Political slaughter

[francisgraham]

Retread24800 - 2012-05-05 4:48 PMHow come the strong Banks failed to bail out their weaker brethren? 

Is that supposed to be a serious contribution to this debate? Should Tesco bail out Sainsbury's if they go bust? Should Aviva bail out LV if they get in trouble?

Perhaps if your neighbour goes bankrupt you should give him a load of money?

Why should a successful bank bail out an unsuccessful one and in doing so reduce its own capital base?

The banks in question should have been allowed to fold. If the government decided that it was in the national interest to rescue them that was the governments decision and nothing to do with the other banks that weren't in trouble.

[Guest 1footinthegrave]

Ah endowment policies, you know the one, have a house, just pay the interest for 30 years, then get enough back on your policy not only to pay off the mortgage, but get a handsome profit as well, sounds great.........................sign me up.

 

Oh and for FG, here's a site that may interest.

 

http://www.debate.org/

[francisgraham]

The City of London is and always has been a massive contributor to our economy and exports and its successes ultimately benefit everyone.

Banking, insurance and legal services contribute tens of billions to our balance of payments.

http://tinyurl.com/3cufzx8

The url was too long but I can't make this a hyperlink. Highlight it and right-click or paste it in your browser's address bar.

[Retread24800]

francisgraham - 2012-05-05 6:33 PM

Retread24800 - 2012-05-05 4:48 PMHow come the strong Banks failed to bail out their weaker brethren? 

Is that supposed to be a serious contribution to this debate? Should Tesco bail out Sainsbury's if they go bust? Should Aviva bail out LV if they get in trouble?

Perhaps if your neighbour goes bankrupt you should give him a load of money?

Why should a successful bank bail out an unsuccessful one and in doing so reduce its own capital base?

The banks in question should have been allowed to fold. If the government decided that it was in the national interest to rescue them that was the governments decision and nothing to do with the other banks that weren't in trouble.

Agree the banks should have been allowed to fail, the deposits in the retail sector should have been safeguarded/loaned up to £85000 and the investment arm allowed to perish, the sensible banks could then have cherry picked the staff.

As for Tesco vs Sainsburys et al each would fall over the other to buy each other up given half a chance especially at fire sale prices. But Banks dont operate like that, vis the LLoyds debacle.

 

[Guest 1footinthegrave]

Tens of thousands of people could be helped to buy newly-built homes worth up to £500,000 after the Government said it would use £1billion of taxpayers’ money to ensure they get mortgages with just a 5 per cent deposit.

Prime Minister David Cameron today launched a scheme that is designed to guarantee risky mortgages for all home buyers in a bid to kickstart the flagging property market.

[BGD]

Retread24800 - 2012-05-05 5:49 PM

francisgraham - 2012-05-05 6:33 PM

Retread24800 - 2012-05-05 4:48 PMHow come the strong Banks failed to bail out their weaker brethren? 

Is that supposed to be a serious contribution to this debate? Should Tesco bail out Sainsbury's if they go bust? Should Aviva bail out LV if they get in trouble?

Perhaps if your neighbour goes bankrupt you should give him a load of money?

Why should a successful bank bail out an unsuccessful one and in doing so reduce its own capital base?

The banks in question should have been allowed to fold. If the government decided that it was in the national interest to rescue them that was the governments decision and nothing to do with the other banks that weren't in trouble.

Agree the banks should have been allowed to fail, the deposits in the retail sector should have been safeguarded/loaned up to £85000 and the investment arm allowed to perish, the sensible banks could then have cherry picked the staff.

As for Tesco vs Sainsburys et al each would fall over the other to buy each other up given half a chance especially at fire sale prices. But Banks dont operate like that, vis the LLoyds debacle.

But successful, acquisitive, cash-rich banks, just like any other private sector Company, do indeed buy other banks, if it's in their shareholders interests to do so, and the purchase price is right, and they can become more efficient/gain market share or customer base.Santander buying Alliance & Leicester is a recent UK case in point.There was a big merger of two Investment banks too a while ago.However, they may also decide to stay on the sidleines, allow the sick business to die, and then pick off the reamining assets that they want....like in the case of Lloyds I think.We need to remember that banks are simply private sector businesses like any other; owned by their shareholders and the Directors ( the shareholders executive representatives) are duty bound to maximise profit and return-on-capital for those shareholders. They are NOT some sort of public sector social service.

