Gordon Brown - Bankers should've been jailed.

[I1L2T3]

What laws did they break in order to be sent to prison?

 

It may be that they operated completely within the law. That seems doubtful given the Libor revelations. There is no way that what happened in the City in the run-up to the crash was all completely legal. But if it was legal then maybe our laws are wrong.

 

Or maybe the laws were never enforced effectively. Maybe the regulator didn’t do its job properly. Maybe the financial crimes part of the SFO is ineffective, or maybe it is under-resourced.

 

All that said, financial institutions do - like All businesses - have to behave responsibly and ethically. The people who work at them had a responsibility to do that.

 

It’s not a black and white legal/illegal situation. We probably have some illegality within an inadequate framework of enforcement of laws that aren’t fit for purpose, along with a massive ethical failure at financial institutions.

 

Escape from your simple binary way of thinking and try and wrap your head around an issue that is nuanced. Think it through.

[Cyclone]

The problem with the nuance is that courts aren't interested, they send people to jail for being guilty of breaking a specific law.

[I1L2T3]

The problem with the nuance is that courts aren't interested, they send people to jail for being guilty of breaking a specific law.

 

If it ever gets to the courts.

 

See my point above about failure to enforce regulation and the ineptitude of the SFO, which incidentally has been well catalogued in Private Eye for years now.

[Cyclone]

Yes, all true, but in trying to answer the proposition that bankers should have been jailed the key test, the final one, would have been that they were breaking a law.

[tinfoilhat]

It may be that they operated completely within the law. That seems doubtful given the Libor revelations. There is no way that what happened in the City in the run-up to the crash was all completely legal. But if it was legal then maybe our laws are wrong.

 

Or maybe the laws were never enforced effectively. Maybe the regulator didn’t do its job properly. Maybe the financial crimes part of the SFO is ineffective, or maybe it is under-resourced.

 

All that said, financial institutions do - like All businesses - have to behave responsibly and ethically. The people who work at them had a responsibility to do that.

 

It’s not a black and white legal/illegal situation. We probably have some illegality within an inadequate framework of enforcement of laws that aren’t fit for purpose, along with a massive ethical failure at financial institutions.

 

Escape from your simple binary way of thinking and try and wrap your head around an issue that is nuanced. Think it through.

 

"All businesses have to behave responsibly and ethically"???????

 

Have you bumped your head or something?

[I1L2T3]

"All businesses have to behave responsibly and ethically"???????

 

Have you bumped your head or something?

 

I was thinking more about bigger corporations but yes of course they do.

 

Having worked at many big companies I’ve yet to find one that didn’t have strong policies around ethical behaviour.

 

So no I haven’t bumped my head.

[tinfoilhat]

I was thinking more about bigger corporations but yes of course they do.

 

Having worked at many big companies I’ve yet to find one that didn’t have strong policies around ethical behaviour.

 

So no I haven’t bumped my head.

 

Supermarkets are ethical? Banks? Insurance companies? Wonga? Bright house? Companies like Nestle? G4? Oil companies? Tobacco companies? The tabloid press? Can you even have an ethical arms manufacturer?

 

Just because you didn't see unethical behaviour in your spell at the big corporates doesn't mean it doesn't exist when I could dredge up plenty of articles to the contrary.

[I1L2T3]

Supermarkets are ethical? Banks? Insurance companies? Wonga? Bright house? Companies like Nestle? G4? Oil companies? Tobacco companies? The tabloid press? Can you even have an ethical arms manufacturer?

 

Just because you didn't see unethical behaviour in your spell at the big corporates doesn't mean it doesn't exist when I could dredge up plenty of articles to the contrary.

 

I’m not staying corporations don’t behave unethically. I’m saying they have a responsibility to do so. They know that, and that is why they all have policies about ethical behaviour. All of them.

[Ridgewalk]

People should read Chasing Alpha by Philip Augar. He describes how Brown and Blair devised the approach to regulation to be adopted by the Financial Services Authority, which was essentially "do what you like". Yes, the bankers should have gone to prison, and so should Gordon Brown.

 

Thanks for the tip Bob, i’ll check the book,out.

 

---------- Post added 25-11-2017 at 14:15 ----------

 

Problem is that in a Democracy we are supposed to have a say in who is in power and what they do. But let's face, it both the Conservatives and New Labour were in thrall to the bankers so neither was going to make them pay.

 

The electorate hasn't forgotten or forgiven. Politicians are seen as having self-interest rather than the best interests of the people they represent at heart, therefore Democracy isn't working properly. IMO this is why the world is in such turmoil and politics all over the place.

 

However Jeremy Corbyn seems to be more in tune with the current situation, and does have the interests of the 'many not the few' as the tenet of his policies. Maybe he can bring back true democracy.

 

 

Like him or not Corbyn is a sincere and honest man, the reason he’s so popular. His Westminster colleagues seem to have gone quiet. Stephen Kinnock, what a creature he is !

[Cyclone]

I’m not staying corporations don’t behave unethically. I’m saying they have a responsibility to do so. They know that, and that is why they all have policies about ethical behaviour. All of them.

 

Ethical means different things to different people though.