According to the FT:
HSBC is leaning towards keeping its headquarters in London after 10 months of agonising
Shall we get real? First, this was a blatantly political stunt by HSBC before last year's general election to suggest Labour would be bad for Britain.
And, second, HSBC have been well rewarded for it.
They admitted that their Swiss bank helped tax evaders and no one in the bank has been prosecuted.
Bank levies are being relaxed.
Corporation tax is coming down.
The boss of the Financial Conduct Authority who was perceived to be anti-banker was sacked.
The new FCA regime has called off investigations into banks.
The era of imposing penalties on banks for past misdemeanours is supposedly drawing to an end.
And HSBC are staying.
Surprise, surprise.
Just as Chinese and Far East markets are falling, bank values are tumbling and new bail outs might be needed.
Someone, and it is not the people of the UK, is laughing all the way to the bank.
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I think it’ll be bail-ins, not -outs, this time round.
That will be uncomfortable for George
Is that legal? Seriously.
Sorry, is what legal
I cannot see what you are responding to when moderating comments
Going out on a limb here. I suspect what Marco is questioning here is the legality or otherwise of bail in’s.
The short answer is probably somewhere along the line of those who pay the piper call the tune. Meaning they can do what they want. They used bail in over in Cyprus the other year and, if we are going to stick to a proper definition of the term, the Troika terms for Greece which saw the Greek people having to pay for loans made by private Greek banks and finance houses at the end of the barrel of a metaphorical gun.
Which is why various channels are floating kites like negative interest rates and abolishing cash. Certain favoured entities with lots of clout can involve themselves in influencing and even drafting laws which create loopholes making it legal that they pay little or no tax – meaning us PAYE and SME taxpayers subsidise them. Making bail in’s “legal” will just be business as usual.
It is plausible
Whatever the correct terminology Bill the site of a Chancellor committed to a Government surplus in its accounts running around like an ox that’s had the ginger applied to the appropriate part of its anatomy trying to find money to stem the tide of losses in the casino will certainly be interesting, if not fun, to witness.
No wonder kites are being flown about negative interest rates and abolishing cash. The two key questions are will it be sufficient or will something more drastic like the reintroduction of slavery have to be tried; and will the usual suspects still pursue their cheerleading hobby defending this nonsense?
“will something more drastic like the reintroduction of slavery have to be tried ”
We’re close to it Dave, already with debt/rents/mortgages creating something tantamount to negative wages for most. Add to this : shit jobs with terrible contractual conditions/self-employment which has you running around like a ‘blue-arsed fly’ lest you need to be back on benefits and either don’t get them or/ and are sanctioned.
Osborne won’t care as he’s only playing at ‘being a chancellor’ like kids play at doctors and nurses. He’s a wealthy dilettante, a facade with now’t behind it-or as the Smith’s put it ‘a hatful of hollow.’
We should of course really be ashamed of having such a morally corrupt financial institutions and directors registered and headquartered in the UK.
An extract from a Global Research article below:
In December 2012 the Department of Justice cut a deal with HSBC which imposed a record $1.9 billion dollar fine. It may sound a lot to ordinary folks but it is a tiny fraction of its annual profits which in 2011 totalled $22 billion. Assistant Attorney General Lanny Bauer announced the settlement at a press conference on 11 December 2012. His comments reveal why the US government decided to go soft on such criminal behaviour and show quite clearly how there is one law for the richest 1% and one law for the rest of us. Lenny Bauer said:
”Had the U.S. authorities decided to press criminal charges, HSBC would almost certainly have lost its banking license in the U.S., the future of the institution would have been under threat and the entire banking system would have been destabilized.”
Think about that statement for a moment. A bank that has quite clearly been caught out helping murderous drug criminals, terrorist groups, third world dictatorships and all sorts of criminal characters is to be let off with a slap on the wrist. No criminal prosecutions or even a mention of criminal behaviour due to the fears that to do so would put the world economy in jeopardy. So there you have it. Banksters who engage in such behaviour that is regarded as criminal by the vast majority of people on the planet are not only too big to fail they are also too big to jail.
After the Department of Justice announcement of the deferred prosecution HSBC Chief Executive Stuart Gulliver said,
“We accept responsibility for our past mistakes. We have said we are profoundly sorry for them, and we do so again.”
Such statements will provide little solace to the families of the 150,000 people estimated by US Secretary of Defence Leon Panetta to have been killed in Mexico’s drug war. Nor will it help the hundreds of thousands of Mexican citizens who have been forced to flee their homes and escape the violence by going to the United Sates or moving to other parts of Mexico.
Senator Elizabeth Warren appearing at a meeting of the Senate Banking Committee in February expressed frustration with officials from the US Treasury Department and US Federal Reserve over the issue of why criminal charges were not pressed on HSBC or any of its officials. The officials were evasive when she tried to draw them on the issue of what it takes for a bank to have its licence withdrawn:
”HSBC paid a fine, but no one individual went to trial, no individual was banned from banking, and there was no hearing to consider shutting down HSBC’s activities here in the United States. So, what I’d like is, you’re the experts on money laundering. I’d like an opinion: What does it take – how many billions do you have to launder for drug lords and how many economic sanctions do you have to violate – before someone will consider shutting down a financial institution like this?”