[francisgraham]

Retread24800 - 2012-05-05 5:49 PM  

As for Tesco vs Sainsburys et al each would fall over the other to buy each other up given half a chance especially at fire sale prices. But Banks dont operate like that, vis the LLoyds debacle.

As has already been said, banks buy other banks all the time and most of Britain's big banks exist as a result of takeovers of smaller ones. Remember Martins Bank, National Provincial etc. etc.?

However, you specifically asked why the successful banks didn't 'bail out' the failing ones.

There's a huge difference between bailing out a company, which implies injecting capital, and taking it over. And again, why should a bank take over another one if it doesn't make commercial sense?

[Guest pelmetman]

francisgraham - 2012-05-05 6:40 PM

And again, why should a bank take over another one if it doesn't make commercial sense?

 

Was it the Halifax that took over Lloyds at the behest of Gordon Brown? *-) ..........more numpty meddling by apparently clever people ;-)

[Guest Peter James]

BGD - 2012-05-05 2:19 PM

 

The VAST majority of banks in the UK were and remain efficient, prudently run, profitable for their shareholders, never needed any bailout at all.

 

A couple of UK banks...note, just a couple of them only...adopted even more high-risk-high-returns policies than the rest, in order to give their owners ( their shareholders) greater dividends.

;-)

Just a couple of UK Banks?

RBS......... Halifax?

Have you forgotten .......Northern Rock..... Bradford & Bingley.... Alliance & Leicester.....

[Brian Kirby]

BGD - 2012-05-05 5:16 PM

 

Brian - I didn't want to get too far into semantics on this...........................

 

But without it, UK plc would be sunk overnight, with all the pain and suffering that the removal of about 20% of it's entire tax revenue-public sector spending would entail. It is, for all of us, very much easier to have a pop at the people who achieve such bonuses than to posses the intellect, and to undertake the training, the vast amount of specialist knowledge to by acquired, the enormous amount of information to search out, understand, and extrapolate from, in a global marketplace, every single day.

 

Investment Bank Fund managers will never not be to everyone's moral taste. But without them, and the profits that their investment decisions generate, the majority of people in the UK would be in an awfully big mess. Very very quickly. 8-)

Agreed, but what I was hoping to put forward was more of a philosophical, than a purely moral, argument.

 

I'm not sure that, if analysed, banking could really be classed a moral business: more amoral, I'd say. Not a criticism, just how I see it.

 

A good investment fund manager is the man/woman who delivers the most consistently high return for his fund. That is what they are paid for, and it is what the good ones do. If they make large returns for the fund, they receive large bonuses. That is fine by me, I have no quarrel whatsoever with people doing well what they are paid to do, and being rewarded accordingly.

 

So, I'm not quarrelling with the broad thrust of your argument, just doing some philosophical nit-picking around the edges. :-) I am certainly not arguing that banking is, per se, bad - in fact I think I was arguing for more direct bank involvement in the financing UK business investment than seems presently the case, and a bit less readiness to turn to the stock market for this purpose. However, I accept that was not your point.

[Brian Kirby]

pelmetman - 2012-05-05 5:31 PM..........................Also Francis mentioned Barclays not needing a bail out............didn't they go cap in hand to the Arabs?............................

Funny that, because I remember that being stated as well.

 

Odd little soul that I am, I think I'd sooner have had the Government cash with their clearly stated strings, than the Arab cash with their (unpublished, but surely not non-existent) strings. :-D

[Brian Kirby]

francisgraham - 2012-05-05 5:33 PM

Retread24800 - 2012-05-05 4:48 PMHow come the strong Banks failed to bail out their weaker brethren? 

Is that supposed to be a serious contribution to this debate? Should Tesco bail out Sainsbury's if they go bust? Should Aviva bail out LV if they get in trouble?

Perhaps if your neighbour goes bankrupt you should give him a load of money?

Why should a successful bank bail out an unsuccessful one and in doing so reduce its own capital base?

The banks in question should have been allowed to fold. If the government decided that it was in the national interest to rescue them that was the governments decision and nothing to do with the other banks that weren't in trouble.

