Thursday, November 13, 2014

"Why don't defrauding bankers go to jail?

This is "a great rant" on Channel 4 news of BBC Economics editor, Paul Mason, following the report yesterday of yet another Banking Fraud. 5 major banks allowed their traders to fiddle foreign exchange rates to defraud their clients and increase their bonuses. Paul is clearly very angry that we have fraud after fraud after fraud in the City and nothing ever gets done about it. He calls for full and effective regulation of the sector and banks should stop whingeing about being held to account.

I totally agree but think that share owners also must share the blame for failing to act as owners and take responsibility for the companies they own. We in theory appoint the executives at annual AGMs to run these companies on our behalf and it is clear that we can be pretty rubbish at it. We often seem to appoint "numpties" to do this who are at best incompetent or perhaps equally dishonest.

Hat tip to Sunny Hundal on Facebook for clip and a great title.

In my world I see people being jailed for defrauding the state of relatively small amounts of money for claiming benefits and not declaring a partner or a part time job. Yet none of the the bankers who have defrauded the state of billions of pounds have seen any porridge? This is unfair.

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