They are laughing at us, all of them.... What you going to do about it?

The Governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King, has expressed "surprise" that the public is not more angry with the bankers who caused the recession.

The full story from the telegraph is here. It is entitled, 'Anger at the banks is justified'.

In some of his strongest language yet, Mervyn King today claimed the fall in households' living standards was the fault of the financial services sector and he expressed sympathy that innocent families paying the price.

"The people whose jobs were destroyed were in no way responsible for the excesses of the financial sector and the crisis that followed," he told MPs on the Treasury Select Committee. In most aspects, he said, the economy had been on a sound footing before the crisis.

Previous downturns were often caused by inefficiencies or weak management and were useful opportunities to improve systems. "None of that applied in this crisis," he said. "We had quite a successfully operating economy."

Proof if any needed that the populace has become weak and subservient followers of the rulers of our nation, call it fear or perhaps the phrase 'sheeple' is apt. It is particularly pertinent at the moment where we seeing people across the Middle East standing up for themselves and protesting for their rights that we need reminding that we have done nothing to protest the disgusting amounts of money given to the banking system to protect them.

Look at Lloyds who were bailed out by the government using our money and national credit line. They have returned to staggering profit making 2.2 BILLION GBP for 2010.

but:

Despite the return to profit, the bank did not pay corporation tax this year as past losses are still reducing its future tax bill.

Which brings me on to Barclays who paid 113m in corporation tax on it's 2009 profits of 4.6 billion. Apparently:

Barclays said the amount of corporation tax it paid for the year included losses for the previous year

In fact although Barclays were not part of the specific bailout they are surely still standing because the money was put into the UK system and the whole banking system preserved. Funnily enough Bob Diamond their chief exec tried to mislead MP's on the value of their business to the UK:

Up in front of disgruntled MPs last month, Mr Diamond suggested that much of the bounty (profits) would trickle down for the common good. He pointed out, accurately, that Barclays had handed £2bn to the Revenue last year, a figure that sounds respectable enough in the context of pre-tax profits of £6.1bn for 2010. What he did not point out, but we have now gleaned thanks to some forensic digging by the impressive young MP Chuka Umunna, is that just £113m of that £2bn was corporation tax, a 2% drop in the ocean of the company's global profits. The rest was paid through other levies which scarcely touched profits and were largely paid by employees.

Hilariously he tried to say that the tax his employees paid was part of the enormous '2bilion in tax the bank paid', even when the MP investigated further and the story came to light there was not a murmur to speak of, no revolution, not even a placard waving protest, just some discussion on web forums likemumsn et

Hilariously Barclays have just announced pre tax profits of 6.1 billion GBP, we know they pay no tax so lets look at where some of that loot goes:

To complete the good news the group is to more than double its dividend payout from 2.5p to 5.5p.

oh guess what they have been so understanding they even cut their bonus' by 7% - yes thats right 7 whole damn %:

The bank also unveiled a new bonus structure on the back of the government's Project Merlin, which will see it pay 7% less in performance awards than last year with the total payout standing at £3.4 billion. Meanwhile the bonus pool at BarCap was 12% lower at £2.6 billion.

Oh those poor bastards at BarCap however will they survive with only 2.6 billion quid between them???

It's alright though uncle Bob knows hes doing good by us all:

New Barclays chief executive Bob Diamond (pictured) accepted the government proposals to curb bonuses within banks, while at the same time welcoming its committment to ensure London remains a leading financial centre.

Do we still want to be a leading financial centre? Barclays retail aspect - the branches does well enough:

The next biggest profit contribution came from UK retail banking which was up 39% at £989 million.

So their 15 million customers provided them with just shy of a billion quid in profit, the same people who funded the bank bailout with tax and now living with swingeing cuts to public services, deteriorating roads and so on and so on.

This is insanity, my old mate at the bank of England Merv agrees with me:

The people who are now suffering "did not get bonuses of the scale people in the financial sector got". The financial crisis may have occurred two years ago but, as austerity measures kick in, "the cost is now being felt", he said.

I would say we are all feeling it now. the total cost of the bank bailout was estimated at: bank bailout cost 850 billion this story is from 2009 and at that time the National Audit office said:

The Treasury was "justified" in using taxpayers' money to rescue the banking system at a total cost of £850bn, according to the National Audit Office.

The rescue was crucial to safeguarding the wider financial system, a report by the NAO said today as it announced the figures behind the banking bailout.

The "unprecedented level of support" reached £850bn after the government purchased shares and offered guarantees of insurance and loans to banks. The total would cost every family in Britain £40,000 and the final details are unlikely to be known for years, the public spending watchdog said.

This is the most insane thing I have ever seen, the banking system was saved to the equivalent of 40,000GBP per person and Barclays have paid out only 113 million in corporation tax in 2009 when the article is from. The year after they paid out 6 billion quid in bonuses....

