robthill's posterous

30 Apr 2012

Bank Myth or Mistake

Banks are building up their reserves - hoarding cash, like under the proverbial bed. What is more they have the perfect excuse - new government regulations require them to hold greater reserves and to lend more circumspectly. The big bonuses are safe for a long while yet, just paid out of the hoard of "gold".

So once more we have an unintended consequence. The government want to mend the financial system, rightly, but its chosen method has gummed up the works. So the double dip recession becomes something of an inevitability and may last much longer than needed. Where was the initial big mistake? The last UK government (followed by other governments) rescued the failing banks from the market consequences of their own folly and so by interfering with the capitalist system have just made matters worse. And naturally the least powerful people in the country take the hardest hit.

26 Mar 2012

Bank Myth Again

MP Pat McFadyan has just talked of the disaster which would have befallen us if the government had not bought RBS. The Treasury is now apparently going to take a massive loss selling a big tranche of the shares. Combine that with the way all banks are building up their reserves and not helping to rebuild the economy, yet still paying obscene bonuses and I question that disaster mantra.

26 Feb 2012

Bank Myth 5

Not exactly a myth but Liam Halligan writes in the Telegraph about the Greek bail-out..

If you think this deal sounds complex, and the main idea seems to be obfuscation, then you're right. But this is what happens when monetary unions are exposed to serious systemic pressures and financially-illiterate politicians make ever more desperate attempts to resist the ultimately unavoidable logic of basic economics.

To be even more blunt, the Greek crisis is not solved only postponed and like most unpalatable things put off to another day, it will only get worse, not better.

The myth is actually the announcements that the Eurozone is solving its problems. But don't be too smug; the UK pound has not improved in value against the euro in spite of our political leaders constant refrain about the only course of action being austerity.

23 Feb 2012

Bank Myths 4

Bonus is a weasel word. It should refer to "Didn't he do well!" not "Did he do his job?" Commission would be a better description, a payment for business obtained. However I wonder shareholders are not a bit peeved when they see their miserable slice of the cake against what one might call overly generous commission terms for rather ordinary performance. But of course, shareholders are mostly institutions so their representatives are part of the same gravy train.

21 Feb 2012

Bankers, Myths 3

Today's hard sell is that Greece defaulting would be disastrous for Greece and for the rest of the Eurozone. Actually it would be disastrous for some European banks and the political elite. I am not certain but I think the man in the Greek street might be no worse off.

10 Feb 2012

Bankers' Myths 2

On BBC Radio 4 News "When the economy dipped, the banks suffered". Or words to that effect! It was a pity there was no mention of the cause of the dip; sub prime mortgage scandal; but that was of course silly people taking on debts they could not possibly pay back, nothing to do with the banks who were apparently the innocent victims. Is that good enough spin for me to get a PR job at a bank? I could do with a bonus.

4 Feb 2012

Bankers' Bonuses and Other Myths

I am beginning to be more and more suspicious of the carefully orchestrated defence of the banking industry. On Radio 4 this morning Angela Knight of the British Bankers Association (BBA) admitted that there had been mistakes in the past. "Mistakes" seems to me to be an gigantic euphemism for what was actually massively catastrophic trading practices of an allegedly fraudulent nature. However reducing the past behaviour of banks to "mistakes" makes the bonus culture more acceptable.

Mr Hester is defended as a very experienced banker and therefore vital to the rescue of RBS. I am sorry but if he has past experience in banking was he not then part of the system which made those so called "mistakes"?

This is very much a work in progress as I will continue to be alert for other helpful euphemisms as the current economic crises unfold.

20 Dec 2011

New Posterous Spaces

This is a new facility from Posterous which makes it even easier to post on the move from both iPhone and Android.

2 Aug 2011

The Green Thing

the following arrived in my email today as I sat in front of a computer with two other machines standing idly by....

"In the queue at the shop, the cashier told the older woman that she should bring her own bags because plastic bags weren't good for the environment.

The woman apologised to him and explained, "We didn't have the green thing back in my day."

The cashier responded, "That's our problem today. The former generation did not care enough to save our environment!"

He was right, that generation didn't have the green thing in its day.

Back then, they returned their milk bottles, lemonade bottles and beer bottles to the shop. The shop sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really were recycled. But they didn't have the green thing back in that customer's day.In her day, they walked up stairs, because they didn't have an escalator in every shop and office building. They walked to the grocery shop and didn't climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time they had to go two miles.

But she was right. They didn't have the green thing in her day.

Back then, they washed the baby's nappies because they didn't have the throw-away kind. They dried clothes on a line, not in an energy gobbling machine burning up 220 volts - wind and solar power really did dry the clothes. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing.

But that old lady is right, they didn't have the green thing back in her day.

Back then, they had one TV, or radio, in the house - not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief, not a screen the size of Wales. In the kitchen, they blended and stirred by hand because they didn't have electric machines to do everything for them.
When they packaged a fragile item to send in by post, they used a screwed up old newspaper to cushion it, not polystyrene or plastic bubble wrap.
Back then, they didn't fire up an engine and burn petrol just to cut the lawn. They used a push mower that ran on human power. They exercised by working so they didn't need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity.

But she's right, they didn't have the green thing back then.

They drank from a fountain when they were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time they had a drink of water. They refilled their writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and they replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull.

But they didn't have the green thing back then.

Back then, people took the tram or a bus and kids rode their bikes to school or rode in the school bus instead of turning their mums into a 24-hour taxi service. They had one electrical socket in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And they didn't need acomputerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 2,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest Pizza Hut.

But isn't it sad the current generation laments how wasteful the old folks were just because they didn't have the green thing back then?"

16 Mar 2011

Amateur Journalists and Cameramen

I have heard in the past some very swingeing criticisms of Bloggers and other amateur purveyors of news especially from the likes of Andrew Marr of the BBC. I have in recent days noticed that the media as a whole have used amateur video and digital pictures of the terrible events in Japan and mostly took some days before they actually had their own people on the ground. I may have failing eyesight but I have also not seen any prominent gestures to the copyright owners of this material. Surely double standards if not actually plagiarism?