Why haven't the bankers been punished?

[Monami]

That assumes that the people in question accurately and honestly represented themselves and their income when applying for the loans in question. Bankers don't have their own police force and can only work with the information given...

 

Bankers have access to lots of information.

[CXC3000]

Why haven't the bankers been punished ?

 

Simple : they own the politicians.

[I1L2T3]

It wasn't a bad risk for the banks actually making the loan though wasn't it, as they then packaged these loans up with other loans and sold them on to other financial institutions who then took on the risk leaving the original bank with a nice profit without the risk.

 

Perhaps the more pertinent question should be, should this have been allowed?

 

Absolutely. Like somebody else said it was a target-driven environment. The only aim was to keep lending so that the conveyer belt of CDOs, CMOs etc... could be kept running. Risk wasn't particularly an issue but why should it be if a book of loans could be packaged up and sold on with the bank recieving the value of the original loans once the securities are placed with investors. The demand for the asset-backed products was there with more than enough willing investors - lending, lending and more lending was a way to satifsy the demand and every step of the way investment banks, lawyers etc... were creaming off massive profits.

 

It was a credit bubble the likes of which only come along once or twice a century.

 

Why was it allowed? Because the banks wanted to do it. Any government opposing it would have been removed and a new one installed. Any political challenge career ending.

[JFKvsNixon]

Absolutely. Like somebody else said it was a target-driven environment. The only aim was to keep lending so that the conveyer belt of CDOs, CMOs etc... could be kept running. Risk wasn't particularly an issue but why should it be if a book of loans could be packaged up and sold on with the bank recieving the value of the original loans once the securities are placed with investors. The demand for the asset-backed products was there with more than enough willing investors - lending, lending and more lending was a way to satifsy the demand and every step of the way investment banks, lawyers etc... were creaming off massive profits.

 

It was a credit bubble the likes of which only come along once or twice a century.

 

Why was it allowed? Because the banks wanted to do it. Any government opposing it would have been removed and a new one installed. Any political challenge career ending.

 

For me I certainly hold the governments accountable, the banks were only doing what is natural for them, coming up with new ways to make money. It's up to the governments to supervise their behaviour.

 

I do have a little sympathy for the banks. Once one of the banks started to inflate the credit bubble, and then they started making huge profits whilst doing so, the choice for the other banks was either join in with the bubble, or stay out of it and risk get taken other by one of the other banks inside the bubble.

 

You only have to look at the rise and the decline of RBS to understand the situation of the other banks around them.

[chorba]

The bankers have brought England to near bankrupcy through shear incompetence and greed. Everyone knows it, just as everyone knows that if they showed a similar level of incompetence in their job they would probably get dismissed!

 

Why haven't the bankers been punished?

Cameroon stands to inherit a multimillion pounds fortune because his family were bankers. Does this explain it?

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-11811238

 

He tried.

[evildrneil]

Bankers have access to lots of information.

 

They do indeed - but that hardly makes them infallable does it?

[I1L2T3]

For me I certainly hold the governments accountable, the banks were only doing what is natural for them, coming up with new ways to make money. It's up to the governments to supervise their behaviour.

 

If any goverment was to attempt to regulate every aspect of the banking industry imagine the outcry. If you are saying regulation was not strong enough then you are right but there also has to be a strong element of corporate responsibility. The banks lost all sense of that responsibility - a lot of what they did was morally indefensible.

 

The banks have to behave in a responsible fashion. It's what people expect. They haven't behaved responsibly and still aren't. Few lessons learned unfortunately.

 

As for regulation very few legislators really understood how the financial markets had evolved or how to regulate trans-national organisations. Legislating in the UK alone would not have stopped it all.

[grafikhaus74]

Why haven't the bankers been punished ?

 

Simple : they own the politicians.

 

Or, the politicians know there'll always be a place 'on the board' at banks for them when they've been found out to be useless at being politicians.

 

Much the same as why they won't allow a referendum on their beloved EU.

[waldershelf]

What we should all remember is that banks are businesses just like any other, that's why its called the banking industry.

Whatever you think about the morals of the parasitic nature of their business, it's still a business.

All businesses have to battle with their rivals to maximise profits and grow as big as they can to be considered a success, They try to employ the best people and tactics to achieve this, that's the nature of the capitalist world, however sometimes they get it wrong and the business will fail.

Where the government went wrong during the banking crisis was protecting the banks and their shareholders instead of the banks customers.

The failed banks should have gone to the wall, their assets stripped and their shares left worthless, just as would happen to any other failed business.

The billions of £s plowed in to prop up the banks should have been used to protect the customers of the banks. If the government had more concern for the people and businesses that have suffered because of the banks failings instead of their chums in the banking world we might not be quite so deep in the s**t as we are.

[Tony]

^^^ for truth.

 

As for regulation very few legislators really understood how the financial markets had evolved or how to regulate trans-national organisations. Legislating in the UK alone would not have stopped it all.

 

Oh it's all pretty simple when it comes down to it, in fact all that was needed to prevent much of what happened was a 1 line piece of legislation stating that:

"the value of an advance will not exceed the value of the security"

 

Even a meerkat could have worked that one out so why didn't the Iron Chancellor?

 

I wonder.