BEWARE! THE BANKS ARE OUT TO GET YOU!

[Stanley]

I think this might be the place for THIS report of the rearrangement of the chairs in the Natwest boardroom after the departure of the woman who we were assured was the second-coming when she was appointed a while ago as CEO.
How come such a highly qualified person makes the mistake of saying too much? WSas drink involved? Amazing.

[Tripps]

"Rose was paid £5.25m last year. That includes £2.4m in fixed pay, a £643,000 bonus and £2.1m in share payments."

Life shouldn't be too much of a struggle then. . . Let's hope she put a little aside for a rainy day.

[Stanley]

It's one of the pieces of evidence that this country is no longer run for the workers but is the playground of the super rich that such levels of pay are freely admitted to. In other words the recipients think they are worth it.
Breaking news is that the fact that the US has raised it's interest rates and the ECB is expected to do the same. This suggests that the BofE will do the same. Deep Joy!

[Tizer]

Next thing is we'll be hearing Nigel Farage promising to `drain the swamp' - and look what that phrase did for Trump!
`Coutts Bank boss quits over Farage account row' LINK
The boss of Coutts, the prestigious private bank for the wealthy, has stepped down over the handling of Nigel Farage's bank account closure. Peter Flavel will leave as chief executive of Coutts by mutual consent with immediate effect. He said the handling of Mr Farage's case had "fallen below the bank's high standards of personal service". His departure comes after the boss of NatWest Group, Alison Rose, which owns Coutts, resigned on Wednesday.

[Tripps]

Fascinating news about Coutts Bank. The Chief Executive has just resigned with immediate effect. and I feel there will be more casualties of the affair of Nigel Farage's bank account unfolds.

My immediate reaction to Couts is that at one time it was never written without being preceded by the adjective 'blue blooded' . I haven't seen it used at all recently, and the monarchy is wisely keeping its head down.

My next thought is that my lad worked at their headquarters a long time ago on a consultancy project - and when I teased him about the blue blooded thing told me that they not only separated the herd from the top brass - they had a 'partners dining room' - they even had 'partners stairs'.

That's classy.

[PanBiker]

I teased him about the blue blooded thing told me that they not only separated the herd from the top brass - they had a 'partners dining room' - they even had 'partners stairs'.

That's classy.

Or abhorrent depending on your point of view. I suppose it would be "classy" if you were aspiring to be like them.

The members are nothing special, not Lords of the Universe even if they think they are. They all came into the world like me, naked and with nothing. How you leave is a different matter of course, speaking solely of material possessions. However just like me and everyone else it doesn't matter whether you have nothing or millions, you cant spend it when you are dead.

[Stanley]

The Budenberg Gauge Company were very good to Ellenroad and did all our gauges up free of charge. They also invited me down for a works tour and lunch with the partners.
They too had a partner's dining room with their own cook and one of the partners held the key to the partner's drinks cupboard. Everybody at lunch could have one drink. There was also a small oriel window in the wall of the dining room projecting into the main machine hall so the partners could have a good view of the workers at their tasks.
They were very correct and polite. They invited the living retired partner to the same lunch so that I could meet him.....

[Stanley]

The Coutt's Bank scandal shows no sign of abating.

[Stanley]

See THIS report on HSBC profits. A strange place to find it but it is a Reuter's feed. HSBC Holdings raised its financial target on Tuesday as its first-half profit surged more than two fold, supported by rising interest rates around the world and the positive effects of its planned French unit sale.
It would seem that inflation is working quite well for some.....

[Stanley]

Disturbing reports that expert observers are forecasting that the Bank of England will continue raising the base interest rate even though this is likely to trigger a recession. The theory is that J Hunt believes that a dose of recession is the most efficient way to bring inflation down to .normal. levels....

[Stanley]

It is widely forecast that the BofE will raise interest rates today for the 14th month on the trot. The theory is that Hunt and his advisers believe the core interest rate will come down quicker if we are in a depression.
I have never heard this argument before, let alone seen it being put into effect.
Deep Joy!

[plaques]

Never seen the words 'Core interest rates' used before. Is it the basic interest rate as a stand alone value without being compounded by previous interest rates? Looks like smoke and mirrors to me.

On INFLATION rates. what is not included is.....

Core inflation is the change in the costs of goods and services but does not include those from the food and energy sectors.
Food and energy prices are exempt from this calculation because their prices can be too volatile or fluctuate wildly.
Core inflation is important because it's used to determine the impact of rising prices on consumer income.

This implies that food and energy prices don't have any affect on consumer income. Alice in Wonderland stuff.

