Saturday, 28 February 2009

If you were the betting type, who would you bet on?

Would you be betting on the most cunning minds of the generation, who could turn toxic debt into something people would cheerfully buy, or would you be betting on the regulator, who watched all this happening and just waved it on through?

My money's on the bankers, but the wankers also want their say:

Financial regulators may in the future ban financial products if they are too risky or too complex, Lord Turner, chairman of the Financial Services Authority, said today.

Indicating that the City regulator is embarking on a dramatic change in the "philosophy" of its approach to overseeing firms, Turner said his review into regulation due next month would lead to a "banking revolution".

He said banks would be expected to put "several times" more capital aside for the risky positions held in their trading books – one of the lessons learned from the current financial crisis.



Um ... what?

So, various bits of our joined-up government want the banks to a) be more cautious, b) still lend more money out (i.e., be less cautious), c) buy government debt, d) make a profit so that they can repay the government all the money they've put in and e) pay people less for this thankless work?

I can't see any problem with that, can you?

4 comments:

IanPJ said...

Sell all the Banks to the Post Office. That would be safe...

AntiCitizenOne said...

You can't raise reserve ratios and increase the amount of credit at the same time.

Obnoxio The Clown said...

You can't raise reserve ratios and increase the amount of credit at the same time.

Exactly. Unfortunately, after years of incompetent government, ZNL thinks that they can just order it to be so, and it will somehow miraculously be so.

Cunts.

Jack Maturin said...

...And we will bring in the reserve divisions from the outskirts of Berlin to defend the bunker in the centre...

Cloud cuckoo land. And they STILL get 30% of the electorate?

H.L.Mencken quote:

"Civilization, in fact, grows more and more maudlin and hysterical; especially under democracy it tends to degenerate into a mere combat of crazes; the whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary."