts during the period that RBS received £46bn of public bail-out money feel similarly cheesed off." I'm not checking his figures, let's say they are accurate. First he's is not comparing like with like. The cuts to the budget for the disabled (and just about every other public sector) would have happened with or without RBS going pear-shaped. Gordon Brown's profligacy ensured that. The benefits cuts are an on-going "saving". The £46bn was a one-off and, in exchange, the Govt. got an asset that will, no doubt, eventually turn a profit. The comparison is meant to tear at our heart strings. But what are the alternatives? (In fact, from my own experience there are still more cuts that could be made. A severely disabled friend gets 24/7 care in the form of a live-in "minder" paid for by his local council. The fact that he's a highly remunerated barrister that could well afford his own costs appears to be neither here nor there. My sister has severe arthritis and, quite rightly a blue badge. She's in receipt of disability living allowance. She's also a serving police officer. I don't blame her for claiming the money but she really doesn't need it.)
The use of the phrase "faceless bosses". Yeah, right. First the individuals I assume he's talking about are far from faceless (and would likely have been in a different building.) Their faces are out there for all to see with a quick google search. Indeed, in their own field, they would be just as well known as, say a "faceless comedian". Or is Brand confusing celebrity with value to the community I wonder? He's also being rather discriminatory. He has no idea whether RBS might have some high-ranking disabled people or indeed how many disabled people they employ. (Which he presumably would have been happy to see being made unemployed in the event that the Govt. had NOT stepped in to rescue RBS.)
"Trillions of public money lost and stolen and no one prosecuted."
Well, maybe not quite trillions. But last time I checked utter incompetence and uselessness were not necessarily criminal offences and that's why most of the quantifiable losses occurred. (As for the more recent LIBOR and FX issues, well time will tell whether or not there will be prosecutions but bankers have been charged - so Brand is just telling porkies.)
"The banks took the money, the people paid the price."
Not really, that's just too simplistic. Again the underlying issues, like Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, for example, could largely be placed at the door of "the people" who, through outright greed, wanted loans they couldn't possible afford to service. Sure the banks helped them achieve this with some smoke and mirrors accounting - but if the demand had not been there....
There's more but I thought I'd finish with "When I make a mistake I like to apologise and put it right. Hopefully your bosses will do the same to the people of Britain."
Well, of course, the people running RBS now are not the same as the ones that were then, so why should the new incumbents apologise? As for the old ones? well, they did, sort of, back in 2009. Goodwin, former chief executive of RBS, offered a "profound and unequivocal apology for the distress caused." Sir Tom McKillop, the former chairman of RBS also admitted that RBS made "a bad mistake" in buying the Dutch bank ABN Amro in 2007 - a move that is now seen as catastrophic.
So, hopefully, Brand will be as good as his word and apologise for his disingenuous approach, as well as the ignorance and incompetence that he apparently wishes to share with us all.
Before I get a backlash, I'm not defending the banks, far from it, but Brand's approach to the whole sorry mess is becoming more and more laughable by the day.
Well no. You are defending the actions of the banks really aren't you?
The reason why so many financial institutions caught a cold was because they were selling bundles of frankly useless loans amongst themselves (and others) earning a lot of money in commission for both the bank and the banker. Bankers who, logic dictates on at least one occasion worldwide at least, must have known they were selling someone a pup but stood to gain too much personally from the deal to blow the whistle and bring the house of cards down. Yeah, there was probably a lot of ineptitude and greed blinding reason around but to suggest the global crash was mainly due incompetence is being a overly generous imo.
Instead you prefer to focus your criticism on dirt poor Americans who for the first time in their life, maybe in generations, were offered a chance to provide some security for themselves and their families. Maybe some were "greedy" as you put it but I suspect most were simply financially ignorant and effectively had their lack of acumen abused by those selling them a loan they would always struggle to repay.
Well, no, I'm not. There's a concept called illusory superiority. In my view bankers, particularly, those who are traders demonstrate the most extreme version of this trait. Banker baiting really is a truly excellent sport: get in behind the jargon - asking them what it means and watching them struggle with an answer is always utterly entertaining. Break in past the confident demeanour and brashness and you often find a frightened little boy or girl. One too frightened to actually ask any meaningful questions. They really are nowhere near as smart and devious as they like to think they are and are certainly not "The Masters of The Universe". Sure, out there somewhere is the guy or girl, probably not an actual banker, more likely a mathematician, who devised the so-called sub-prime mortgage-backed securities wheeze. I've no doubt s/he knew all too well that it was a house of cards. As for the rest, I doubt it, despite there being a massive clue in the name - yes it's called sub-prime for a reason.