Is it not the case that the clearing banks have a mutual support obligation that requires them to provide funds to each other when circumstances require this? I confess I have always understood something of the sort to be the case.Sainsbury's/Tesco is, IMO, a bit silly. Two similar businesses, but hardly in the same league of destructive capability if one or other were to flounder. This is only a case of short term decisions over where you buy your Weetabix! :-)Aviva/LV? I believe the arrangements are somewhat similar to those for that banks, except that with the insurers the risks are passed through the reinsurance market, through which they, in effect, mutually re-insure each other's risks. Very tenuous and indirect, but I would say the effect is exactly that Aviva would bail out LV, and vice versa.The reason the government decided to bail out the banks, as I have understood it, is precisely because of the existence of that mutual support obligation. There were basically no banks that were not in trouble, indeed even some of the remaining building societies (for example Nationwide) were in some trouble. They had all bought the duff CDOs and variants thereon, and could not value them, so could not establish their liquidity, or whether or not it was within legal bounds. The truth seems just to have been that some were in more trouble than others, and the view was taken that if the deeply mired banks were allowed to collapse the strain on the others of trying to implement the support obligations would bring them down as well. Reportedly, as things were, we were within a matter of hours of the entire UK banking system running out of liquidity and effectively having to close down. Whether one accepts this doomsday scenario of imminent systemic collapse is a philosophical point, and we shall never know whether the "right" decision was made, or not, however long we debate it. It also seems to me somewhat improbable that anyone contributing to this forum has sufficient relevant knowledge of events at the time to hold a worthwhile view either way, and even those who did have that information were not of a single mind. It was a judgement call made under extreme pressure. Ultimately, I think, the credit should be awarded a) for making it (c.f the Euro groups total failure to act with conviction or dispatch over their "little problem") and b) for doing so fast. That at least allowed everyone to see with greater clarity where we were heading - even if the ultimate destination remained a little fogged. :-)Personally, I'm inclined to think we should be in a worse position now had the "big two" been allowed to collapse, but I also think their shareholders were let off too lightly, as I understand they still hold their paper, and can hope for its value to be reinstated in time. I should have preferred the government to have taken over the whole of the banks assets and liabilities, leaving the shareholders with a total loss on their shares - if only because I think shareholders who put gamblers in charge of banks deserve to lose their money.

[Retread24800]

1footinthegrave - 2012-05-05 7:12 PMTens of thousands of people could be helped to buy newly-built homes worth up to £500,000 after the Government said it would use £1billion of taxpayers’ money to ensure they get mortgages with just a 5 per cent deposit.Prime Minister David Cameron today launched a scheme that is designed to guarantee risky mortgages for all home buyers in a bid to kickstart the flagging property market.

 

So sub prime mortgages in the UK too?

 

[francisgraham]

Brian Kirby - 2012-05-05 9:49 PM

francisgraham - 2012-05-05 5:33 PM

Retread24800 - 2012-05-05 4:48 PMHow come the strong Banks failed to bail out their weaker brethren? 

Is that supposed to be a serious contribution to this debate? Should Tesco bail out Sainsbury's if they go bust? Should Aviva bail out LV if they get in trouble?

Perhaps if your neighbour goes bankrupt you should give him a load of money?

Why should a successful bank bail out an unsuccessful one and in doing so reduce its own capital base?

The banks in question should have been allowed to fold. If the government decided that it was in the national interest to rescue them that was the governments decision and nothing to do with the other banks that weren't in trouble.