The other factor that is crucial here is that not all of their income is from the UK which explains their tax dodge by funneling big profits offshore, I would like the government to crack down on this and tax their nuts off, I am not bothered about bonus's particularly that are measured and relevant, although I would like total openness in this respect. After World War Two financial reparations were demanded from the defeated nations, why aren't we doing the same to all beneficiaries of the banking bailouts in the banking system in the UK? Even the government says via the National Audit office that they saved the

the wider financial system

The banks that did not get cash bailouts still benefited from the money pumped in and are making obscene profits today from the people that saved them.

I have used Barclays as an example here whereas I could have used HSBC who made 11 billion pounds last year, although they conduct far more business across the globe in retail terms. I could have focussed on Lloyds HBOS or any other bank because they are ALL in profit.

My reperations point would be to take all gross profit for 5 years on the retail side of all the banks and not allow standard accounting manipulation by setting rules on deductables. Lets face it they are not going to stop trading on this basis they would just wait the five years to start making uber profits again. The banks specifically bailed out should be entirely state owned and refloated to recoup losses after three years. That is one idea from me, I am sure there are others and probably many better.

All the time there is no protests or uprising in respect of this there will be more abuses. The bankers honestly are sitting there laughing at us, the whole fricking industry and especially people like Bob Diamond and his cronies. We must stop this fall into inertia and supplication to our governments will. Use your voice and realise what the hell is going on here. (I do not advocate violent protest, but protest we must by marching writing letters or all striking, whatever it takes to demand the reparations our nation is due from this industry.

I'll leave the last word to Merv:

It remains "a big political problem", he added: "I'm surprised the real anger hasn't been greater than it has."

They're not laughing at you.....

They're laughing with you....

Great post and work, thanks! This crap is truly the biggest source of our woes now and I don't know why no one has not gone to jail. I can only imagine people this powerful have judges and lobbyists in their pockets to shield them from conviction. What can we do, non-violently? I guess quit using the banks if at all possible. I guess that would be hard to do with any serious financing in one's lives, like home or car. Really, just homes though, is the only thing we HAVE to use a bank for. Well, business owners too, now that I think about it, pretty much depend on banks for their business. There has got to be an alternative, local credit unions maybe? Last I heard, they were in on it too though!

You might dig this thread and doc:
www.abovetopsecret.com...
Very informative, but still leaves my jaw open in a wtf posture!

spec

reply to post by speculativeoptimist


What to do indeed. It is the ambivalence of everybody that I just cannot understand. When the Government in the UK instigated a Poll tax on the nation whereby everybody over 18 paid the state money instead of revenue raising by property each year there were riots poll tax riots wikipedia .

The people of the Middle East have rioted in recent weeks and suffered horrific violence as a result.

The only way to make an impact in this matter is financially I believe. If everybody striked for a day across the country and refused to work at anything (please emergency services feel free to go in that day) the government would soon get the message. It is a passive and telling way to action, utterly non violent and immediate.

We cannot boycott banking in general as we all rely on it to live in this day and age. Perhaps though an alternative protest would be to not use our credit or debit cards at all for three days except to withdraw cash from non fee charging machines. That would also present a strong message to the government and banking industry they make millions in card fees daily.

Repeat either of above as necessary.

Originally posted by mwood
They're not laughing at you.....

They're laughing with you....

They are surely laughing at us as NONE of US are laughing about this...

There is nothing that we have to laugh about when it comes to wealthy dirtbags taking what little we the people have so that they can add another mountain of wealth to their already huge stock piles that they already had.

There is nothing for us to be LAUGHING at about this. NOTHING at all.

So they are the only ones laughing, and its at US SUCKERS who always get screwed.

reply to post by spacedonk

Sounds like a good idea, but how to get the masses to join in? As much as I personally dislike FB, it sure has served a purpose of uniting the people and providing a unified voice, so maybe that is the place to set up the suggestion.

spec
ETA: Would starting a FB page with this notion be considered terrorist or subversive enough to get one in trouble?
Crazy times we livin' in!

Second thoughts.

Originally posted by Astyanax
Second thoughts.

edit on 2/3/11 by Astyanax because: (no reason given)

would have loved to have seen what you wrote..........

oh

dave

uncle bob just announced today he got 9 million last year in salary and bonus innit

s'all ok though

the top 5 below board level got 14 million at no.1

by the bye... 100 squid invested in Barclays shares 5 years ago got a value of 53 quid now - thats right 47% loss in only 5 years, that CEO must be worth the dollars...

allllllllllllllllll laughing allllllllllll day lllllllllllllllong at us..............


see
you
next
tuesday

cu nt sssssssssssssssssssssssss

wtf are we doing?

ready to strike boys and girls?