Warren Buffet's right-hand man, Charlie Munger sums it up pretty well: "One of the greatest ways to avoid trouble is to keep it simple. When you make it vastly complicated—and only a few high priests in each department can pretend to understand it—what you’re going to find all too often is that those high priests don’t really understand it at all…. The system often goes out of control."
I thought Brand was a comedian but it appears, that he's actually a magician. He certainly uses the tools of a magicians trade: sleight of hand (or brain) and obfuscation. Let's look at his latest missive in detail:
"I imagine the disabled people of our country who have been hit with £6bn of benefit cuts during the period that RBS received £46bn of public bail-out money feel similarly cheesed off." I'm not checking his figures, let's say they are accurate. First he's is not comparing like with like. The cuts to the budget for the disabled (and just about every other public sector) would have happened with or without RBS going pear-shaped. Gordon Brown's profligacy ensured that. The benefits cuts are an on-going "saving". The £46bn was a one-off and, in exchange, the Govt. got an asset that will, no doubt, eventually turn a profit. The comparison is meant to tear at our heart strings. But what are the alternatives? (In fact, from my own experience there are still more cuts that could be made. A severely disabled friend gets 24/7 care in the form of a live-in "minder" paid for by his local council. The fact that he's a highly remunerated barrister that could well afford his own costs appears to be neither here nor there. My sister has severe arthritis and, quite rightly a blue badge. She's in receipt of disability living allowance. She's also a serving police officer. I don't blame her for claiming the money but she really doesn't need it.)
The use of the phrase "faceless bosses". Yeah, right. First the individuals I assume he's talking about are far from faceless (and would likely have been in a different building.) Their faces are out there for all to see with a quick google search. Indeed, in their own field, they would be just as well known as, say a "faceless comedian". Or is Brand confusing celebrity with value to the community I wonder? He's also being rather discriminatory. He has no idea whether RBS might have some high-ranking disabled people or indeed how many disabled people they employ. (Which he presumably would have been happy to see being made unemployed in the event that the Govt. had NOT stepped in to rescue RBS.)
"Trillions of public money lost and stolen and no one prosecuted."
Well, maybe not quite trillions. But last time I checked utter incompetence and uselessness were not necessarily criminal offences and that's why most of the quantifiable losses occurred. (As for the more recent LIBOR and FX issues, well time will tell whether or not there will be prosecutions but bankers have been charged - so Brand is just telling porkies.)
"The banks took the money, the people paid the price."
Not really, that's just too simplistic. Again the underlying issues, like Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, for example, could largely be placed at the door of "the people" who, through outright greed, wanted loans they couldn't possible afford to service. Sure the banks helped them achieve this with some smoke and mirrors accounting - but if the demand had not been there....
There's more but I thought I'd finish with "When I make a mistake I like to apologise and put it right. Hopefully your bosses will do the same to the people of Britain."
Well, of course, the people running RBS now are not the same as the ones that were then, so why should the new incumbents apologise? As for the old ones? well, they did, sort of, back in 2009. Goodwin, former chief executive of RBS, offered a "profound and unequivocal apology for the distress caused." Sir Tom McKillop, the former chairman of RBS also admitted that RBS made "a bad mistake" in buying the Dutch bank ABN Amro in 2007 - a move that is now seen as catastrophic.
So, hopefully, Brand will be as good as his word and apologise for his disingenuous approach, as well as the ignorance and incompetence that he apparently wishes to share with us all.
Before I get a backlash, I'm not defending the banks, far from it, but Brand's approach to the whole sorry mess is becoming more and more laughable by the day.
Well no. You are defending the actions of the banks really aren't you?
The reason why so many financial institutions caught a cold was because they were selling bundles of frankly useless loans amongst themselves (and others) earning a lot of money in commission for both the bank and the banker. Bankers who, logic dictates on at least one occasion worldwide at least, must have known they were selling someone a pup but stood to gain too much personally from the deal to blow the whistle and bring the house of cards down. Yeah, there was probably a lot of ineptitude and greed blinding reason around but to suggest the global crash was mainly due incompetence is being a overly generous imo.
