thir
08-28-2011, 02:00 AM
The Independant, 27th of august
"Once admired, now reviled"
"Every day more details emerge. The fruit flown in from Paris. The wallpaper at a grand a roll. The private jets, the flunkeys, the "pleasure domes". At the time, our leaders thought it was fine. But now no one seems to have a good word to say about poor, put-upon Fred Goodwin.
According to a new book, the former chief executive of Royal Bank of Scotland was quite fussy about the little things. He didn't, for example, like the wrong kind of biscuit, and threatened disciplinary action when it turned up. He didn't like regulations that said you couldn't smoke, and got an engineer to switch smoke alarms off. He wasn't, unfortunately, quite so fussy about the big things, which may be why the British taxpayer had to spend £37bn bailing his bank out.
Like another former friend of our government, Goodwin doesn't seem to have been all that nice. But he got not just big money, but a knighthood. This, perhaps, is what we call a "role model".
First: as I see it, succes without honour or conscience does not a role model make.
Comments?
Secondly: Why, oh why do we keep posting money in the banks?? They are private businesses, but has suddenly become the world's biggets welll-fare clients, along with various other buisnesses!
It is neither here nor there. Either buy the bank's shares and get control, or let them fall. The capitalistic system clearly states that it is sound because what does not work will be weeded out. What happened to that idea?
I myself is all for controlling them, since they has shown to everyone that they are not competent to run their own businesses, and that this throws the world into econimical crises. I also believe in strong control of currency trades, as that can have the same effect. Why should we let the greed and stupidity of a few ruin everything for so many people?
Isn't it really weird, when you think of it, that such a thing as money, which is after only a consensual abstract idea that you can exchange them for real stuff, can harm the world so much?
"Once admired, now reviled"
"Every day more details emerge. The fruit flown in from Paris. The wallpaper at a grand a roll. The private jets, the flunkeys, the "pleasure domes". At the time, our leaders thought it was fine. But now no one seems to have a good word to say about poor, put-upon Fred Goodwin.
According to a new book, the former chief executive of Royal Bank of Scotland was quite fussy about the little things. He didn't, for example, like the wrong kind of biscuit, and threatened disciplinary action when it turned up. He didn't like regulations that said you couldn't smoke, and got an engineer to switch smoke alarms off. He wasn't, unfortunately, quite so fussy about the big things, which may be why the British taxpayer had to spend £37bn bailing his bank out.
Like another former friend of our government, Goodwin doesn't seem to have been all that nice. But he got not just big money, but a knighthood. This, perhaps, is what we call a "role model".
First: as I see it, succes without honour or conscience does not a role model make.
Comments?
Secondly: Why, oh why do we keep posting money in the banks?? They are private businesses, but has suddenly become the world's biggets welll-fare clients, along with various other buisnesses!
It is neither here nor there. Either buy the bank's shares and get control, or let them fall. The capitalistic system clearly states that it is sound because what does not work will be weeded out. What happened to that idea?
I myself is all for controlling them, since they has shown to everyone that they are not competent to run their own businesses, and that this throws the world into econimical crises. I also believe in strong control of currency trades, as that can have the same effect. Why should we let the greed and stupidity of a few ruin everything for so many people?
Isn't it really weird, when you think of it, that such a thing as money, which is after only a consensual abstract idea that you can exchange them for real stuff, can harm the world so much?