Tuesday, October 14, 2008

The Banking Crisis For Dummies: Really Complicated Investment Vehicles


Really Complicated Investment Vehicles ("RCIVs") are the cause of the current "credit crunch" or "international banking crisis".

It is simple:
1. The sacked heads of UK banks were not themselves capable of creating or understanding RCIVs.

2. In fact, no-one was.

3. There were no RCIVs capable of real world risk assessment (a "RWRA") by someone outside the elite group of their creators ("the inner cabal").

4. The inner cabal consists of people in banking who can devise RCIVs that are inexplicable.

5. The inner cabal know that they cannot conduct an RWRA on a RCIV. But they also know that no-one else can either.

6. However, with a little finesse the inner cabal have been able, by complex but essentially meaningless explanations, to persuade their bosses and customers that their particular RCIV was a sure fire money maker ("an SFMM").

7. The inner cabal knew that there was no RCIV that RWRA would show to be a SFMM.

8. However, they also knew that their bosses and customers did not know this.

9. So, they could sell them both a pup and earn huge bonuses whilst the bubble expanded and did not pop.

10. The bubble popped.
QED.

Now that you understand that, you also understand how the inner cabal did it.

They simply flummoxed everyone with the use of acronyms and persuading bosses and customers alike that they were too stupid to understand what they were doing and so should simply trust them with their money.

A more serious approach to this question can be found at the title link.

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Thursday, October 02, 2008

The Royal Bank Of Scotland: Disgraceful Scrooge


The Royal Bank of Scotland disciplined an employee because she was let down by a childminder and could not work on 22nd December because she had to look after her 5 year old and her 15 month old baby.
Timetable:

8th December - Mrs Harrison notified by childminder of her unavailability for the 22nd.

12th December - notifies employer that she has tried everything but cannot find a substitute.

20th December - Royal Bank of Scotland says words to the effect "Work, or else".
The Royal Bank of Scotland is then as good as its word; no doubt having carefully thought through its consequences for employee relations, customer relations and its public image.
It not only does not pay Mrs Harrison for the day...

it also disciplines her for her unavoidable absence...

it then resists her complaint to the Employment Tribunal...

it is then puzzled as to why it loses...

and it is then crass enough to take the matter to the Employment Appeal Tribunal. See the title link...

where, as a moron in a hurry could have predicted, it again loses.
I think we should have a quiz.

QUIZ TIME:

1. Do you approve of RBS's behaviour?

2. Would it make any difference to your opinion if RBS's actions were actually unlawful? (See the title link for the legal decision).

3. If you had a choice, would you work for:

(a) The Royal Bank of Scotland; or,
(b) Another Bank; or,
(c) Someone else; or,
(d) Anyone else as long as it was not the RBS.

4. If you could not find another job, would you prefer to be unemployed rather than take a job with RBS?

5. Do you want to be a customer of RBS?
COMMENT:

Luckily, I am not a customer of RBS and so do not need to change banks but I would if I was.

The credit crunch has nothing to do with this. It started well before that was even on the horizon.

It has to do with greed and stupidity.

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Tuesday, July 08, 2008

The Easy Solution To The Banking Crisis

It's obvious! Suck the bankers' brains out and recondition them so that when we re-insert them bankers behave like normal human beings with human emotions and a sense of morality.

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