Bob Diamond in the Rough

Bob Diamond, King of Barclays, now seen by many as the tart stealing Knave of Hearts has joined that elite club of overachievers forced into resignation when the organisation they have led is caught with their hand in the cookie jar. Coming hot on the coat-tails of other scandals and scams that include bank bounus payments, product miselling and what some believe to be the the worst financial crisis ever people are wondering if the banks can and do what they want, when they want. 

An increasing number of people believe that it was bankers loose morality and unfair practices that caused the financial crisis when their analysis could only identify returns and bottom lines. It is thought that they were not capable of looking for the bigger picture or asking 'should I be doing this? Nothing in their vision or their ethics raised questions in their deliberately narrowed minds and as a result poor Bob is the latest in a growing line of sacrificial lambs (some would say scapegoats), that have fallen on their swords to save their organisations blushes.

It is probably unfair to blame Bob, or at least blame him alone. Whatever they say about him and the other lambs I ask you to notice the UK government is doing its best not to find out who is responsible for this and are practicing fairly advanced yoga (they are bending over backwards so far their heads will soon be up thier own backsides) in order not to allocate blame. There is little talk of punishment on these occasions and whenever there is talk of regulating these industries properly the banks simply suggest that if they can't act with impunity they will take their jobs and tax payments elsewhere.

So Politicians appear to be impotent and to rebut this they make a lot of noise about things they are fixing however fixing things that are not the problem will fail to get down to the nuts and bolts of this.

Lets face it all parties in UK government over the past few years have presided over lax regulatory reigime which created an environment within which blinkered thinking and tunnel vision arose from the rabid generation of short term profits that were so huge they they lost sight of what was happening to the system they were extracting the lifeblood from.

Let us not forget Bob Diamond's and his cronies real job is to maximise benefits for his organisation and anything less will get him sacked. It is the job of government to set the rules and punishments for rule breakers and apply these fairly, but it is unlikely that appropriatte  punishment will be applied here. Despite indications that such wrongdoings are endemic within a banking system that regards us all as a crop and tries to make our money, its own they will never be chased down and imprisoned with the alacrity as, for instance,  the participants in the recent UK wide riots.  But they have done more damage. But this is not a Bob Diamond problem - it is wider than him and he is simply the fall guy for something rotten.

But weep not for Bob, he will be OK. These scandals have impacted upon others far more than he and he is better placed to get another job. Others lost their jobs long ago to pay for the mess he was part of. Not because they did anything wrong but because the number of decent jobs is falling faster than a teenage skydivers testicles

Whether you believe the banks are to blame for the crisis or not is irrelevant, that they have not been lending to small businesses ( even though the government has given them money to do this small thing) and this has driven many to extinction, there are less people paying tax and this has meant that  the NHS investiment in medical services and performance is declining, services once provided are now not and this will, and probably has, ended in untimely death

And that is the real cost of these scandals, Bob and his mates last bonuses (not the ones they publicly turned down the one they took before) is probably worth more than many will earn in a lifetime, and this comes on top of their yearly pay packet which over the period of the contract would keep some smaller public services in the red for some years, while good people will die, lead less happy lives and will suffer poorer healthcare and smaller pensions all because of the activities undertaken  by the financial sector.

Its unfair to blame Bob, but weep not for him. Weep instead for the people who will die because of what his industry and the political system, did.

Why change to stay the same?

So Staines is undergoing a transformation to drive new businesses and money to the area and, it is said, sever all links with Sacha Baron Cohens TV creation  Ali G who, according to a local councillor, mademany imagine Staines to be G explaining that the joke was that Staines is in fact more cultured than gangsta and middle England than downtown New York.

The real move is said to be to capitalise on the real Staines - a green leafy busienss centre ideal for companies starting up, expanding or wishing to relocate. However around a third see this as idiocy – burying history in order to appear more suburban and genteel than is strictly true.

What are they changing the name to – Staines- upon –Thames. Sounds like a storm in a teacup to me but ..... what would you rename Staines UK?