Instead you prefer to focus your criticism on dirt poor Americans who for the first time in their life, maybe in generations, were offered a chance to provide some security for themselves and their families. Maybe some were "greedy" as you put it but I suspect most were simply financially ignorant and effectively had their lack of acumen abused by those selling them a loan they would always struggle to repay.
Well, no, I'm not. There's a concept called illusory superiority. In my view bankers, particularly, those who are traders demonstrate the most extreme version of this trait. Banker baiting really is a truly excellent sport: get in behind the jargon - asking them what it means and watching them struggle with an answer is always utterly entertaining. Break in past the confident demeanour and brashness and you often find a frightened little boy or girl. One too frightened to actually ask any meaningful questions. They really are nowhere near as smart and devious as they like to think they are and are certainly not "The Masters of The Universe". Sure, out there somewhere is the guy or girl, probably not an actual banker, more likely a mathematician, who devised the so-called sub-prime mortgage-backed securities wheeze. I've no doubt s/he knew all too well that it was a house of cards. As for the rest, I doubt it, despite there being a massive clue in the name - yes it's called sub-prime for a reason.
Warren Buffet's right-hand man, Charlie Munger sums it up pretty well: "One of the greatest ways to avoid trouble is to keep it simple. When you make it vastly complicated—and only a few high priests in each department can pretend to understand it—what you’re going to find all too often is that those high priests don’t really understand it at all…. The system often goes out of control."
You've just said that bankers didn't know about sub-prime mortgages because they're not smart enough. And you've said it based on some loose conversations you've had with bankers where you asked them a question they didn't know the answer to.
And in your other post you've said what's the alternative to cutting benefits from disabled people? Really? What's the alternative? And you base that question on the fact your own sister steals from the government, and you know a disabled barrister? I don't even know where to start.
That's an interesting argument @cafcfan .Forgive my paraphrasing but you seem to be saying those involved were too thick to understand what they were doing therefore ignorance is in fact now a defence in law, if I follow your thinking properly. It begs the question what the hell they were doing in the job in the first place if they couldn't understand what they were selling does it not?
However this view that they were too stupid to understand doesn't really tally with those involved resubmitting their deals back to the credit ratings agencies for re-rating does it? If Standard and Poor could see their CDO's were a crock and told them so, one might expect an honest banker (even if they were a bit thick in reality as you suggest) to look at it again and have a bit of a think maybe. Not send it back for a AAA rating with a threat to take their business elsewhere if they didn't get it.
Tbh I can't stand Russell Brand but in the absence of one single criminal charge here or in the States in relation to what went on I find it hard to disagree with much of what he said about the behaviour and unaccountabilty of the banking sector.
Well, no, I'm not. There's a concept called illusory superiority. In my view bankers, particularly, those who are traders demonstrate the most extreme version of this trait. Banker baiting really is a truly excellent sport: get in behind the jargon - asking them what it means and watching them struggle with an answer is always utterly entertaining. Break in past the confident demeanour and brashness and you often find a frightened little boy or girl. One too frightened to actually ask any meaningful questions. They really are nowhere near as smart and devious as they like to think they are and are certainly not "The Masters of The Universe". Sure, out there somewhere is the guy or girl, probably not an actual banker, more likely a mathematician, who devised the so-called sub-prime mortgage-backed securities wheeze. I've no doubt s/he knew all too well that it was a house of cards. As for the rest, I doubt it, despite there being a massive clue in the name - yes it's called sub-prime for a reason.
Warren Buffet's right-hand man, Charlie Munger sums it up pretty well: "One of the greatest ways to avoid trouble is to keep it simple. When you make it vastly complicated—and only a few high priests in each department can pretend to understand it—what you’re going to find all too often is that those high priests don’t really understand it at all…. The system often goes out of control."
