Results tagged “banks” from Birmingham Mail - Is It Just Me

If you look at where the financial world went belly up last year it was in the USA and dear old Britain where the head honchos were pulling in the equivalent of a EuroMillions rollover every year while the shady figures in the background, off the balance sheet, were making even more.

The crisis was driven by greed and even after they were kept afloat by the taxpayer the banks have hardly changed their ways at all and while jobs and firms vanish in the real world the bonuses and profits are back in full swing at the banks with the minor irritation of insolvency long forgotten.

Britain now has more invested in banks than we spend on defence and let us be honest I do not think you will find many bankers willing to lay down their lives for their country.

Now the rest of the industrial world want to do something about the obscene bonus culture which was the rocket fuel for the meltdown suggesting caps and controls and tighter banking regulations - and which two countries are against the idea? Step forward the USA and the UK..

It makes you wonder who is really running the country.

It might not be a huge consolation as the world goes into financial meltdown but at least we might be able to go into a bank now without staff trying to flog us new mortgages, loans - all with payment protection of course - new improved accounts, better credit cards, gas and electricity supplies, telephone service, home, car, contents and travel insurance, medical plans, holidays, cars, electrical goods, savings plans, pensions and anything else they forced staff to flog like corporate Del Boys to hit targets and make an extra few bob for the brilliant bankers at the top.

Maybe now you will just be able to withdraw or pay in cash, ask for loans when you need them and so on, the sort of thing we used to call banking.

While we are at it, does anyone actually know anyone who ever managed to make a successful claim on one of these payment protection scams?

I am still baffled by the fact that we are pouring money into the banking system like water over the Niagara Falls and Gordon Brown is still pleading with them to lend money for mortgages and to business.

On the basis that the bankers would be out selling Big Issue had we not baled them out then they should be dancing to our tune not the other way around. Or, as I am not expecting a few highly paid City directorships when I have more time on my hands in the near, and getting nearer, future, am I missing something?