Are banks holding us to ransom?

[Andy]

It so, then it's clearly not a good idea to introduce more red tape and have them take all those jobs away again. Or is it?

 

You'd also lose quite a chunk of tax revenue, from the profitable banks at least.

 

Red tape may not be a bad thing, if it server a purpose. If the only thing is does is make the bank move abroad where:

 

1) They are subject to even less strict regulation than they are currently;

2) They are not paying British taxes;

3) They are not holding their reserves in Britain and investing in the British economy;

 

Then I am not sure it does serve any useful purpose.

[Vague_Boy]

HSBC received $3.5 Billion via AIG's bailout (link). Not specifically UK related, but worth mentioning.

 

Without the bailouts to RBS, HBOS, NR, AIG and the like, then HSBC's derivative contracts would never have been paid off, and they (although on the right side of the transaction) would have lost due to systemic default.

 

They got their bailout alright. Just as Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan did.

 

HSBC could argue they suffered from the government's banking bail outs. They were well capitalised, prepared ahead of time, sold their HQ building and rented it back about 3 months before the start of the credit crunch in 2007, so they would have mopped up all the customers from failed banks, if any banks had actually been allowed to fail.

 

As a privately owned business they are entitled to move their operations elsewhere if the UK government brings in too much regulation., it's operating in the free market.

 

Why (loudly) announce it then, why not just do it? Unless they're trying to stave off such regulation. And how would they do that? By threatening to pull out of the UK.

 

(The subject of this thread is, after all, "Are banks holding us to ransom?")

 

 

Do you think a break up of HSBC is needed?

 

It depends on whether you think we should have "too big to fails" or not.

 

This is part of an attempt by the banksters to prevent any nation from being the first to break up its banks. Once the ball starts rolling and one nation does it others will likely follow. The banks rightly fear this and so are doing their best to make sure that doesn't happen by threats such as these.

[Weazel2006]

hehe hehe hehe ho ho ho ha ha ha mwuhahahahahah

 

Right now i got that out of the way. This entire episode as well as the rest of it is designed to inflate the prices of goods and services and devalue your money with the idea you work harder to earn more to pay more back to the banks who made the money out of thin air.

 

The country is being hit by a wave of debt upon debt and not to mention the debts from government failings, every penny of that boom decade is being payed back with interest. Then they will lend again to do it again in 10-15 years.

 

Mugs!

[I1L2T3]

HSBC did benefit from government action:

 

1) benefited from state guarantees

2) benefited from injections of liquidity that (kind of) freed up the credit markets.

 

The idea that they would have survived while the rest of the banking system collapsed around them is on non-starter.

 

Their derivative contracts whould have turned to shat.

 

They wouldn't have been able to mop up much other business because runs on the other banks, because of the way banks are capitalised, would have seen the other banks die very quickly.

 

HSBC can make out that they were mega-prepared. They weren't. They were in a slightly better position but would have crumbled quickly if the rest of the system had started to go down.

 

 

Let them go I say

[donkey]

hehe hehe hehe ho ho ho ha ha ha mwuhahahahahah

Right now i got that out of the way. This entire episode as well as the rest of it is designed to inflate the prices of goods and services and devalue your money with the idea you work harder to earn more to pay more back to the banks who made the money out of thin air.

 

The country is being hit by a wave of debt upon debt and not to mention the debts from government failings, every penny of that boom decade is being payed back with interest. Then they will lend again to do it again in 10-15 years.

 

Mugs!

 

Deliberately making themselves loose hundreds of ££billions - in the hope that the banks which survive the ensuing global economic chaos might be able to take a greater share of considerably lessened incomes - doesn't seem like the most cunning evil plan I've ever heard!

[daftlad]

best thing to do if you disagree with this, if you have an account with them, is to move it to another bank or building society.

[Altiusdirect]

Yes I think banks holding us to ransom.

[Mecky]

Everyone is holding everyone to ransom. We have a Tory government now, greed and selfishness rule