Is it not the case that the clearing banks have a mutual support obligation that requires them to provide funds to each other when circumstances require this? I confess I have always understood something of the sort to be the case.Sainsbury's/Tesco is, IMO, a bit silly. Two similar businesses, but hardly in the same league of destructive capability if one or other were to flounder. This is only a case of short term decisions over where you buy your Weetabix! :-)Aviva/LV? I believe the arrangements are somewhat similar to those for that banks, except that with the insurers the risks are passed through the reinsurance market, through which they, in effect, mutually re-insure each other's risks. Very tenuous and indirect, but I would say the effect is exactly that Aviva would bail out LV, and vice versa.The reason the government decided to bail out the banks, as I have understood it, is precisely because of the existence of that mutual support obligation. There were basically no banks that were not in trouble, indeed even some of the remaining building societies (for example Nationwide) were in some trouble. They had all bought the duff CDOs and variants thereon, and could not value them, so could not establish their liquidity, or whether or not it was within legal bounds. The truth seems just to have been that some were in more trouble than others, and the view was taken that if the deeply mired banks were allowed to collapse the strain on the others of trying to implement the support obligations would bring them down as well. Reportedly, as things were, we were within a matter of hours of the entire UK banking system running out of liquidity and effectively having to close down. Whether one accepts this doomsday scenario of imminent systemic collapse is a philosophical point, and we shall never know whether the "right" decision was made, or not, however long we debate it. It also seems to me somewhat improbable that anyone contributing to this forum has sufficient relevant knowledge of events at the time to hold a worthwhile view either way, and even those who did have that information were not of a single mind. It was a judgement call made under extreme pressure. Ultimately, I think, the credit should be awarded a) for making it (c.f the Euro groups total failure to act with conviction or dispatch over their "little problem") and b) for doing so fast. That at least allowed everyone to see with greater clarity where we were heading - even if the ultimate destination remained a little fogged. :-)Personally, I'm inclined to think we should be in a worse position now had the "big two" been allowed to collapse, but I also think their shareholders were let off too lightly, as I understand they still hold their paper, and can hope for its value to be reinstated in time. I should have preferred the government to have taken over the whole of the banks assets and liabilities, leaving the shareholders with a total loss on their shares - if only because I think shareholders who put gamblers in charge of banks deserve to lose their money.

You appear to be misinformed. Banks have no legal obligation to support each other and certainly have no obligation to bail out a failing bank.

Insurance companies have no similar obligation. You may be confusing the obligation that they have to consumers. Under the Road Traffic Act of 1988, insurers have to contribute to the Motor Insurers' Bureau, which was set up to protect the victims of uninsured drivers. For other kinds of insurance the Policyholders' Protection Act of 1975 (PPA) also exists to compensate private policy holders but business customers have no such protection.

And Insurers do go bust and the biggest one in the last few years was Independent Insurance, which I'm sure you'll remember. 500,000 private clients and 40,000 business clients were left with no cover, although the private clients would have had the PPA to fall back on.

Similarly, banks have to contribute to the Financial Services Compensation Scheme but again, this is to protect consumers and is how the £85,000 per customer protection is funded.

And as for my Tesco/Sainsbury's analogy being silly it was that, an analogy and was made to explain that there is no reason whatsoever that a commercial organisation should be obliged to bail out a rival company.

As for the relative consequences of the demise of a grocery chain and a bank, which do you think would have the greater consequences, Tesco folding or The Royal Bank of Scotland going bust?

Tesco has a market capitalisation of £28 billion, a turnover of £67 billion and employs 372,000 people. Can you imagine the chaos and the loss of jobs in the supply chain, agriculture etc. if Tesco folded?

If RBS had been allowed to fold I suspect that the effect on the UK economy would be minor compared to Tesco going bust. 

[Brian Kirby]

francisgraham - 2012-05-05 11:04 PMYou appear to be misinformed. Banks have no legal obligation to support each other and certainly have no obligation to bail out a failing bank.

Thank you for that Francis, it seems I was, indeed, mistaken.

 

Insurance companies have no similar obligation. You may be confusing the obligation that they have to consumers. Under the Road Traffic Act of 1988, insurers have to contribute to the Motor Insurers' Bureau, which was set up to protect the victims of uninsured drivers. For other kinds of insurance the Policyholders' Protection Act of 1975 (PPA) also exists to compensate private policy holders but business customers have no such protection.

It was not a legal obligation I referred to, but the common practise, as I understand it, for insurers to re-insure their risks through the reinsurance market, so that any company suffering a potentially catastrophic loss would be protected from collapse by distributing their risks across the international insurance markets. To me, that seems to create a kind of mutual support network where all insurers, in effect, carry a portion of all risks. Is this not the case either, or does it apply only to specified risks, where the cost of a single event (say an Exxon Valdez type incident) could be catastrophic, rather than their general business?

 

And Insurers do go bust and the biggest one in the last few years was Independent Insurance, which I'm sure you'll remember. 500,000 private clients and 40,000 business clients were left with no cover, although the private clients would have had the PPA to fall back on.

No, didn't hear of that one. Possibly we were away at the time. Only heard of Northern Rock due to a chance comment from someone we met on a site in France! The risks of travel, eh?

 

Similarly, banks have to contribute to the Financial Services Compensation Scheme but again, this is to protect consumers and is how the £85,000 per customer protection is funded.

Yes, I am aware of that one.

