A quarter of global GDP ie$14 trillion spent on propping up the banks

A figure like that really does put the bankers' incompetence into perspective.

Too important to fail; too useless to succeed.

(Sadly, not too proud to turn socialist...)

the alternative was unthinkable. money well spent

Banker's incompetence!!! The public still don't seem to understand what's going on. The bankers gambled other people's money, collecting huge bonuses and when it went wrong it was the pubic that had to clean up the mess. The bankers are laughing, even the ones who lost their jobs. It's how the City works, you make as much money as you can and don't worry about the consequences.

It's a bit like you lending me £1,000, me betting wildly with it and taking 10% of all my winning bets. When I've spent the £1,000 then that's it. Who's incompetent, me for making a lot of money until the party ends or you for lending me the money?

And the thing is, it's going to continue ad infinitum!

Riddle me this, riddle me that, is it the banker or politician who's more adroit? (sorry, adroit was the closest rhyme to that I could think of).

denis - the alternative is coming anyway.

yeah don but it put it off for maybe a few years - costs a lot of money to buy time!

The elite are gathering up all the money and power.

they dont care about "the money" - just the stuff it buys. they will be happy if everyone else is holding the money when the music stops..

once it does - people in general, will be ruined. wealth consolidation.

Yes, that's what tends to make them the elite.

but we elect politicians who lie to us, so this is what we get.
if you guys stopped believing their lies and maybe started listening to libertarians who know what they are talking about you wouldnt get ripped off like this.
some of us have been highlighting the corrupt banking system for years and pre Sept 07 received no end of abuse for doing so.

Truth is the entire financial system is a ponzi scheme. It is questionable whether there is even one person in parliament, allegedly representing us, who understands that. They certainly dont get up and say so if they do

I never listen to Politicans and can't stand people who bang on about " their " party being better than the other party....i listen to Alex Jones.

I listen to Glenn Beck

U.S.A is in free fall
Bin laden have won

If you ignoramuses must post about banking, please don't use the word "bankers" as a catchall - it makes you look a real prat.

I used the term bankers. Please explain how it makes me look a prat.

Don't the regulators bear any responsibility ?

regulators are even worse than the bankers.
its so arrogant and corrupt its beyond my comprehension, as a pretty straight sort of guy.
clear Madoff of any wrongdoing, twice, and pay ourselves huge salaries to do it

most of the regulators were wannabe bankers who weren't good enough to get a job in the industry

if the really understood the products they were supposed to be regulating, they'd have been on the other side of the fence making big bucks

so in short, i don't think the regulators were necessarily corrupt

just useless.

There are many types of business within a bank and many "bankers". A small minority of them were involved in the credit markets and money lending. To refer to everyone in the same way is like saying "workers" are lazy just becuase the postmen are on strike.

Goring's right - not all bankers turned socialist, remember.

Göring 27 Nov 08:31
There are many types of business within a bank and many "bankers". A small minority of them were involved in the credit markets and money lending. To refer to everyone in the same way is like saying "workers" are lazy just becuase the postmen are on strike.

Is that it? That's rather obvious. I think by using the term 'banker' then people will realise that it wasn't absolutely everyone who could be termed a 'banker' who was directly involved. I can assure you I'm not an ignoramus in this whole matter.

But, seeing as it upsets you, which word would you rather I use to describe all the people who make money in the City without worrying about the consequences to the wider financial system?

banking system is a scam im afraid. all those bankers that were not involved in the loans and credit side, are unwittingly part of it anyway. i used to be one.

I'm an ex fund manager who was aware of the impending implosion well before most. In fact I remember a number of intimate meetings with people such as Fred Goodwin and John Varley where they seemed to exhibit an alarming lack of insight into what was about to happen. Even as everything began to unravel. I say seemed as it's quite likely they knew much more than they were prepared to let on.

Templeton Peck 27 Nov 13:42

which word would you rather I use to describe all the people who make money in the City without worrying about the consequences to the wider financial system?

