Finally, some good news to come out of the recession, writes blogger David Burrows.
Royal Bank of Scotland is apparently on course for the biggest loss in UK corporate history – some £7 billion and £8 billion for the full year.
This is the same RBS which owns NatWest, the bank that thought the way to help me out during a sticky financial period was to hit me with massive charges when I went over my agreed borrowing limit.
Now, admittedly, I’m no economist. But if you take someone who has no money, then take more money off them as a punishment, that isn’t really helping matters, is it.
I know a bank is not a charity. But neither am I. And therefore I feel no sympathy whatsoever for anyone associated with RBS.
To all the Gordon Gecko-like characters who undoubtedly work high up its corporate ladder – Greed is good, is it? I’ve got another soundbite for you – what goes around comes around.
My money, incidentally, is currently being moved AWAY from NatWest. Oh, and thanks for charging me £40 for closing my account. Perhaps I should post my cashcard and chequebook back to you and charge you a similar sum for it?
Apparently 58 per cent of RBS is owned by the taxpayer after the last bank bailout. Now, I’m a taxpayer. So does that mean I can just pay these over-the-top fees to myself. Or at least hold back 58 per cent of it – ‘cos surely that’s my share anyway?
One look at today’s Shropshire Star will show some of the impact the recession is starting to have.
There are more than 70 empty shops in Shrewsbury town centre alone.
And as the economic crisis bites into the pockets of hardworking individuals and families – from Christmas being scaled back to holidays being cancelledand even to scrimping and saving for basic necessities – I’m finding it hard
to shed a tear for the banks that have – let’s be honest – created the problem in the first place.
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I’ve got news for you David – if you work and pay tax, then you ARE a charity; YOU, and all the other “hard-working tax-payers” (and their children and childrens’ children) will soon be giving billions more in charity to those poor bankers.
The scandal is magnified by the fact that the government still will not (as opposed to cannot) tell us exactly how much charity we’re going to give them.
HM Treasury say that they need to clarify the exposure that they’ll acquire by guaranteeing the bank debts, but if highly-paid, clever bankers couldn’t work their exposure out in the first place, what chance for the mandarins of Whitehall and their leaders – Badger Darling and Bottle Brown?
Shameful.
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You might also wish to apportion blame towards a non-existent regulatory regime & a toothless, clueless regulator in the FSA. No surprise to know that they were merely ‘enforcing’ under the ‘light touch’ regulatory conditions for financial institutions advocated by a certain Gordon Brown…
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The problem, Mr Burrows is too many people have “gone over their agreed borrowing limits”. It’s people spending money that they dont have that’s the root cause of the problem. Yes the banks have been appalingly negligent in lending to these people, but the real cause is still the people who borrowed what they could not afford to pay back.
“A bank is not a charity, and neither are you”? Since when was the definition of a charity ’someone who pays back what they borrowed?’
It’s people like you who expect something for nothing, and want to buy now and pay later, that is bringing the World economy to its knees.
And its people who only buy what they can afford, and save when they can, who will end up paying for it. Shed no tears for the negligent banks. Shed no tears for the people in debt either, they brought it upon themselves. No one forced them to borrow what they could never afford to pay back.
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A LOVELY GUY known as Seasick Steve has a new album. I STARTED WITH NOTHING AND HAVE MOST OF IT LEFT. Smile listen to steve and remember what goes around comes around.Just hope the bankers and so called save the world Mr Brown soon fall from the round-about.
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