Senator Warren finished the session by commenting on the glaring double standards within the US justice system:
“You know, if you’re caught with an ounce of cocaine, the chances are good you’re going to go to jail. If it happens repeatedly, you may go to jail for the rest of your life. But evidently, if you launder nearly a billion dollars for drug cartels and violate our international sanctions, your company pays a fine and you go home and sleep in your own bed at night, every single individual associated with this. I think that’s fundamentally wrong.”
On 4 March 2013 HSBC announced profits of $20.6 billion in 2012 while it paid out a $3 million bonus to its CEO. This outrageous state of affairs beggars belief after HSBC has been clearly caught out engaging in activity on behalf of murderous drug lords, terrorist financing banks and brutal third world dictatorships. Where is the British Government’s condemnation of HSBC? You may be waiting a long time for that considering the fact that Chancellor George Osborne and his fellow ministers are intimately connected to the British banking elite.
Full article at:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/money-laundering-and-the-drug-trade-the-role-of-the-banks/5334205
Thanks Keith
Harsh words indeed from a man of the cloth!
“The bastard conqueror is international finance that ignores borders, locates itself offshore to pay no tax, and has the EU in its pocket.”
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2016/feb/11/the-levellers-and-the-diggers-were-the-original-eurosceptics
“We accept responsibility for our past mistakes. We have said we are profoundly sorry for them, and we do so again.”
Well I suppose that’s as close as one can get to uttering the words “lessons have been learned.”
But I’ve no doubt the usual cheerleaders will be along soon to argue why such arguments attacking the activities of corporate entities are wrong and are just sour grapes from individual malcontents with a personal grudge against those the cheerleaders consider to be too big to criticise. In fact I’m surprised they have not already jumped in to take you to task Keith.
Dave silence is always the most worrying sign of an impending storm!
I think most of those with lots to lose are too busy trying to work out how to get their ill gotten loot of the fast sinking ships they have been storing in it all around the world.
And their media/PR lacky’s who have never been able to think for themselves are currently struck dumb by the fact the pile of endless drivel they have been fed by their wealthy benefactors now seems to be backfiring on them and making them look very silly indeed.
Silence is the real time of danger – because you can be sure behind the scenes there are some very dirty tricks underway to make sure that those at the top stay at the top, no matter what damage the storm causes to lesser mortals.
Meanwhile, with thanks to a poster going by the handle of Fedup over at the Craig Murray site:
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2016/02/anguish-as-north-korea-marches-into-1955/
“Weak UK tax revenue could thwart Osborne’s surplus aim, thinktank says
http://www.euronews.com/business-newswires/3144699-weak-uk-tax-revenue-could-thwart-osbornes-surplus-aim-thinktank-says/
‘Chancellor George Osborne’s ambition to run a budget surplus by the end of the decade could easily be frustrated by disappointing tax revenues, the Institute for Fiscal Studies said on Monday.
Britain’s finance ministry could miss out on 5 billion pounds ($7.25 billion) of income tax if wage growth disappoints by just 1 percent by 2019-20 compared with forecasts made in November,’
No shit Sherlock the biggest spender ie the government stopping to pay it’s way and is passing the buck of the duty of care to the “charities” with wages declining in real term, and people sat on the bones of their arses, there is still the fairytale tax returns that tooth tax fairy will be leaving in the treasury so that the super rich oligarchs and corporations pay zealch taxes*!!
However fear not because despite the inadequate taxation returns, there is hope; tax the poor more!!!! The same nostrum as before (yea olde apothecary would be proud of this leach treatment, if it did not work it means the numbers of the leaches were not enough) tax the poor more and then double tax them by taking away the services they rely on! that ought to do the trick.
* Have you ever seen Mr. Google use the NHS? or the Metro system, or go to the GP? So why should the poor billionaire pay so much taxes, when he is not using any of the services? Oh the humanity of it, can a billionaire not keep his money and become a trillionaire? The politics of envy and darn right communistic bastards can go to hell, let the oligarchs keep their hard earned dosh, let the poor pay their own way the malingering swine that they are, wanting everything for nothing! (pushing the right buttons there).”
Pure gold. Nails both the situation and the attitude and approach of the cheerleaders who defend this larceny.
And Cameron had the gall to trot out the old chestnut (when Corbyn reminded him of his phrase ‘those with broad shoulders’) that the rich WERE paying more tax. Of course he meant nominally (but didn’t say so) and failed to point out how regressive the system is and how VAT affects the poor and how Income Tax is only 27% (If I remember correctly from Richard’s book ).
As usual Labour didn’t challenge Cameron’s Fairey Tale depiction of reality (as far as I know) -why not, they should have been down the blighter’s throat.
Cameron needs a lesson in the marginal value of income-this the very man who didn’t even know how deeply his own council services were being cut. And this numpty is Prime Minister-surely some Post Modernist joke.
I saw this headline in the Mirror at our local supermarket today – made me chuckle anyway!
David Cameron’s MUM joins the fight against Tory cuts in campaign to save children’s centres
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/david-camerons-mum-joins-fight-7334739