 

And as for my Tesco/Sainsbury's analogy being silly it was that, an analogy and was made to explain that there is no reason whatsoever that a commercial organisation should be obliged to bail out a rival company. As for the relative consequences of the demise of a grocery chain and a bank, which do you think would have the greater consequences, Tesco folding or The Royal Bank of Scotland going bust? Tesco has a market capitalisation of £28 billion, a turnover of £67 billion and employs 372,000 people. Can you imagine the chaos and the loss of jobs in the supply chain, agriculture etc. if Tesco folded?

Possibly "silly" was a bit dismissive, but I do think it an argument stretched too far in the context of banking collapses and their potential destructive capability. A while back Safeway withdrew from the UK market, with the threat of closure of all their branches and redundancy of all their staff. Not, as I recall, bankruptcy, so more organised, but still a major upheaval in the sector. Morrisons leaped in, in rather precipitate fashion, and re-branded all the stores as Morrisons. Then they found they had bitten of a bit more than they could chew, and sold off a large number of the stores. The consequence was, in the case of our town, that we now have a Waitrose. So with Tesco, I would assume, even though they are much bigger. Some stores would close, but most would be snaffled from the administrator by competitors. There would surely be market interest in vacuuming up the extra business from Tesco, especially in places where Tesco had the only store in town, which would partially mitigate the property losses for shareholders. Many would take on existing staff, so the redundancies would not, in the event, be that great. (Many of the current Waitrose staff were there in Safeway, and Morrison, days!). Competitors would find their turnovers increasing (we still have to shop), and the suppliers would mainly switch volume to new customers. So, a big hiccup, but I think, ultimately a benign, although bumpy, landing.

 

If RBS had been allowed to fold I suspect that the effect on the UK economy would be minor compared to Tesco going bust.

In short, I disagree, not because of the scale of the undertakings, but because of the degree of interconnectedness among the banks, and the fact that the valuation of the suspect securities is still continuing today. None of the banks knew, at the time, who owed what to whom, because a major part of the securities they held against their liquidity obligations were impossible to value, and because the securities had been split and re-packaged until no-one knew who actually, held the liability. It was the fear that banks would have to cease trading until they could resolve their actual liability and liquidity positions that was advanced, as I recall, as the reason why it was deemed necessary to bail out those with the major problems.

 

I don't think any supermarket chain has the capacity to more of less bring commerce to an abrupt halt, as was feared in the case of RBS and Lloyds going bust - and taking with them several of the other damaged banks through the cost of depositor protection liabilities. A bankrupt supermarket chain has, IMO, little prospect of unleashing a series of catastrophic domino collapses among other supermarket chains, which would be serious were it to happen.

 

But, just suppose Lloyds and RBS had been allowed to collapse, and the dominoes had fallen as feared. What then for the economy? To have discounted that possibility at the time would have been monumentally irresponsible. No government could have taken such a risk, unless they were completely confident the outcome would be generally benign, and there was no such risk. The problem then was that no-one had that confidence, because no-one at the time knew what the underlying cause of the losses really was. That knowledge came later, as the pieces were examined.

 

Under the then prevailing circumstances, I still think that what was decided was the safest and most responsible path, and that credit is due for at least that.

[Syd]

 

Well I now believe that "Bankers" are just fantastic, how lucky we are to have such wonderful people working so very hard on our behalf.

If they put as much thought into their work of bailing out GB as we are being told they do then how on earth do they find the time to work so hard on their tax avoidence schemes that rob the country out of as many billions as they earn us.

 

It is convenient for you to tell us how the two different arms of banking are seperate arms of banking but they currently are NOT seperate entities they are one concern and if the "Investing" arm goes tits up then so does the banking arm.

 

Without the high street banking I have doubts that the investing arm are would be able to raise enough money.

 

Thankfully we do not have to know everything to know when we see something that is rotton

[Guest pelmetman]

Had an interesting advert on my email today asking that I donate 1$ to provide 8 meals to feed the hungry of?..........India?...........Rwanda?............Nope.........The good old US of A 8-)

 

Kinda proves in my mind capitalism is broke ;-)

[francisgraham]

Syd - 2012-05-06 5:52 PMWell I now believe that "Bankers" are just fantastic, how lucky we are to have such wonderful people working so very hard on our behalf.If they put as much thought into their work of bailing out GB as we are being told they do then how on earth do they find the time to work so hard on their tax avoidence schemes that rob the country out of as many billions as they earn us.It is convenient for you to tell us how the two different arms of banking are seperate arms of banking but they currently are NOT seperate entities they are one concern and if the "Investing" arm goes tits up then so does the banking arm.Without the high street banking I have doubts that the investing arm are would be able to raise enough money.Thankfully we do not have to know everything to know when we see something that is rotton

Once again you make sweeping and totally uninformed generalisations. Please provide evidence that tax avoidance by bankers exceeds the amount of income generated by the City of London. I won't hold my breath!

