Poll: Darling announces one-off shock tax to 'break bonus culture'
- Thread starter Naffa
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Argumentum ad nauseum is a fallacy.
The attempt at a style over substance fallacy also hasn't gone unnoticed.
Are you actually going to provide any meaningful content at any point during this thread?
You dont like the truth do you,simple blame the bankers for this mess.
![[TW]Fox](/data/man-of-honor/2009.png){kind=avatar}
Can we blame you?
Okay, so basically because the banks have created a culture of dependancy on them, the taxpayer is forced to throw as much money as is needed at them in order to keep them going?
The money so far wasted would have been better spent reimbursing those who lost money when the bank went under so that they could simply move on to another.
I don't see why the taxpayer should bail out any company. It's up to them to create a large enough turnover to survive. Otherwise where do we stop?
Because the banking industry is far from a free market, and many of the issues that assisted with creating this problem came from the governments of various nations? The sheer amount of moral hazard created by ineffective government interference over the last 15 years is astonishing.
Er... so? Free market or no free market, we're currently throwing a lot of money at a problem which isn't going away (or improving, even).
How is that fair on the average taxpayer?
Say, for example, a large retailer such as Tesco got into financial trouble due to money mismanagement. Should the taxpayer throw billions at them as well simply because if they went under, the unemployment and loss of a huge national chain would damage the economy?
If so, where do we draw the line as a nation?
I agree with that, but the cycle has to be broken at some point, otherwise this kind of thing will keep happening.
Is moral hazard truly a defence though?
What about the responsibility of every individual to, rather than exploit every loophole without regard to consequences, to evaluate their own behaviour and the implications of it.
It's the age-old argument of 'would morality exist without laws' - in an ultra-capitalist world I imagine not. Thankfully, the world appears to populated by people who have a form of social conscience rather than sociopathic ultra-capitalists.
What about the responsibility of every individual to, rather than exploit every loophole without regard to consequences, to evaluate their own behaviour and the implications of it.
It's the age-old argument of 'would morality exist without laws' - in an ultra-capitalist world I imagine not. Thankfully, the world appears to populated by people who have a form of social conscience rather than sociopathic ultra-capitalists.
If we have a true free market, I agree with you. While the government involves itself in the market as an arbiter of market behaviour, it has to be responsible when they fail to manage the behaviour appropriately.
Depends if the cost of doing so is less than the cost of not doing so, surely?
When the costs outweigh the benefits? (Of course, there is an argument that the benefits system itself further skews this equation)
On that we agree, the question is, how do we achieve that? In a global environment, it cannot be action taken in isolation.
What about when you are doing that, but the means to do so has been damaged through regulation (in this case, the credit rating market had been broken through regulation and required use, and so a market failure was experienced, leading to people buying rated stocks that had been rated inaccurately due to the fact that the link between performance and custom was broken.)
It isn't a defence, it is a reason. I am not defending the behaviour of bankers, but I am not giving them all the blame either. There was systematic failure for a variety of reasons, that wasn't identified by either the banks themselves, or the governments who had promised to regulate them.
It's the age-old argument of 'would morality exist without laws' - in an ultra-capitalist world I imagine not. Thankfully, the world appears to populated by people who have a form of social conscience rather than sociopathic ultra-capitalists.
The problem with moral hazard, is that it gives the impression and approval that certain behaviour is ok, because you have stated that you will tell someone if their behaviour is not. This causes people to be less cautious than they otherwise would be. You can see the same effect from our benefits system...
In a world where your responsibilities are absolute, you take care of them much better than when the responsibility is taken on by someone else (with or without consent).
Yes, but if the government is partly responsible for the mess caused, it is also partly responsible for sorting it out, however that needs to be undertaken.
Ah, here lies the problem. How do you effectively estimate the costs involved to put the problem right? So far we've thrown billions at the banks (the exact figure i've tried to find, but I get wildly varying results) with little or no improvement. In fact, despite being funded largely by the taxpayer, huge bonuses are still being handed out.
So do we keep going with the whole "it'll only take 'x' billion more to fix"?
If you'd have known how much of an effect the amount put into the banking system so far would have, would you still have supported it? It strikes me that all we've done so far has been nothing short of an absolute waste.
I'm afraid i've always gone with "cruel to be kind" - I would expect that refusing the banks more money would send the right message to them that the management of their finances is unacceptable, but the side effect of that is we'd inevitably have a bit of a mess in the short term.
Lead by example, the bankers are leading a great life, showing the rest of the country how to do it, Champagne for Lunch. One reason why I hate the financial market in London. Great they do a hard job but so do millions of people in this country and if they didnt the bankers would have no money to play with. Funny how RBS are trying to sell me loans and life insurance, I am 26 ffs
/rant
/rant
They are not funded by the taxpayer, the taxpayer has invested in them. If the taxpayer (by proxy) had any business sense, then paying to keep the people creating profit at your business makes a lot of sense.
Good question... I do think the government could have handled the banks issue much better, but we can't turn back time.
I didn't support the measures taken in the first place. There were better solutions that could have been taken, and indeed in some cases it probably would have been better to let the bank fail. The shotgun wedding between lloyds and HBOS has been disasterous for Lloyds, and the government's failure to address the root of the bank's liquity problems early on (the asset protection program came way, way too late, after huge amounts of damage had been done and money spent) and so on.
The only thing that can be said is that we didn't have a complete banking system meltdown, which as Northern Rock proved, was a possibility.
The effect on our economy would have been catastrophic, absolutely disasterous. There were better ways it could have been done, but unfortunately doing nothing really wasn't an option.
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Aw cheets, I think Tesco do a Champagne for a tenner if you wanted to live the City champagne lunch lifestyle, although don't know how it will go down with pie, chips and gravy
Hmm, Tescos in Wigan is not far from a pie shop, pie peas and gravy and shampoo for £11.58
banks are makign profits and doing well, I would say that is improvement.
You would rather waste tax money paying everyone their money back (as it is guaranteed by government) than bail the banks out, save jobs, save the economy and not only get the tax money back but make a tidy profit.
the effect on the economy would be nothing compared to several large banks going under. Also other firms money is not guaranteed like banks. So the government would have had to pay hat money out if they went under. Something people don't think about. This way hey are paying he money out, strengthens the economy, saves thousands of jobs and they will get a tidy profit.
Which can be done through sensible changes to banking laws, or what government can interfere with. Not by a tax that affects the people making the most profit to pay back the tax burden of the bail out. That is not directed at the people who caused the problem and tarring everyone with the same brush.
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Soldato
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I for one can say I played no part in the events that lead up to the credit crunch. I have no credit card, no personal loan, I've never bought on finance, no over draft and up until the beginning of this year no mortgage. I look after my money, but I agree that lots of people don't.
But ultimately the government and the bankers shoulder the blame for this in equal measures in my eyes. The banks for lending money to people who clearly weren’t suitable in amouts that were unsecure, and the government for letting it happen to the extent it did.