[Stanley]

Regardless of the terminology I reckon that financial managers who advocate depression as a cure for inflation are simply ignorant charlatans who can't work out any better way of bringing prices down than taking money of us so retailers are forced to price-cut to survive.
God help us because that's the strategy now. From what Bailey said he's looking at two years hard. In my experience you can double that. Deep Joy!

[Tripps]

A pat on the back for a bank - now that's refreshing.

I oredred an extra payment card for my Starling Account. The idea is that I can load it with up to £200 credit, and then give it to someone to use on my behalf for shopping if I am unable to do so. It's for emergencies only. It cannot be used to get a cash withdrawal and must be used for goods only.

The remarkable thing is - I ordered the card on Thursday afternoon and it was delivered this morning and is now loaded and activated. I think that's pretty impressive.

[Stanley]

Nice to hear of something good!

[Tizer]

Take your pick - FT or BBC....
`FTSE 100 bosses given average 16% pay rises: Median blue-chip index chief was paid 118 times the median full-time worker in the UK in 2022' FT

`Big firm bosses' pay rose 16% as workers squeezed' BBC

[Stanley]

I heard that report as well Peter. It's one of the miracles of modern times and it's happened in the higher echelons of public sector management as well. Perhaps that's why we don't hear stories of NHS administrators, heads of schools which have been privatised or rail bosses agitating for pay increases.
The old Wages Councils may not have resulted in high wages for the workers but they were fair and protected the benefits of overtime, a guaranteed working week ,holiday pay and sick pay. Far too many workers today don't get those. Add in security, no wonder I see modern young families as being worse off than we were even though we had higher interest rates.

[Tizer]

`Goldman Used Chinese Government Money to Acquire US and UK Companies: Report: The transactions were done via a private equity 'partnership fund' established by the bank with an entity controlled by Beijing' Messenger.com
`Goldman Sachs established a fund using Chinese government money to acquire American and British-based companies, including one engaged in cyber security services for the U.K. government, the Financial Times reported. Despite increasing tensions between Beijing and Western nations, Goldman has inked seven transactions through a $2.5 billion private equity "partnership fund" it created with China Investment Corporation (CIC) in 2017, according to numerous individuals who possess firsthand insight into the fund and its operations and who spoke to the FT. These transactions encompass a range of sectors, including global supply chain tracking, cloud computing, drug testing, manufacturing systems for AI, drones and electric vehicle batteries, according to the FT. While Goldman Sachs said it had made investments in these companies, it did not explicitly disclose the fund's contribution to the deals...'.

[Stanley]

Very timely Peter and just another example of how these rapacious financial institutions disregard morals and even law in the pursuit of profit. Janet used to work for a US investment bank in London in the department that looked after the way the funds were run and she told me that even when she pointed out that a fund or a particular algorithm was acting illegally or dangerously the only question the management ever asked was whether it was making money.
They get away with it because they are clever and feed the regulators with party contributions and fat pay cheques for jobs they hand out to retiring officials. It's a totally rotten system but as long as the beneficiaries are the people in charge it will not change.

[Tizer]

`Carillion: Record fine for KPMG over 'exceptional' failure' BBC
`Auditing giant KMPG has been handed a record fine over "exceptional" failures in its accounting work for Carillion, the construction giant which collapsed in 2018. The Financial Reporting Council, which regulates accountants, said the £21m fine was due to the "number, range, and seriousness" of issues in KPMG's work. The failure of Carillion hit thousands of jobs and 450 building projects. KPMG's UK chief executive said the FRC's findings were "damning". Jon Holt said: "I am very sorry that these failings happened in our firm. It is clear to me that our audit work on Carillion was very bad, over an extended period. "In many areas, some of our former partners and employees simply didn't do their job properly."...

[Stanley]

As I have said so many times, it's not enough for people to be sorry, the way to get attention is for actual sanctions on executives, like marching out of the building in handcuffs!

[Tizer]

Have a look at the bar chart in this report...
`Banks accused of dragging their feet over fraud refunds, says MP' LINK
`Banks have been accused by a senior MP of "dragging their feet" when it comes to refunding victims of fraud. Harriett Baldwin's comments come as newly published figures name, for the first time, individual banks to show how much money they refund...'.

[Stanley]

I saw that report Peter and of course she is quite right but is anyone surprised when they see how tight-fisted banks are when paying out money?
Have you noticed what staggering profits they are making on the back of the high energy prices?

[Stanley]

This seems like the right place to flag up the latest GDP by .03% in October. (figures which show that the UK economy shrank by .03% in October. See THIS report by the Office for National Statistics for the details.

[Stanley]

Isn't it strange that we haven't heard a peep out of the government (or the Treasury!) about this further evidence of the Tory Party being 'good with money'. I thought that nice Mr Sunak was going to grow the economy.....
(Could Brexit have anything to do with this trend?)