I think that, as usual, you're hampered by understanding this better than the average punter. People don't want to hear the narrative that people being greedy/stupid was the cause of a lot of the mess that we were in. The fact that there were bankers who'd had bonuses of hundreds of grand is a convenient fat cat that people are jealous of. These guys, it turned out were pretty unlikable and in many cases fairly incompetent. McKillop was a case in point - he was like a rabbit in headlights trotting out his apologies then excuses. He was there to absorb the damage. It cracks me up that the ABN AMRO deal is held up as a reason for their failure. They overpaid for an asset, but they did quite a lot of that, at the time, but they were making money so it didn't matter. In the normal scheme of things they'd have have had plenty enough money to ride it out but they forgot two key things 1) their proprietary investments could go down as well as up and 2) that deals that look to good to be true probably are (US property bonds).
I find Brand frustrating, because despite being an annoying, shite comedian, he's actually quite an insightful and interesting commentator. I think he's cottoned onto the fact that he can garner endless publicity and fill a quite under played niche in Britain's overstuffed celebrity catalogue (amusing rabble rouser). Cynically I think he knows a lot of what he's saying is stupid, but realises that there are plenty doughnuts that'll buy it and he'll be well fuelled with the oxygen of publicity, while he's on the soap box.
Well, no, I'm not. There's a concept called illusory superiority. In my view bankers, particularly, those who are traders demonstrate the most extreme version of this trait. Banker baiting really is a truly excellent sport: get in behind the jargon - asking them what it means and watching them struggle with an answer is always utterly entertaining. Break in past the confident demeanour and brashness and you often find a frightened little boy or girl. One too frightened to actually ask any meaningful questions. They really are nowhere near as smart and devious as they like to think they are and are certainly not "The Masters of The Universe". Sure, out there somewhere is the guy or girl, probably not an actual banker, more likely a mathematician, who devised the so-called sub-prime mortgage-backed securities wheeze. I've no doubt s/he knew all too well that it was a house of cards. As for the rest, I doubt it, despite there being a massive clue in the name - yes it's called sub-prime for a reason.
Warren Buffet's right-hand man, Charlie Munger sums it up pretty well: "One of the greatest ways to avoid trouble is to keep it simple. When you make it vastly complicated—and only a few high priests in each department can pretend to understand it—what you’re going to find all too often is that those high priests don’t really understand it at all…. The system often goes out of control."
I think that, as usual, you're hampered by understanding this better than the average punter. People don't want to hear the narrative that people being greedy/stupid was the cause of a lot of the mess...
Again, those of us not prepared to lay the total blame at the door of minimum waged workers offered a "too good to be true" deal by their real estate broker or bank are labelled a bit thick. Perhaps you could enlighten me as to what I don't understand about what happened?
It seems to me from everything I've seen that it was a perverse game of pass the toxic debt parcel that that resulted in more than a few financial institutions getting caught with their pants down when then music stopped. Maybe I've got it wrong though and the bankers weren't putting lipstick on a pig and selling it on? Maybe it was all just the fault of some factory worker in Detroit for stupidly believing what he was told?
The whole thing was predicated on the continuous rising of house prices and the idea that financial institutions should have held enough reserves to cope with any losses should their loans turned toxic.
Obviously, neither of things turned out happen in practice. The man on the street with a too-good-to-be-true mortgage can hardly be blamed - it takes two people to make a transaction and the average person should safely assume that the person giving them the loan has taken into account what should happen if the loan goes toxic. Once the liability on these 'sub-prime' loans exceeded the reserves held by financial institutions, they should have been taken off the market but by then the whole thing was quickly spiralling out of control and the people playing the game didn't understand what they were doing.
Now imagine you're offered a great mortgage deal tomorrow. Are you going to be thinking 'Hmm, I wonder what will happen if they offer this deal to a million other people and the whole thing goes tits up.'? Probably not.
You've just said that bankers didn't know about sub-prime mortgages because they're not smart enough. And you've said it based on some loose conversations you've had with bankers where you asked them a question they didn't know the answer to.
And in your other post you've said what's the alternative to cutting benefits from disabled people? Really? What's the alternative? And you base that question on the fact your own sister steals from the government, and you know a disabled barrister? I don't even know where to start.
You see, I now don't know whether you are joining in with Brand's buffoonery, being deliberately obtuse, abstruse, antagonistic, or merely silly. Perhaps a combo?
First, let's talk about the social budget. Here's some stuff to assist.
So, you see how public spending has gone up? I'll let you draw some lines with your crayons to match the increases with the period of the last Labour tenure. Do you think any of that is sustainable?
