What do you mean by success in this instance?

 

Why do you seek to evade tax that the rest of us all have to pay?

 

Do you hold as much contempt for bankers as you do for the doctors and nurses who medically treated and provided care for the murders of an off duty soldier hacked to death on our streets or all the doctors and nurses and the NHS system for treating other such criminals?

 

Could you point out the "success" part of Hodgys post?
Unless you define success as "getting away with it."

No issue with anyone being paid vast fortunes for genuinely doing very well for their business but when failure is rewarded, then threats to operate overseas are made when people suggest these banks perhaps rein in their utter raping if our nation, it's hard to sympathise.

I honestly think that if I met a city trader with any hand in the mess we're in, I'd knock him out and then feel very warm and fuzzy.

 

Rather than do the obvious by jumping on the populist bandwagon and attack on bankers, why not consider the hundreds of thousands of businesses and startups that became and continue to be successful due to the liquidity they provided, or the countless mortgages and loans they've underwritten helping people get on the property ladder, or the hundreds of thousands of pounds that the bankers raised for charities each year or even just continue to provide the free banking facilities and low cost loans they provide you on a daily basis that you take for granted?

I'd say a 9% increase in profit to £13.6bn is quite a success, don't you? Where is the failure in that? So why take issue with bankers being rewarded for successfully generating an a profit for past year, let alone a 9% increase. You said it yourself that you've no issue for anyone being paid vast fortunes for doing well for their business. Well then surely you agree that bankers should be reward and entitled to their bonus.

We all know that you feel that you could "hold your own" with your special "training", but knocking someone out, oh please! I think the only warm fuzzy feeling you feel would be in your y fronts.

 

I see you're using the isolated case of HSBC as your only "defense" while conveniently ignoring the publicly owned loss making white elephants who still throw massive sums at their "elite" bankers?

So bankers bung guilt money at charities? Hardly saving the World.

 

You couldn't possibly have picked two professions further apart in morality and duty of care. If all the bankers vacated UK PLC I doubt life would suddenly stop as is purported. However if our doctors and nurses did the same I shudder to think of the consequences.
You can't compare sycophantic gamblers with those who save lives and care for the sick. Those in the medical profession take the Hippocratic oath. That is to provide care for the sick without judgement and prejudice. I doubt a similarly noble oath exists in the banking world.

 

Clearly jonc works in finance and therefore must be an "expert."

It's pretty clear that "experts," who call it wrong every single time have less of a clue than your average three year old.

 

You posted a link for HSBC!!

 

You clearly missed the very obvious wider picture.

 

Which makes all the more galling when we learn all too frequently of incidents where they fail so utterly in their duty of care that babies, the old and the infirm are left to suffer and in some instances die, where treatment of patients have resulted in life altering conditions and fall far short of what we expect in developed world, that some in this profession can be counted as some of the most prolific serial killers in history. So where is the healthcare service bashing? I don't know of any reported incidents in the financial sector that can even compare to those failings. Now I realise that these failings are a tiny minority and not representative of all the doctors and nurses in the NHS who do a great job, likewise I know that only a tiny minority could even be classed as "sycophantic gamblers".

 

Doctors and nurses occasionally make individual mistakes.

The banking sector contributed enormously to an entire nations (in fact Continents) financial downfall and added to that, they had no comeback.

It's a bit like a persistently negligent doctor being promoted and given a massive pay rise.

 

How can you compare doctors and nurses to bankers?
One saves lives
The other take lives.
It's as simple as that.

 

Well in that case your "wider picture" is somewhat narrow if it only consists of 1 "publicly owned loss making white elephant".

 

A rather strange parallel I agree. When I was most in need and at my most vulnerable it was a doctor (surgeon) and nurses who helped me. It was a doctor and nurses who administered medication and gave me blood tests which saved my life. I and many others are indebted to the health care personnel of this country. I cannot say the same for those in the financial industry.

Give a man a gun and he'll rob a bank, give a man a bank and he'll rob the world.

 

So it's fine to bail out banks with public money, reward failure then payback the public that handed out the readies the princely sum of f*** all? It's fine to recklessly lend, mis-sell cr4p products then patronise the public, telling them they "don't understand" when they consider it a bit off?