Can Narrow Thinking Deliver Broadband?

According to yet another source, this time a report from the London School of Economics, the United Kingdom government’s targets of 100% access to fast broadband (with 90% access to a superfast service) by 2015 are unlikely to be met.

The LSE report suggests there is a funding gap in excess of £1billion and urges the government do more to ensure that short sighted underinvestment does not damage the UK economy over the longer term. This connection is well made as any country without effective broadband services is likely to fall behind economically as an increasingly globalised and technology - enabled marketplace develops.

A government spokesman has denied this saying they were confident of completing the roll out by 2015 as promised. He explained that that the government has always been very clear that the current investment was not intended to meet the full cost of delivering to these targets. This funding was intended to be an economic enabler that would help make it viable for the private sector to roll out broadband to areas where it would otherwise be commercially unattractive.

Is he right, or does the LSE have a point?The government is quick to point out that the UK is considered to be one of the top spenders in fast broadband and on this basis looks like the government is ahead of the game. However in defence of the LSE lets look a little closer.

The UK is 17th in a Global ranking of broadband penetration but 31st in a ranking of superfast services. In terms of a developed 21st century economy this is not great and a high level of investments is needed to move from this low base up the league table.

HMG is hoping providing faster broadband will be attractive to investors and that they only need to sugar the pot in areas that are challenging economically possibly due to low populations or difficult geography. This is a gamble and the outlook uncertain.

What is clear is that in financial terms there is a funding gap and this will remain the case until the commercial sector start to commit their resources to this. The government are referencing big numbers as evidence of a high level of engagement and activity but they are ignoring a bigger picture and they are no doubt hoping nobody asks why they are this far behind the curve in the first place.

This answer to this could well be that we left it to the private sector to delive to the cheapest cost (to provide the maximum) for the minimum effort. That is fine, it is what companies do which is why we should not rely on them for some things. When we need something bigger, better and centrally planned it is for government to show some leadership.

So let us hope they do so or we will find that when the next big thing arrives the UK will still be lagging behind its competitors dragging its ailing economy behind them.

CM

Round Your Way - Location Prague

Zombies have taken over the streets of Prague but there is no need to fear - George A Ramero 's doomsday scenario has not been realised - party loving people have been dressing up as the living dead  for the  Fifth Annual Zombie Walk through the Czech capital.

Men and Women from all over the country flocked to the capital dressed as the undead, complete with gash wounds fake blood and pallid white faces and they walked, limped and staggered through the city much to the amusement of locals and tourists.

Sounds like quite a party can I come!

The Eurozone looks to be in trouble again as unemployment across the area hits record highs. Across the Euro zone the numbers of jobless reached 10.9% (the highest since the Euro was created in 1999) which means around 17.5 million are now looking for work.

The number of Germans out of work is now at 2.87 million (around 6.9%) and Italian figures were the highest for a decade at almost 9.8%. Spain reports 5.6 million jobless, a record rate of 24.4% which confirms it as having the highest unemployment rate in the European Union (Cork Monkey thinks this is likely to get worse throughout 2012).

With these figures showing record numbers were reached in March much of the smart thinking is that this may be the impact of the various European governments well publicised spending cuts, designed to control deficits and control their economies, trickling through to the main economy and affecting the population in fairly predictable ways.

No light at the end of the tunnel

Now Spain and Italy are both in recession and have seen borrowing costs rise further, raising the prospect that they may need help or even bailouts from their financially stretched neighbours. In addition the future for Greece, Portugal and Ireland still looks grim and outside the Euro zone there are some signs the UK could also be entering recession.

To rub salt into these wounds a recent survey of euro zone manufacturing revealed further decline is inevitable as new orders fell through the floor for the 11th month in row.

But the sun rises in the East

The gap in manufacturing is being filled by China, India and others, who are looking to play a larger part in the world economy going forward. Their calls for non western trading blocks and rivals to the IMF the World Bank and other global institutions could further marginalise Europe who would become a significant but not quite so important a player on the world stage.