Now here's a graph showing increases in "social protection" spending. Do you see how it has gone up massively when compared to all other aspects (which have been trundling along nicely) apart from health? How can we, as a country, afford that?
And a nice pie chart.
Where, exactly, do you think meaningful savings can be made except in the social protection category?
You know full well that I was discussing the disabled budget because it was a theme of Brand's. You also know that his comparison between it and the bail out of RBS (and others) is illusory. I am suggesting that public spending cannot go on at this level and that the only way of controlling it is by cutting chunks off the Government's largest spend: that includes unnecessary payments to people like my sister. (Payments which, by the way, she is currently fully entitled to, in much the same way as people get child allowances, etc, etc.) So I find your view that she is stealing quite offensive.
I believe that the budget needs to be better structured. How much better to bin child allowances and channel (some of) that money to those who really need it - like the disabled without jobs or sufficient help? But of course, having that little number in an election manifesto is not really a big vote winner is it?
Now, back to bankers. Yes, really, there are huge swathes of them that are not dumb exactly but not really as clever as they'd like to think and that others tend to believe. They can also be very blinkered and tend to forget all about what history teaches them in, say, the secondary banking crisis of the mid-1970s. Hey, guess what shed loads of banks were threatened with going bust because of a - wait for it - crash in property prices. So, yes, it all came as a very big shock to them. Or do you actually think the people at Lehman Bros. really thought that losing their very well paid jobs and massive bonuses was a very cunning plan of some sort?
BTW, there have indeed been some "loose conversations" with bankers in hostelries in Canary Wharf; but my opinions of them were, in the main, harvested from structured, tape-recorded interviews under caution.
But I'm still of the view that most of them are honest and hard working.
18th December 2014, 10pm - Emergency Westbrook Partners Stakeholders Meeting
Several men in suits around a table with their heads in their hands. An ashtray in the middle of the table is filled with cigarette ends.
"We were so close...a few more weeks and we would have made 2 billion Londoners homeless and made 900 million trillion dollars in the process," one groaned.
Another rubbed his nose in despair.
"I know. And to think all of those people who we overcame - the tenants who started the campaign to save New Era, the ordinary citizens who joined the campaign and galvanised the protests. Then all those politicians from all sides of the political divide united against us, as well as Boris Johnson putting pressure on us. Little did we know we didn't care a single bit what they thought of us."
The gathered members let out a collective sigh.
"And yet, when we thought we had won...a shit comedian got his photo taken outside Downing Street."
The head of Westbrook Partners stood up and stroked his goatee whilst holding a goblet made of a human skull filled with unicorn blood.
"Fucksocks. Cancel the whole thing. Brand wins this round."
---
I'm pretty sure judging by the above posts that's how it happened. Some artistic licence has been taken.
According to the same edition of the Independent, Brand's books and TV appearances as well as the renowned works of Dizzee Rascal are to be 'studied' at A Level (A presumably being Advanced and not Arsehole). Never mind the hundreds of artists and writers who have written and are still writing thought provoking and wonderfully expressive books in the English language, the thoughts of this two bob self publicist are deemed worthy of study and analysis. No wonder that many teenagers are leaving school with the IQ of a hamster and the work ethic of a sloth
Comments
... however I agree with Prague that it is a pity that he did not address the other issues.
If he reverts with comments on that as well, I will be very impressed.
However Russell and Nigel, the devil is in the detail, even if the broad brush wins you initial support.
a) Turned up at the wrong RBS office (no bigwigs there, it was an admin centre)
b) That he wasn't allowed in not because the bosses were afraid to answer questions but for data security reasons
c) That he acted in an aggressive manner when he turned up and therefore would have also been denied entry on employee safety grounds
d) That the order to lock up the doors would have most likely been made by the building security head and not by the CEO of RBS
e) That he can't justify his actions by using vague allusions to benefits cuts or the London riots
So in summary, a typical unnecessarily verbose reply that appears clever to stupid people but comes across as arrogant and hysterical to anyone who has achieved higher than Key Stage 3 attainment.
He might not of responded to the points you raised, but at least he tried to respond to some points raised by Jo. Unlike your post which just picks him apart without challenging any of the points he made.