Tax avoidance schemes for the average investment bankers are a myth. There is no way that anyone who is employed, and they are all just employees, can ultimately avoid paying tax.

I have already pointed out that just one per cent of the population pays almost thirty percent of all income tax (Inland Revenue figures) so without these high earners people such as you would have to pay a lot more! Just 10% of tax payers actually pay half of all income tax.

It would appear then, that if wealthy people are avoiding tax by clever schemes, they're not very good at it!

The tax avoidance schemes that you've read about in your tabloid but clearly not really understood, are used by multi-national companies, foreign businessmen domiciled in the U.K. and mainly people with control over how they are paid, which doesn't usually include bankers.

Even schemes where people set up companies to avoid income tax and only pay the much lower rate of corporation tax, such as the one set up by Ken Livingstone, only really work if you don't draw the income!

If you leave it in the company you pay corporation tax, but the minute that you draw it as salary or dividends you are subject to whatever income applies.

Livingstone's only advantage was that he could pay his wife a salary from his company and, as she wasn't a higher-rate taxpayer, she'd pay less income tax than he would. But this of course applies to relatively derisory amounts of money. The minute he pays her any decent-sized sum she's on the same high tax as anyone else.

You strike me as the kind of person who would be happy to see the introduction of incredibly high tax rates as we have had under Socialist governments in the past. It doesn't matter that they stifle enterprise and drive wealth creators abroad. It doesn't matter that ordinary people actually end up worse off because the economy ultimately suffers. What really matters is that you can have the satisfaction of seeing these awful rich people suffer!

Noses, faces and cutting off comes to mind!

Edited to say: Is there anyone more hypocritical than the average motorhomer? One thing I've learned is that saving money, not spending money, and generally inventing wheezes to saw the last ha'penny in half seems endemic amongst members of this forum.

Needless to say of course, if they inherited a barrow load of money and a clever accountant or lawyer suggested a perfectly legal scheme where they could minimise their tax deductions they would naturally say: "Good God old boy, can't possibly do that, must think of the good of the country."

Yes, of course they would!

Now, there's nothing wrong with saving money or not spending it, just as there is nothing wrong with legal tax avoidance. If the government doesn't like a particular loophole that may be exploited, they should close it. What is wrong is the hypocrisy of those members who constantly deride others but would behave no differently themselves in they were in the same situation!

[Guest 1footinthegrave]

pelmetman - 2012-05-06 6:24 PM

 

Had an interesting advert on my email today asking that I donate 1$ to provide 8 meals to feed the hungry of?..........India?...........Rwanda?............Nope.........The good old US of A 8-)

 

Kinda proves in my mind capitalism is broke ;-)

 

Blimey food must be cheap out there then.................................. :D

[Retread24800]

Personally I believe that the reply by Francis Graham is somewhat disingenuous and fails to show the extent to which tax avoidance schemes are used by the highly paid to minimise their tax liability those that may be interested should read this 

[Dave225]

One could suggest that this answer also contains ‘generalisations’. Yes, the banking or financial sector is of significant importance to the UK, but one could also argue that it was allowed to prosper at the expense of more mundane manufacturing industries due to greed of people who short sold the deals. Not illegal I accept, but morally wrong. If there had been more of a lead from Government then things may have ended up more balanced. There used to be a wise saying that stated ‘never put all your eggs in 1 basket’ which is exactly what the UK has done, and now has to pay the consequences. I through my wife, own a small number of shares in UK Companies. We have stuck with UK Companies for 2 reasons, one they are known to us and 2 we would like if possible to support home grown. In innumerable cases these Companies have been bought by foreign predators with no ability by either myself or any other small shareholder to stop the sale. The finance people who always look for the fast buck nod through the deals and pocket the profits. Yes, we get a cheque through the Post but that was not the full reasons for investing in the 1st place. We would much rather have kept our stake in the Companies. I see that even brands such as Weetabix are now being bought by the Chinese State Food Company, the same one that poisoned baby milk not so long ago, so I will not eat Weetabix anymore. You are told to support Britain but it is getting very difficult. I know some put the blame at Thatcher’s door and her ‘tell Sid’ campaigns but she did not ever envisage what has happened, she merely wanted more small people to have a say. The acceleration towards amalgamations and short term profits emanated from Blair and Brown and the ‘Britain is for sale’ sign at the door. Blair believed wealth was good as long as he had it, and Brown wanted to keep the voters under control by making them all welfare dependent. Causing harm to your country used to be called treason but nowadays it is merely politics.