It's fine to pay staff a fortune for what was considered "success" then carry on when they crash and burn? It's fine to encourage rampant capitalism when things appeared to be "working" then switch to near communism when things fail? It's fine to rape the taxpayer then reward the near criminal activities of the "elite" few?

You seem very supportive of an industry with a reputation far lower than timeshare selling, estate agency and "ambulance chasers" - yet your only retort is that "we" shouldn't believe what we read in the press?

It's one reason we go to enormous efforts to make sure the banks PAY us while we pay them absolutely nothing for the honour of holding our cash. I hope to never make a bank a single pound until the day I die.

 

So you choose to trivialise the suffering and murder as mistakes!

True the banking sector did contribute, but so did countless others including the Governments, regulatory bodies and millions of people who chose to live beyond their means.

Isn't this what we frequently hear of hospital consultants awarded and promoted despite the failings of some hospitals?

 

You are trying to use extremely rare cases to try and justify your arguments. I have no figures but I bet less than 0.5% of frontline healthcare staff carry out any form of wrongdoing (middle management/management are a different kettle of fish).
I suspect my comments about banking are relevant to at least 95% of the industry.

Quite a marked difference. Healthcare is fundamentally ethical. Modern banking is fundamentally the complete opposite.

 

Well that comment alone just highlights a complete ignorance of the financial industry and limited to the a view the likes of what's printed in the Daily Mail.

You say banking is completely unethical, so unless you have absolutely nothing underwritten by the banking industry, no bank accounts, credit cards, loans, mortgages, insurance, etc, then you're just as complicit to this unethical industry. Why don't you put your money where your mouth is if banks aren't good enough for you, stop using their services and stop them from making a pound from your money. Like Einstein RA says, it's not as if your life as you know will suddenly stop.

 

Oh to live in a simple world. Question, what colour is the sky in your world?

 

Please don't use the Daily Mail line on me - I never read it and never will. I make my own mind up, I don't let the media do it for me.

We pay no bank fees, have no loans, no mortgage. Yes there's one credit card for convenience but you struggle to hire a car without one. And of course insurance is needed but ours isn't via a bank. So while they pay us interest (not a lot) I am fairly confident they make bu66er all out of us. I'd rather not use them at all but that's very awkward in modern society.

 

UK is not the only country that suffers from this - people bailing out the banks I mean - this is totally ridiculous unless the banks become nationalised.

The bankers are behind the "democracy" in which we live today...

Where are you thinking of emigrating?

 

The big banks are a criminal enterprise.
HSBC got a slap on the wrist for laundering huge sums of drug money.

 

The bailing out of banks was Government policy not the banks. If the taxpayer expects a payback and doesn't get it, blame the government, not the bank, they're the owners. If they're not returning profit, it's partly due to government interference, all the other banks are returning profits. Sure QE helped but that's not taxpayers money. If banks lend recklessly, reckless borrowers are also to blame. Personally I think it would have been better to let them fail than have the government intervene and have the taxpayer feel they are owed something everytime someone gets a bonus.

You may have a case for the 2 bailed out banks, but why should the rest of industry be dictated to on how to pay their staff. Capitalism is great and everyone is happy with it when times are good, but everyone loves a good scapegoat when the **** hits the fan. And when there are criminals in the system, they have been prosecuted, through normal judiciary system and not through the media.

I've made no secret that I work in the finance sector, so why wouldn't I support it. This sector supports and employs tens of thousands in operational functions required in this industry, from cleaners, catering, researchers, analysts, IT, governance, legal and many more functions required in this sector and the pay is better than other industries for the same roles. Do I give a toss about what people think of this sector? Nope.

So whilst your bank you are using for your free personal transactions and provide free services for your business, you still feel compelled to try and get one over on them.

 

If he speeds away they'll track him down.

 

It's true, doctors kill people every day whereas banks are the very lifeblood of our nation.

 

It is irrifutable truth, there are doctors and nurses who are convicted mass murderers, and banks are the lifeblood of the nation otherwise the Government would not have seen fit to bailed them out. What's your point?

 

Maybe Harold Shipman should have been a banker

 

Has it not occured to you that banks place their individuals in high governmental positions?

Of course the government would bail out the banks, as if they had a choice.

I suggest you read the book "Confessions of an economic hitman" or watch

 

Just blatantly trolling one of our resident head-cases to see if he bites