Whilst up to 10 million home owning Americans continue to face foreclosure as a result of the irresponsible and predatory bank lending that characterised the period up to the Lehman’s bankruptcy, the banks that caused the crash are once again in … Continue reading
Goldman Sachs has been accused, yet again, of running a criminal financial markets scam. This time by controlling the distribution of aluminium (from warehouses that it owns) to affect the market price in a way to favour its own market positions … Continue reading
I have just heard one of the poorest interviews on the subject of high frequency trading that I have had the misfortune to come across on the usually excellent Today programme on BBC Radio 4. The interviewer, Evan Davis, had the … Continue reading
I promised in a recent post (If Robert Peston thinks that it’s time to stop bashing the bankers he’s wrong) to show you that an innovative, stable and fully functional financial system that avoids regular (or any) crashes is possible. The United States (and consequently most of … Continue reading
Jon Stewart on the travesty of justice that allows businesses like Johnson & Johnson, Goldman Sachs , HSBC, GSK, Pfizer, and a host of other large corporations to negotiate with regulators to pay fines as their pennance for crimes that they have committed whilst none … Continue reading
John Oliver on the travesty of justice that is banks and bankers negotiating with regulators to pay ‘huge’ fines (in reality no more than a few days worth of sales) for committing financial crimes rather than serving jail time. To add insult … Continue reading
Yesterday, in my humble opinion Vince Cable lied to the British people in a display of dishonourable dissembling that brings our politics into disrepute and explains why so many of the British public have nothing but contempt for the political … Continue reading
On 30 November, Robert Peston published an article on BBC Online that made my stomach churn. In the article, entitled “New City same as old City?” Peston reported on two significant news stories of the day. The first was about the … Continue reading
UBS and Goldman Sachs who were appointed by the government to run the privatisation advised that the Royal Mail was worth £3.7bn but other banks including JP Morgan and Citibank said that it was probably worth up to £10bn. The … Continue reading
If you haven’t seen the film Inside Job yet then whatever you think you know about the financial crisis and its causes is probably wrong. The video* below is NOT the whole film – it consists of the trailer and background interviews … Continue reading
Published on Alternet (http://www.alternet.org) Salon [1] / By David Dayen [2] August 28, 2013 You may know Michael Winston’s story from a series of articles by Gretchen Morgenson in the New York Times [3], or from a celebrated Frontline episode, “The … Continue reading
The Problem with Investment Banking (Part 1) Bankers would like us to believe that what they do is fantastically sophisticated and requires huge talent and massive intellectual prowess. It is on these largely false grounds that they try to persuade us … Continue reading
One-sided contract Thomas Hobbes, regarded as one of the greatest English political philosophers, is possibly most famous for his idea of the “social contract”. This theory argued that rational people would agree between themselves how politics and business should be … Continue reading
Banks and bonuses Going overboard Investment banks have a long history of providing huge rewards for their employees and managers at the expense of shareholders returns. This fact has been studiously ignored by regulators, legislators and even shareholders themselves … Continue reading
I Am Incorrigible 