 

So, yes we now have lot of rich people paying a lot of tax, and a lot of Companies avoiding it, but we also now have a lot of debts paying people in the Uk that just maybe would have been in employment if some of these schemes had not been allowed. So, the situation is not as clear cut as been suggested by others. There is also a saying that ‘2 wrongs do make a right’ and I suspect that we have an awful lot of that going on.

 

[Guest pelmetman]

Retread24800 - 2012-05-06 7:47 PM

 

Personally I believe that the reply by Francis Graham is somewhat disingenuous and fails to show the extent to which tax avoidance schemes are used by the highly paid to minimise their tax liability those that may be interested should read this 

 

Did you expect anything else 8-) .................Francis thinks the sun shines out of his posh mates bottoms (lol) (lol) (lol) (lol)

[Retread24800]

pelmetman - 2012-05-06 8:58 PM

Retread24800 - 2012-05-06 7:47 PMPersonally I believe that the reply by Francis Graham is somewhat disingenuous and fails to show the extent to which tax avoidance schemes are used by the highly paid to minimise their tax liability those that may be interested should read this 

Did you expect anything else 8-) .................Francis thinks the sun shines out of his posh mates bottoms (lol) (lol) (lol) (lol)

 

Naturally you are self employed and thus are taking advantage of this scheme:D but for those on £100,000 or more pa the way to set up a scheme and the advantages thereof are outlined here

How you too can pay only 20% tax on £100,000 income and keep your child benefit

 

 

[Guest 1footinthegrave]

pelmetman - 2012-05-06 7:58 PM

 

Retread24800 - 2012-05-06 7:47 PM

 

Personally I believe that the reply by Francis Graham is somewhat disingenuous and fails to show the extent to which tax avoidance schemes are used by the highly paid to minimise their tax liability those that may be interested should read this 

 

Did you expect anything else 8-) .................Francis thinks the sun shines out of his posh mates bottoms (lol) (lol) (lol) (lol)

 

The bottom tenth of earners saw their pay creep up just 0.1% between 2010 and 2011 while the top tenth saw their pay grow 18 times faster.

 

Overall pay growth for workers in Britain hit a record low. Pay was up just 0.4% on a year ago in terms of gross weekly earnings, meaning that incomes are tumbling in real terms given that inflation stands at 5%.

 

The pay of the head of Barclays bank has increased nearly 5,000% in 30 years, while average wages have increased just threefold

 

and after reading the link above it is beyond belief really, and there's me thinking we're all in it together.

 

8-)

[Guest pelmetman]

1footinthegrave - 2012-05-06 8:23 PM

 

pelmetman - 2012-05-06 7:58 PM

 

Retread24800 - 2012-05-06 7:47 PM

 

Personally I believe that the reply by Francis Graham is somewhat disingenuous and fails to show the extent to which tax avoidance schemes are used by the highly paid to minimise their tax liability those that may be interested should read this 

 

Did you expect anything else 8-) .................Francis thinks the sun shines out of his posh mates bottoms (lol) (lol) (lol) (lol)

 

The bottom tenth of earners saw their pay creep up just 0.1% between 2010 and 2011 while the top tenth saw their pay grow 18 times faster.

 

Overall pay growth for workers in Britain hit a record low. Pay was up just 0.4% on a year ago in terms of gross weekly earnings, meaning that incomes are tumbling in real terms given that inflation stands at 5%.

 

The pay of the head of Barclays bank has increased nearly 5,000% in 30 years, while average wages have increased just threefold

 

and after reading the link above it is beyond belief really, and there's me thinking we're all in it together.

 

8-)

 

Francis wont like that 1Foot..........If your not careful you'll end up on his persona non grata list.......

 

 

 

With a bit of luck ;-)