By the way e) was not a vague allusion to justify his actions, he was suggesting it seemed unjust to give a teenager a few years in prison for stealing a pair of £50 trainers but no sentence for stealing millions. Nor was he supporting the rioters.
Again I'm not a fan of his but I'm glad he is at least trying. Most people seem unable to engage his argument because of who is making it. Why is it even him though? Where are our politicians? Oh yeah, all courting the city six months before an election.
I don't think Brand should be applauded for making a very poor case for his cause and then hiding behind the veil of ignorance when challenged on his hypocrisy or lack of understanding on the issues. His diatribes are the verbal equivalent of diarrhea.
"I imagine the disabled people of our country who have been hit with £6bn of benefit cuts during the period that RBS received £46bn of public bail-out money feel similarly cheesed off."
I'm not checking his figures, let's say they are accurate. First he's is not comparing like with like. The cuts to the budget for the disabled (and just about every other public sector) would have happened with or without RBS going pear-shaped. Gordon Brown's profligacy ensured that. The benefits cuts are an on-going "saving". The £46bn was a one-off and, in exchange, the Govt. got an asset that will, no doubt, eventually turn a profit. The comparison is meant to tear at our heart strings. But what are the alternatives? (In fact, from my own experience there are still more cuts that could be made. A severely disabled friend gets 24/7 care in the form of a live-in "minder" paid for by his local council. The fact that he's a highly remunerated barrister that could well afford his own costs appears to be neither here nor there. My sister has severe arthritis and, quite rightly a blue badge. She's in receipt of disability living allowance. She's also a serving police officer. I don't blame her for claiming the money but she really doesn't need it.)
The use of the phrase "faceless bosses". Yeah, right. First the individuals I assume he's talking about are far from faceless (and would likely have been in a different building.) Their faces are out there for all to see with a quick google search. Indeed, in their own field, they would be just as well known as, say a "faceless comedian". Or is Brand confusing celebrity with value to the community I wonder? He's also being rather discriminatory. He has no idea whether RBS might have some high-ranking disabled people or indeed how many disabled people they employ. (Which he presumably would have been happy to see being made unemployed in the event that the Govt. had NOT stepped in to rescue RBS.)
"Trillions of public money lost and stolen and no one prosecuted."
Well, maybe not quite trillions. But last time I checked utter incompetence and uselessness were not necessarily criminal offences and that's why most of the quantifiable losses occurred. (As for the more recent LIBOR and FX issues, well time will tell whether or not there will be prosecutions but bankers have been charged - so Brand is just telling porkies.)
"The banks took the money, the people paid the price."
Not really, that's just too simplistic. Again the underlying issues, like Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, for example, could largely be placed at the door of "the people" who, through outright greed, wanted loans they couldn't possible afford to service. Sure the banks helped them achieve this with some smoke and mirrors accounting - but if the demand had not been there....
There's more but I thought I'd finish with "When I make a mistake I like to apologise and put it right. Hopefully your bosses will do the same to the people of Britain."
Well, of course, the people running RBS now are not the same as the ones that were then, so why should the new incumbents apologise? As for the old ones? well, they did, sort of, back in 2009. Goodwin, former chief executive of RBS, offered a "profound and unequivocal apology for the distress caused."
Sir Tom McKillop, the former chairman of RBS also admitted that RBS made "a bad mistake" in buying the Dutch bank ABN Amro in 2007 - a move that is now seen as catastrophic.
So, hopefully, Brand will be as good as his word and apologise for his disingenuous approach, as well as the ignorance and incompetence that he apparently wishes to share with us all.
Before I get a backlash, I'm not defending the banks, far from it, but Brand's approach to the whole sorry mess is becoming more and more laughable by the day.
The reason why so many financial institutions caught a cold was because they were selling bundles of frankly useless loans amongst themselves (and others) earning a lot of money in commission for both the bank and the banker. Bankers who, logic dictates on at least one occasion worldwide at least, must have known they were selling someone a pup but stood to gain too much personally from the deal to blow the whistle and bring the house of cards down. Yeah, there was probably a lot of ineptitude and greed blinding reason around but to suggest the global crash was mainly due incompetence is being a overly generous imo.
