Rising Unemployment to cost extra £1.4 Billion-Price worth paying?

[eckerslike]

The FSA was created on 28 October 1997. I don't think Thatcher was PM then, although some think Tony Blair was Thatcher

 

I note that the Ombudsman's report on the failure of Equitable Life is entitled "Equitable Life a decade of reulatory failure"...

 

Just who was regulating at the time and who was the Government?

[Berberis]

The fact of the matter remains that the Lib Dems and the Conservatives are making the tough decisions in order to get us out of the problems we are in. Labour have been tight lipped and have offered very little in the way of alternatives, rather choosing to snipe form the edges like a disgruntled child.

 

Little Ed has nothing to offer this is why he targets things like the VAT rise, which for those who had forgotten, Labour refused to rule out such a measure before the election.

 

If you have nothing constructive to say Labour fanboys, go home and let others deal with the problems.

[andygardener]

I'd suggest that only a "Simpleton" would interpret what I've said as Part-Time work.

 

If the average person works 40 hours now and there's one in ten unemployed, then 4 hours per person in employment should create enough jobs for everyone currently unemployed.

 

Hope that's not too difficult for you to work out.

 

Good thinking comrade! So in a average 10 person company everyone could drop their hours to 36 and hire a person to spend 4 hours a week being the sotware engineer, 4 hours a week on reception, 4 hours a week being finance director, 4 hours a week cleaning the lavs, 4 hours a week as South American export sales manager etc.

 

Easy, sorted, recession over!

[Berberis]

I note that the Ombudsman's report on the failure of Equitable Life is entitled "Equitable Life a decade of reulatory failure"...

 

Just who was regulating at the time and who was the Government?

 

Yes there was failings, but the Parliamentary Ombudsman pointed the figure at the Labour government accusing it of twisting the findings.

 

The Penrose report found that Equitable Life had made over-generous payouts to policyholders, reaching the stage where "The Society was under-funded to the extent of £4½ billion in the summer of 2001.”

 

EL ceased trading in 2000 .. almost 3 years after Labour took office.

 

Then we have headlines like this:

 

Gordon Brown helped fuel banking crisis - FSA head

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/financialcrisis/4808373/Gordon-Brown-helped-fuel-banking-crisis-FSA-head.html. Where the then head of the FSA says they where "under political “pressure” not to be “heavy and intrusive” with banks such as HBOS and Northern Rock."

 

Now add the fact that Lord Turners regulatory review of the global financial crisis stated that 'light touch' regulation has failed.

 

Then couple that with the fact Gordon Brown intervened, allowing the go ahead of Lloyds and HBOS to merge creating a bank that was later deemed "too large to fail"!

 

Lastly you have Brown deny he was ever warned about the looming banking crisis in stark contrast to the FSA's claims as well as the myriad of financial experts paraded daily on news reports before it all went so horribly wrong.

 

Brown failed, then failed, then failed again and lastly tried to blame everyone else. The Labour party must be so proud, he has followed the party line to the letter.

Edited January 3, 2011 by Berberis

[mj.scuba]

The fact of the matter remains that the Lib Dems and the Conservatives are making the tough decisions in order to get us out of the problems we are in. Labour have been tight lipped and have offered very little in the way of alternatives, rather choosing to snipe form the edges like a disgruntled child.

 

Little Ed has nothing to offer this is why he targets things like the VAT rise, which for those who had forgotten, Labour refused to rule out such a measure before the election.

 

If you have nothing constructive to say Labour fanboys, go home and let others deal with the problems.

 

Indeed we haven't heard anything on policy from Red Ed since being elected, too busy I think trying to play all sides of the Labour Party.

[Frumius]

Yes because only a small number of the literally thousands of banks world wide had problems and that was only their investment banking departments, retail banking was fine. This is why one solution is to force banks to split their retail banking from investment banking.

 

You have a strange way of reading the stats. Actually it was a pretty significant portion of a pretty significant part of the industry. Retail banking was very much at the root of the problem. It was the retail bankers that provided millions of mortgages to uncreditworthy people and it was the defaulting on that debt that started the whole house of cards to fall. The investment bankers certainly accentuated the problem.

Anyway you don't know that Wednesday1 wasn't only referring to bad bankers when he/she said "the tossers should have been regulated

[Berberis]

You have a strange way of reading the stats. Actually it was a pretty significant portion of a pretty significant part of the industry. Retail banking was very much at the root of the problem. It was the retail bankers that provided millions of mortgages to uncreditworthy people and it was the defaulting on that debt that started the whole house of cards to fall. The investment bankers certainly accentuated the problem.

 

Anyway you don't know that Wednesday1 wasn't only referring to bad bankers when he/she said "the tossers should have been regulated

 

You seem to have a simplistic view on banking, but lets agree to disagree on that matter.

 

Wednesday1 actually refereed to them as "financial tossers", so if you can give me an alternative to bankers that wednesday1 may have been referring too, I'm more then happy to assume I was mistaken.

[Frumius]

You seem to have a simplistic view on banking, but lets agree to disagree on that matter.

 

Wednesday1 actually refereed to them as "financial tossers", so if you can give me an alternative to bankers that wednesday1 may have been referring too, I'm more then happy to assume I was mistaken.

 

I think it's you that has a simplistic view of this particular banking issue at any rate if you think it was just the investment bankers that were at fault.

 

I do not really need (or want) to speak for anyone else but Wednesdays post just said that "the tossers" needed regulating. He may have meant that just a few bankers were tossers and needed regulating. It wasn't clear from the post that he thought all people who worked in banks were tossers. It was you that extrapolated and made that particular assumption and generalization.

 

Anyway this is a bit off topic. Do you think unemployment is worth the cost of paying out so much dole?

[andygardener]

Anyway this is a bit off topic. Do you think unemployment is worth the cost of paying out so much dole?

 

Even at minimum wage and most of the public sector jobs pay far more the cost to the taxpayer is about £12K, jobseekers is under £3.5K.

 

It's a far more complex argument than this but pushing the cost aspect doesn't work, in cost terms though we may lose amenities as a result getting rid of public sector workers saves the taxpayer money, even if they sit on the dole for the rest of their lives.

[Berberis]

I do not really need (or want) to speak for anyone else but Wednesdays post just said that "the tossers" needed regulating.

 

Yawn .. I suggest you learn to read.

 

Yes Labour should have regulated the financial tossers much more stringently but If the Cons had been in the regualtions would have been lighter still, given their dislike of anything which get's in the way of the market.