Cork Monkey wonders if European politicians have got their strategy for dealing with the efffects of the global financial wrong and its austerity measures, that have reduced spending, have been at the expense of their economic growth.

Up a dry creek with a powerless paddle!

Are the UK's utilities disappearing - is its population up a dry creek without the power to turn a paddle? Cork Monkey finds more evidence that the UK has not been served well by its political classes.

As an update to yesterday’s piece we can report that the Environment Secretary has suggested that standpipes in the street may be on the cards if England suffers another dry winter next year. The standpipes would replace water coming out of the household taps for those affected.

While soil moisture has increased with the recent severe rains groundwater remains low so large parts of England remain in drought. This has led to concerns that, in some places, there will not be enough water to meet the UK populations needs and fears that draconian water conservation measures could become necessary.

Caroline Spelman has apparently said the UK would have to look at other ways to supply water if shortages continued. This could lead to third world style standpipes in the street as an attempt to control water usage – effectively water rationing.

Underinvestment in power means that we may well have shortages in this sector too. As older dirty power stations are decommissioned before newer cleaner facilities become operational we could have controls put in place here to ration supplies. This could be by disrupting or managing supply but this is more likely to be controlled by price. Electricity and gas simply becoming more expensive leading to lower consumption.

Either way this would probably affect domestic customers disproportionately as steps would be taken to ensure UK has enough power for business to be able to grow its economy.

Now is this the state a first world country should be in? It is quite possible that in the future there could be patronising pictures on Nigerian TV telling the story of Millicent Hyacinth Smythe - Bassett who has to carry water to her sick Grandma  who is freezing in her cold and damp care home.

If we consider that most non - primitive societies have reasonable access to fuel and water and that  a lot of the primitive ones do too, someone - and we mean a lot of someones - should be very very ashamed!

CM (:-(|)

Cork Monkey is back!

Where have we been? - More detail on that later but in brief we have been visiting the big wide world to see whats what so watch these pages for the fruits of these labours.
There is a story in the UK that caught our attention.

The UK has had the wettest April since reliable records began (a century or so). There is also a hosepipe ban in much of the country (people in the UK  cannot use hoses to water the garden or clean their cars etc ). Of course we at Cork Monkey understand that a few weeks heavy rain do not balance a couple of dry years (mainly because heavier rains will  run off the land and into the sea instead of seeping into the soil and filling underground resovoirs) but it occurs that hosepipe bans are rapidly becoming the rule rather than the exception.

Why is this? -We don't know but would love to find out.

The government blame rising population, immigration and an uneven dispersal of the population that is challanging the infrastructure however I am not so sure. Why is it surprising and unpredicatable that people want to live cities and that people in cities are having babies. Could we not plan for this and develop adequate infrastructure?

Cork Monkey detects a common theme here? We notice that there is a lot of 'green' talk about the need to conserve power and not waste energy, really strong stuff too - enough to make you feel like Hitler just for turning on a light bulb.

There is also a lot of talk of saving money by switching to low energy light bulbs too the extent that they issued  households with low energy bulbs which are a bit like the current cabinet ( dim, dull and no good for reading) - nobody has noticed the change though - power companies still making huge profits because they put there prices up an get paid more for producing less power.

Are these real problems or are we some way being manipulated by government and large organisations who hide behind this 'Greenwashing of the market, the current financial crisis or as ever behind the dastardly johnny foreigner to disguise that they have failed to invest in infrastrucure?

Would it be churlish to suggest that where expensive development projects run the risk of reducing profits (which would mean shareholder dividends and bosses bonuses would be smaller)  those who might be affected are reluctant to approve these projects.

We don't yet have these answers - do you?

CM (:-(I)

Meanwhile here is some music

Cork Monkey will not be creating new posts until late Mar

Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible meanwhile here is some music

tum ti tum ......