I think you'd better stick to the full description as I doubt there is a word that wouldn't wrongly group others in.

That's true but it would make any post too wordy. I think we'll stick to bankers.

Goring -

Instead of worrying yourself about terminology, why not have a go at addressing Templeton's substantive point:

I'm an ex fund manager who was aware of the impending implosion well before most. In fact I remember a number of intimate meetings with people such as Fred Goodwin and John Varley where they seemed to exhibit an alarming lack of insight into what was about to happen. Even as everything began to unravel. I say seemed as it's quite likely they knew much more than they were prepared to let on.

If they were guilty of fraud then employ the Chinese method of dealing with corrupt officials

sold my hbos shares when i saw crosby had sold his. about £11 a share we got. he coudlnt possibly have known what was going to happen could he.. maybe he's just lucky..

and let's not forget the hbos guy who was in the papers - sacked for airing his fears on the situation..

he got kngihthood for services to banking. just think about that. his knighthood was for furthering the agenda of consolidating wealth in this country. to do it they have to consolidate the banks... and what has been happening...

and obviously we are ignoring in this conversation where the money comes from that they fraudulently "loan" to customers. read page 2 onwards of the unenforceable credit agreements thread on the financials board. id love someone to challenge what ive said there and prove me wrong.

Dr J, there's not much of a point to answer without a date. If the information is much later than the middle of 2007 then I believe it, especially with the revelations of the "secret" loans at the end of the year. If it's earlier, then I don't believe it as few people spotted outside Ron Paul et al.

Again though, the amount spent (once) by the state to keep the economy afloat is simply the same as the industry has paid to the state year on year for over a decade. If the need for a bailout is evidence of incompetence (and it's not that simple) then the state is many times more incompetent. Indeed, the ultimate cause as ever, is government through coercion of the short-term debt markets, restriction of the housing supply and encouragemet of the bubble for political ends.

You also forget that 'Sir Fred' had a duty to his shareholders not to cause panic selling in the market so he's hardly going to tell every fund manager he meets how bad things are.

I have no intention in getting involved in any debate on here - would remind me of my working days too much - but, as some clarificiation has been asked for, I shall provide some clarification:

The meetings I attended (I was junior so my colleagues asked the majority of questions) with CEOs/CFOs of financial institutions, where we quizzed them on areas which worried us (and turned out to occur), were in the early months of 2008.

The analysts at the company I worked for who covered banksr had been highlighting disrecpancies/danger signs/instability since, from memory, 2006. I took their warnings more seriously than many of my colleagues but we still, as a house, steered clear of banks for a long time and it cost us performance/money for quite a while. Until the crisis became apparent.

There's always the view that there is a new paradigm. One of the first things I learnt in the City is that there rarely is. This time many people thought that the new China would protect the markets from a banking crisis.

Goring is correct, Sir Fred would not be doing the right thing in telling fund managers on an individual basis that things were about to implode. In fact, even if he knew they were then he wouldn't necessarily be correct in letting the whole market know.

I do believe they knew what was about to happen and tried to**it before it became widely known. Once it was widely known then it would be impossible to control the situation as panic would ensue. And I can rememebr many a day when the stock markets went haywire once we all realised the party was finally over.

Then I left and started trading the markets for myself. Just a couple of weeks before the market really crashed...

Lol, I was doing the same, I'd just opened up an IB account to trade the ym mini dow. The moves were tremendous, never seen anything like it. Couldn't find a stop short of 20-30 points most of the time, it was frightening. I am not now trying to trade the dow.

One thing I would say without getting into a technical analysis rant is that people are deluded if they think those massive falls can somehow be wished away. Look at the long term charts, we are crawling slowly back up to huge retracement points, not in some sort of golden new uptrend. There will be a bad reaction at some point, perhaps very bad.

It will be a while yet though. There are a lot of second round resets to come in a year's time.