Clegg turns his attention from the students to the banks

Nick

I did a calculation the other day. Bail out costs, gordon's share trading in the banks. Interest charges.

I get 26.5 billion of losses. More than Gordon's gold losses.

Total government debts, 6,800 billion

Now why do you think the government is so keen to discuss bankers, and not their shit pile?

AF

I'd be surprised if Clegg faired any better than Osborne and Cable,their combined efforts of shouting BOO to the bankers has no effect whatsoever,don't they realise that they are dealing with hard bitten addicted gamblers,these guys will turn a card with billions on the table.
Clegg,Osborne,Cable and Co will have to up their game by a long margin.

Chris lancashire

Oh dear, last refuge of the desperate politician - let's go banker bashing.

Andy Turfer

Nick Clegg issue "warnings" (hot air) about banks and their excessive bonuses, but was quick to pass legislation to burden future generations of students with huge debts before they even start their careers (if they can start their careers). Nick Clegg often uses the word "fair", is a man of his word, and has single handedly brought the popularity of the Lib Dems down to an all time low.

What a great character.

The Bellman

'The oppressed kick downwards'.

Simon Stephenson

Chris lancashire

Not so much that, to me, but that he's bashing for the wrong reason. Instead of appearing to suggest that bankers are being less than social in sharing the wealth that they create, perhaps Clegg et al would strike more of a chord by suggesting that most banking revenues are little more than a privately levied tax on productive activity, and that if bankers don't stop taking the p1ss they'll have the ability to levy this tax removed from them entirely.

davidk

He's on the run. Rattled by the students mauling, he's in a daze vainly trying to appear 'progressive'.

Ken

Bankster bashing is an entirely legitimate and hugely deserving sport but ultimately fails to deliver the real rewards: prosecutions and prison for the criminals who wantonly destroyed the global economy.
It is an outrage. We need a Nuremberg Tribunal for Economic War Crimes to punish the financiers and political fellow travellers responsible.
The true cost of the disaster is still surfacing - look at the trillions pledged to recapitalise the ECB and stave off sovereign insolvency across Europe.
Bring the Bankers to Book, whatever the cost.

Tarka the Rotter

Bash the bankers? well now, seems to me the ones to bash are ZanuLabour and the ex-prime mentalist. Any chance of prosecutions in their direction, Nick? No? Thought not...

Chris lancashire

Simon Stephenson - absolutely dead wrong. If it weren't for the banks all of British industry would come to a halt. We have a world leading venture capital sector, our commercial banking is light years ahead of the Continent and the banking industry draws huge overseas profits back into this country.
A small minority of lunatics engaged in some lending practices that were completely stupid and deserve everything that can be thrown at them. Don't, however, ruin the whole of an excellent finance industry because of the activities of a minority. And no, I'm not a banker but an industrialist who has benefitted hugely over the years from the support of vc's and bankers.

Henry

Taxes paid by financial services companies were worth £53.4bn in the 12 months to March, according to a City of London report produced by PricewaterhouseCoopers.

While total tax revenues from the industry were down by £8bn on the previous year, the financial firms regained their position as the largest contributor to the Exchequer, comprising 11.2pc of the total UK tax take.

Importantly, the report understates the financial service industry’s real tax contribution as the figure does not include the tax paid by financial services professionals subject to the 50pc tax rate or those hit by the bank payroll tax.

Baron

Chris lancashire @ 3.34:

hear, hear, sir.

one’s hard put to comprehend the debility of the never ending bankers’ bashing. If they’re breaking the law, take them to court, screw them hard. If not, shut up, let them get on with it.

have said it so often it pains to say it again. It ain’t entirely the bankers’ fault they make billions, hence pay millions in bonuses. There aren’t enough of them, the global financial flows are massive. The banks take a cut facilitating the deals, those of their dealers and traders who’ve established the best rapport with the client base get the business and the bonuses.

if only, when the Treasury acquired stakes in the RBS and Lloyds, the two banks were allowed to poach the top traders from the likes of Goldmans, doubling their bonuses if required, we, the UK taxpayers rather than the yanks, would be now richer, much richer. Madness.

Woody

I think Nick Clegg should just shut up and that goes for the rest of the government. There are just too many newspaper interviews and half-baked announcements, which they don't follow up with a round of interviews, hence the opposition jump in and muddy the waters.
Have a break chaps.

TrevorsDen

Pardon me - but what good are the bankers doing in earning these huge profits? Chris L you say they are investing in industry - but is industry reaping any rewards as a result? I see little of it.

Just where do these sums come from. If banks are making billions someone somewhere must be losing these billions. This money has to come from somewhere. I am struggling to conclude that British industry is coining in profits in return for the fees/interest they pay the banks.

I have a sneaking sympathy for ken's view. These are barrow boys without a conscience and are gambling not banking and with a marked deck.

Tim Carpenter LPUK

The concept of Rule of Law just keeps escaping Nick Clegg, doesn't it?

If he does not like the idea of State-owned banks doing this or that, then do not bail them out or, if you were foolish enough to do so, sell off the investments and let them go their own way.

I do suspect that the old Marxist Brown was very happy about a bail-out, as it gave him more if an excuse to meddle.

Simon Stephenson

Chris lancashire : 3.34pm

Wow! British industry needs banks.

I do know this. But I'd suggest that much of what industry needs banks for is valueless activity made necessary by obstacles put there by people who, believe it or not, work in banks. I expect you're a fervent believer that the free-market imperative is to make money by creating wealth, but I'm afraid there are too many people without souls for this to be any more than a diminishing fantasy. The dominant modern cry is that making money is creaing wealth - by definition - and that therefore acquiring someone else's wealth is as laudable a way of making money as is creating new wealth from scratch.

Jonathan Ford's article is a good take on this

http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2008/11/agreedygiantoutofcontrol/

Baron : 6.09pm

I hope you'll read Ford's article, too.

You might also like to ponder the thought that using the law as the sole determinant of acceptable or unacceptable behaviour is unworkable. The law can never be more than a line on a spectrum of behaviour beyond which we have graded all behaviour as intolerable - it should never be seen as a means by which we are able to grade all behaviour short of the line as equivalently tolerable. Remaining within the law can certainly be seen as a good starting point for civilised behaviour, but society would soon become primitive and barbarian if it were to be taken as the only factor determining behaviour.

Devising legal ways to cause people to transfer their wealth to you involuntarily is not, by definition, illegal, but it shouldn't be classed as qualitatively comparable to acquiring wealth by creating it.

TrevorsDen : 9.42pm

What you say is not true of banking in its entirety, but I think you are right that much of what goes on is unconscionable money-making at someone else's expense. I think also that we shouldn't seek to draw a line under this by taking the view that this is aberrant behaviour restricted to the financial sector. It's not. It's what's happened in the finance sector when we decided that the entrepreneurial spirit was such a boon to us all that we should be freer with the reins and allow the greedy, the vicious, the devious and the inconsiderate to join the competent and the smart on the money-making merry go round. The same attitudes prevail throughout - it's just in finance that the results have become so spectacularly apparent.

Chris lancashire

TrevorsDen/Simon Stephenson: I speak from personal experience, read all the articles you like but I remain convinced that we are supported by a first class financial sector. Stick on the bandwagon if you like.