Intellectual mush from the Vickers commission
The Independent Commission on Banking can’t have it both ways. If cross-subsidy of different banking operations in times of trouble is a good thing, why is the Commission recommending ring-fencing?
Nick Clegg the hypocrite?
It seems to me that these newspapers are really complaining that Nick Clegg hasn’t been hypocritical enough. He’s betrayed his privileged social class, which I suspect is the real crime in the eyes of these pseudo-meritocrats.
By Ben Chu | Eagle Eye | Wednesday, 6 April 2011 at 11:55 am
First-past-the-post American style
Gerald Kaufman is wrong. It doesn’t matter in the US, any more than in Britain, which candidate or party gets most votes nationwide.
The hypocrisy of John Reid and Sayeeda Warsi
These characters have long argued that mainstream parties like the Conservatives and Labour need to do more to pander to popular prejudices about immigration, arguing that the alternative is to see a rise in support for the BNP.
The banks did cause the deficit
The banking crisis gave the UK economy a heart attack and this had a disastrous impact on the public finances.
All are not equal when it comes to the cuts
Some of those in the local authority world who I have spoken to suspect a political agenda here, noting that some of the biggest council losers are Labour-controlled.
Adair Turner is a very dangerous man
It is said that the American system of government is so good because it was designed by geniuses to be run by idiots. Turner risks creating a system of regulation that can only be run by geniuses like him.
The banking patient died. But the operation was successful
So apart from failures by major universal banks in countries that account for almost 40 per cent of EU (plus Switzerland) GDP universal banking has proved itself entirely safe.
By Ben Chu | Eagle Eye | Thursday, 10 March 2011 at 12:53 pm
Shareholders shafted by bankers
If you’d invested £100 in HSBC in 2006 you would have, roughly, a £90 return now. Barclays, on this timeframe, would have given you around £63. £100 in Lloyds would have given you a measly £25. And £100 in RBS would have given you a pathetic £12. Meanwhile, £100 invested in an FTSE all share tracker would have given you a positive return of about £105.
The Swiss are stricter on the banks than us
UBS and Credit Suisse will have to hold low-risk reserves equal to 10 per cent of their total risky assets, plus 9 per cent of their debt in convertible bonds (debt that converts to equity in crisis). This is considerably tougher than the Basel III capital requirements agreed last year by the world’s central banks and regulators, which only requires banks to hold 7 per cent of their risky assets in capital.
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