Instead you prefer to focus your criticism on dirt poor Americans who for the first time in their life, maybe in generations, were offered a chance to provide some security for themselves and their families. Maybe some were "greedy" as you put it but I suspect most were simply financially ignorant and effectively had their lack of acumen abused by those selling them a loan they would always struggle to repay.
Banker baiting really is a truly excellent sport: get in behind the jargon - asking them what it means and watching them struggle with an answer is always utterly entertaining. Break in past the confident demeanour and brashness and you often find a frightened little boy or girl. One too frightened to actually ask any meaningful questions. They really are nowhere near as smart and devious as they like to think they are and are certainly not "The Masters of The Universe". Sure, out there somewhere is the guy or girl, probably not an actual banker, more likely a mathematician, who devised the so-called sub-prime mortgage-backed securities wheeze. I've no doubt s/he knew all too well that it was a house of cards. As for the rest, I doubt it, despite there being a massive clue in the name - yes it's called sub-prime for a reason.
Warren Buffet's right-hand man, Charlie Munger sums it up pretty well: "One of the greatest ways to avoid trouble is to keep it simple. When you make it vastly complicated—and only a few high priests in each department can pretend to understand it—what you’re going to find all too often is that those high priests don’t really understand it at all…. The system often goes out of control."
And in your other post you've said what's the alternative to cutting benefits from disabled people? Really? What's the alternative? And you base that question on the fact your own sister steals from the government, and you know a disabled barrister? I don't even know where to start.
However this view that they were too stupid to understand doesn't really tally with those involved resubmitting their deals back to the credit ratings agencies for re-rating does it? If Standard and Poor could see their CDO's were a crock and told them so, one might expect an honest banker (even if they were a bit thick in reality as you suggest) to look at it again and have a bit of a think maybe. Not send it back for a AAA rating with a threat to take their business elsewhere if they didn't get it.
Tbh I can't stand Russell Brand but in the absence of one single criminal charge here or in the States in relation to what went on I find it hard to disagree with much of what he said about the behaviour and unaccountabilty of the banking sector.
Banker baiting really is a truly excellent sport: get in behind the jargon - asking them what it means and watching them struggle with an answer is always utterly entertaining. Break in past the confident demeanour and brashness and you often find a frightened little boy or girl. One too frightened to actually ask any meaningful questions. They really are nowhere near as smart and devious as they like to think they are and are certainly not "The Masters of The Universe". Sure, out there somewhere is the guy or girl, probably not an actual banker, more likely a mathematician, who devised the so-called sub-prime mortgage-backed securities wheeze. I've no doubt s/he knew all too well that it was a house of cards. As for the rest, I doubt it, despite there being a massive clue in the name - yes it's called sub-prime for a reason.
Warren Buffet's right-hand man, Charlie Munger sums it up pretty well: "One of the greatest ways to avoid trouble is to keep it simple. When you make it vastly complicated—and only a few high priests in each department can pretend to understand it—what you’re going to find all too often is that those high priests don’t really understand it at all…. The system often goes out of control."
I think that, as usual, you're hampered by understanding this better than the average punter. People don't want to hear the narrative that people being greedy/stupid was the cause of a lot of the mess that we were in. The fact that there were bankers who'd had bonuses of hundreds of grand is a convenient fat cat that people are jealous of. These guys, it turned out were pretty unlikable and in many cases fairly incompetent. McKillop was a case in point - he was like a rabbit in headlights trotting out his apologies then excuses. He was there to absorb the damage. It cracks me up that the ABN AMRO deal is held up as a reason for their failure. They overpaid for an asset, but they did quite a lot of that, at the time, but they were making money so it didn't matter. In the normal scheme of things they'd have have had plenty enough money to ride it out but they forgot two key things 1) their proprietary investments could go down as well as up and 2) that deals that look to good to be true probably are (US property bonds).
I find Brand frustrating, because despite being an annoying, shite comedian, he's actually quite an insightful and interesting commentator. I think he's cottoned onto the fact that he can garner endless publicity and fill a quite under played niche in Britain's overstuffed celebrity catalogue (amusing rabble rouser). Cynically I think he knows a lot of what he's saying is stupid, but realises that there are plenty doughnuts that'll buy it and he'll be well fuelled with the oxygen of publicity, while he's on the soap box.
