Bernanke trashes Brown's tripartite system

TrevorsDen

Was this under oath?

And another thing

"The biggest financial crisis in modern British history heralded an unprecedented bonanza in fees for City lawyers, accountants and advisers, according to the definitive assessment of Treasury spending on the bail-outs. "

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/6721206/Bonanza-for-City-lawyers-accountants-and-advisers-as-Treasury-pays-for-crisis-advice.html

NAO says money wasted. East Peasy when its not yours. Labour is good at that.

Percy

But we all know it started in America.

TomTom

Bernanke should point out that Brown did not want any body to have authority but to be completely subservient to The Treasury which is why the MPC is appointed by The Treasury and why John Gieve, ex-Treasury was put as Deputy Governor

In2minds

As said I've before Gordon Brown did Brussels bidding here with BoE 'independence'. Soon it will be David Cameron with his head in the EU trap.

“It started in America”, what a laugh!

toco

The hapless Brown is foolish,vindictive,small minded, bullying and totally lacking in charm.He is on a mission to wreck this Country-fortunately even he cannot prevent an Election....or shock horror is he ceding us to the EU?

oldtimer

Apparently, after HBOS was bailed out and one week before RBS needed its c£30 billion plus bailout, the Treasury noted that RBS was in a reasonably strong position.

So much for effective supervision!

Holly ......

Youtube Thatcher...No,No,No & Thatcher's Last stand on socialism.
Talk about Labour selling out to Europe under Kinnock.
Well worth a look.

Moraymint

Anyone else feeling exhausted at the litany of criticism that thumps into Gordon Brown on a daily basis?

All the while, the big yin staggers on, spewing out his tractor production statistics, lying through his teeth and scheming every which way to cling to office.

It's all so unedifying and un-British. Have we ever been governed by such a sad, sorry and shocking bunch of incompetents as this lot?

It's the abject failure of our democratic institutions and processes that so angers me. As citizens, we are being shafted by our political class, and we're impotent to boot.

Hence the almost unimaginable mess that is now the British economy. Every single one of our politicians should be ashamed of themselves when considering the state we're in. Led by Mr G Brown who, as I've said before, is little more than a traitor.

Snowman

The tripartite system of supervision has one useful advantage. Nobody gets ever blamed if things go wrong.

2trueblue

Well we knew Brown was rubbish. The tradgedy is we will be paying for it a lot longer that it took him and Labour to create the mess.
The billions spent on management consultants have benefited us vey little and we are paying civil servants to do the job as well. Between the money government could save by curtailing the use of management consultants and abolishing quangos would go some way to helping the economy. Get rid of the lot of them.

Jen Cook

Bernanke is trying to use Brown's failed system as a vindication of the Federal Reserve - at a time when it is under attack.

I wouldn't put much stock in his opinion.

That he's right about Brown is beside the point.

Richard Oz

I am afraid that real world experience does not bear Mr Barnanke out - for reasons that the UK should find worrying.

Australia has the same tripartite system as the UK - and it has worked very well.

Australian banks came through the financial crisis in much better shape than those in the UK. This was due in large part to prudent regulation by its FSA (the Australian Prudential Regulation Regulation Authority).

So - the same system fails in one country but works in another. What is the critical difference?

People.

Put simply the Austrlians had better people runnning their system. Better public servants at APRA and better politicians in John Howard and Peter Costello

The UK FSA was largely staffed by Civil Servants and others who knew little of the industry they were regualting and who were used to doing the bididng of politicians.

At APRA poachers (ex bankers) were turned into gamekeepers to good effect.

It probably helped that APRA, based in Sydney was seperate from the political centre of Canberra.

But the bankers did approach the polticians for easier regulation and were rebuffed by Howard and Costello. Quite the opposite happened in the UK - where Brown actively discouraged any sort of prudent regulation.

The worrying lesson for the UK is that its Political and Official classes thus seem to be unequal to the tasks expected of them.

I am not sure whether Cameron (who, let us remember has never run anyrhing in his life) appreciates how far he has to go to undo the rot in the public sector. If he doesn't - shifting responsibities from one dysfunctional part of the bureaucracy to another will be of little help.

denis cooper

But wasn't not "over the past few years", was it?

It was early in Labour's first term, and the then Governor Eddie George threatened to resign over it.

Olaf Rye

Well stated, Richard Oz ! The non-entities that are attracted to government positions in the British Isles are generally those that are too incompetent or fearful to work in the private sector and prefer security in their positions above anything else. No matter what system we had in place, it would have failed because of the hopelessness of the civil service and its innate moral cowardice--they will always be loyal to the system and never stick their head above the parapet. No one really discusses this, because it means that the entire culture of the civil service must be changed, starting with the removal of almost all serving staff. Moreover, it implies what many of us already know: the British are selling their liberty for job security and the most paltry careerism. And some people wonder how the Nazis and Communists could enact their perverse fantasies !

Yarnesfromhorsham

Agree with Moraymint - surely the time has come to start talking to one or two retired generals.

ralphjolly

Well this Bernanke guy's obviously a genius.
Wait a minute, didn't he bring the US economy to it's knees in the same way Brown destroyed the British economy???
Well, it takes one to know one I guess...

KevinR

Richard Oz & Olaf Rye:
I couldn't agree with you more.

One of my long standing concerns in Britain is that so many people who gravitate towards politics and the Civil Service are simply not up to the job, yet often wield enormous powers. And for a lifetime of incompetence, they receive a K or Gong upon retirement.

Virtually ever cock-up we have can be traced back to the incompetence of individuals - from the PM down - yet the 'system' carefully prevents any accountability. Then they wheel out the hackneyed phrase "lessons will be learnt". They rarely are.

Yes you are right - the Civil Service needs a complete replacement of people...trying to reform from within is a hopeless task.

I often doubt whether we have enough good people who could take over from these clowns and run govt and the Civil Service efficiently.

The future is bleak...

General Zod

Richard Oz, what had Brown run in his life before becoming Prime Minister? Oh yes, the Treasury.

That went well, didn't it?

Richard Oz

General Zod

Fair point - but one of the problems here is that politicians arrive in power woefully unprepared or tested. They then fall back on the Public Sector

Before coming to the Trasury Brown had run .......nothing!

So - these people come to Government with huge self belief (that all too often exceeds their real capabilities) but no track record in doing anything but talking about things.

They are then hit by a range of often fast moving difficult issues that they don't have a clue how to handle. So they fall back onto the 'support' provided by a State Apparatus that is an interest group in itself -and also not that good at actually running things.

One thing the State Apparatus is VERY good at though - ducking accountability for themselves and their political 'Masters'.

Not sure the Bullingdon boys are up to it.