Thursday 2 December 2010

So if not Fred the Shred....?

The FSA has said today that it is not going to press any charges against RBS or its staff for their actions pre-the credit crunch.

Courtesy of The Telegraph
They are all accused of incompetence over the buying of ABN Amro and also trying to build the RBS investment bank too quickly. However, they are not criminals.

Of course, given the FSA was the regulatory body, this also handily helps them out of a hole as if RBS was guilty then they would be too by association.

The real focus should be on who is at fault though; because it is not the Greedy bankers on whom everything is currently blamed. Instead the approach to interest rates, the ending of boom and bust and the public sector spending are prime candidates, along with some very poor application of accounting standards. What this tells me is that the market was badly mis-regulated, more than the actors in the market were being criminal.

So at this rate, I would hope that Gordon Brown gets investigated by the FSA as he has a much bigger case to answer.

4 comments:

Nick Drew said...

spot-on, CU

we all know bankers are greedy ... and MPs ... and Trade Unions ... the bastards will take everything they can get away with

and we all know this, and we always did

so the key is the framework within which they are required top operate

step forward GB

Bill Quango MP said...

MP's? I say, steady on ND... where's the evidence for corrupt MPs..?

{Ahh yes..the duckhouse, moaty thing..carry on}

Anonymous said...

Of course Gordon Brown took notice of the Bankers when they whinned that they should not have to stick the level of liquid assets they had to hold "approx 30% from memory" it limited their profitability so Gordon the man who saved the world said," of course not, go ahead", so the bankers went ahead and guess what, things fell apart, If I remember correctly also Gordon decided to sell the country's gold with a similar excuse that there was no need in these modern times to hold gold, doh. What mind boggled cretin was advising Gordy, could it be the bankers or those that were advising the bankers

Budgie said...

Yes, dead right CU. Though to call Fred Goodwin a banker is a misnomer. Whatever his background Goodwin, like the other executives who ran their banks into the ground, were managers, CEOs, board members and so on. And all these top dogs seemed to be pals with Brown.