Again, those of us not prepared to lay the total blame at the door of minimum waged workers offered a "too good to be true" deal by their real estate broker or bank are labelled a bit thick. Perhaps you could enlighten me as to what I don't understand about what happened?
It seems to me from everything I've seen that it was a perverse game of pass the toxic debt parcel that that resulted in more than a few financial institutions getting caught with their pants down when then music stopped. Maybe I've got it wrong though and the bankers weren't putting lipstick on a pig and selling it on? Maybe it was all just the fault of some factory worker in Detroit for stupidly believing what he was told?
Obviously, neither of things turned out happen in practice. The man on the street with a too-good-to-be-true mortgage can hardly be blamed - it takes two people to make a transaction and the average person should safely assume that the person giving them the loan has taken into account what should happen if the loan goes toxic. Once the liability on these 'sub-prime' loans exceeded the reserves held by financial institutions, they should have been taken off the market but by then the whole thing was quickly spiralling out of control and the people playing the game didn't understand what they were doing.
Now imagine you're offered a great mortgage deal tomorrow. Are you going to be thinking 'Hmm, I wonder what will happen if they offer this deal to a million other people and the whole thing goes tits up.'? Probably not.
First, let's talk about the social budget. Here's some stuff to assist.
So, you see how public spending has gone up? I'll let you draw some lines with your crayons to match the increases with the period of the last Labour tenure. Do you think any of that is sustainable?
Now here's a graph showing increases in "social protection" spending. Do you see how it has gone up massively when compared to all other aspects (which have been trundling along nicely) apart from health? How can we, as a country, afford that?
And a nice pie chart.
Where, exactly, do you think meaningful savings can be made except in the social protection category?
You know full well that I was discussing the disabled budget because it was a theme of Brand's. You also know that his comparison between it and the bail out of RBS (and others) is illusory. I am suggesting that public spending cannot go on at this level and that the only way of controlling it is by cutting chunks off the Government's largest spend: that includes unnecessary payments to people like my sister. (Payments which, by the way, she is currently fully entitled to, in much the same way as people get child allowances, etc, etc.) So I find your view that she is stealing quite offensive.
I believe that the budget needs to be better structured. How much better to bin child allowances and channel (some of) that money to those who really need it - like the disabled without jobs or sufficient help? But of course, having that little number in an election manifesto is not really a big vote winner is it?
Now, back to bankers. Yes, really, there are huge swathes of them that are not dumb exactly but not really as clever as they'd like to think and that others tend to believe. They can also be very blinkered and tend to forget all about what history teaches them in, say, the secondary banking crisis of the mid-1970s. Hey, guess what shed loads of banks were threatened with going bust because of a - wait for it - crash in property prices. So, yes, it all came as a very big shock to them. Or do you actually think the people at Lehman Bros. really thought that losing their very well paid jobs and massive bonuses was a very cunning plan of some sort?
BTW, there have indeed been some "loose conversations" with bankers in hostelries in Canary Wharf; but my opinions of them were, in the main, harvested from structured, tape-recorded interviews under caution.
But I'm still of the view that most of them are honest and hard working.
Extremely good news. IMO.
Several men in suits around a table with their heads in their hands. An ashtray in the middle of the table is filled with cigarette ends.
"We were so close...a few more weeks and we would have made 2 billion Londoners homeless and made 900 million trillion dollars in the process," one groaned.
Another rubbed his nose in despair.
"I know. And to think all of those people who we overcame - the tenants who started the campaign to save New Era, the ordinary citizens who joined the campaign and galvanised the protests. Then all those politicians from all sides of the political divide united against us, as well as Boris Johnson putting pressure on us. Little did we know we didn't care a single bit what they thought of us."
The gathered members let out a collective sigh.
"And yet, when we thought we had won...a shit comedian got his photo taken outside Downing Street."
The head of Westbrook Partners stood up and stroked his goatee whilst holding a goblet made of a human skull filled with unicorn blood.
"Fucksocks. Cancel the whole thing. Brand wins this round."
---
I'm pretty sure judging by the above posts that's how it happened. Some artistic licence has been taken.
He's really upset the EDL this time
http://www.itv.com/news/2015-04-06/cameron-beats-brand-to-top-social-media-influence-list/
Shame as he is an intelligent yet corrupt man. I do like a fair chunk of his stand up too.