[OccupyComms] Reality check: how much did the banking crisis cost taxpayers? | News | guardian.co.uk

Tue Oct 9 15:13:32 GMT 2012

Thanks for this  Tom
+1 all the way
May I publish your piece anon or otherwise at peoplesassemblies.org ?
Sent from phone

-----Original Message-----
From: Tom Moriarty <thomas_moriarty at hotmail.com>
Sender: lsxcampeconomics at googlegroups.com
Date: Tue, 9 Oct 2012 13:48:47 
To: <lsxcampeconomics at googlegroups.com>; <occupylondon at groupspaces.com>; <occupycomms at email-lists.org>; <rdwg at googlegroups.com>
Reply-To: lsxcampeconomics at googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: Reality check: how much did the banking crisis cost taxpayers?
 | News | guardian.co.uk

My take...

The
Bank bills

I’m doing a bit of research this morning on
the cost of the banking bailouts.  Of
course such numbers will become fuzzier as the years go by, continually argued
down by the bankers and their lobbyists.    What we do
know in terms of circumstantial evidence is that before 2008 the national debt
was running in the £450-£550 bn range and after the banking crisis it jumped to
around £1.4bn.  The interest alone
is equal to the annual education budget.   Of course this is in the press a lot at the moment
given it’s the Tory party conference and there’s a lot of talk about economic
policy, the increasing trade deficit and of course our banker gift of a
national debt.

And so it is that politicians are talking
about incentives for business but having to make cuts, and increasing taxes on
the poor and supposedly extricating more from the rich, when really it’s the
not-so-rich middle classes that will really have to pay.   There is talk of the avoidance of
tax avoidance and some mechanisms that will see greater funding for new
businesses.   Interestingly
the PM this morning talked about their being a record in the number of new
businesses this year, yes Dave, that’s because these new budding entrepreneurs
were made redundant and there aren’t the jobs, or they’re young dragons who
have just stepped out into the blinding dark of the job market …and there
aren’t any jobs. How else are you going to get by??  Classic….bless.

And all the guff and puff is spouted but no
one goes after the chief culprits.  
There’s talk of new regulation for the banks, a tougher approach, some
rhetoric now and then but once again evidence would suggest that the banks are
really pulling the strings of government once again.  How would one explain this behaviour or lack of behaviour?   There is law, there is crime,
negligence, fraud, there is justice and there is punishment.   There is prison and there are
damages.   

According, then, to a piece in the
Guardian, total amount committed to banks has been £1.162bn.   At the height of the crisis the
amount committed was £955bn.  In
March 2011 it was £456.33bn.  Of
course people will say but we didn’t actually lend them all that money it was
in the form of indemnities and guarantees.  Well my friend, if I have lent someone £1000, it’s not mine
anymore, no matter where it is.     For example, it’s not there for me to
spend on a pint, or a holiday.  
When someone says I’m already spoken for it is generally a polite way of
saying, no you can’t go to bed with me. 
Of course we are talking about bankers and politicians for whom that
might be a come on.  The name
Strauss-Kahn comes to mind.   That
money was spoken for, it wasn’t ours, it was theirs, it still is.

So when the government pledges a billion
quid to bankers it’s not there to spend on say education, schools, hospitals,
old people, young people, housing, sport, care.   Instead that debt burden is socialized into the wider
community for us to pay back through cuts and austerity making it harder for us
to pay for, say, education, schools, hospitals, old people, young people,
housing, sport, care.  

Furthermore it makes it harder for us to
pay for food, heating, water, and all those other flashy consumer goods and
services.  No matter, the banks are
there, they’ll give us a loan! 
They can loan us back our money! 
Doesn’t get much sweeter does it.   

There are as many figures for the cost of
the crisis as there are sources.  
Whatever the exact number, it is the millstone around the economy placed
there by a bunch of bankers.  
Personally I’m thinking of going to Injury Lawyers for you.   I must be able to get a few grand
for injury to my person, to my life, to my health, my standard of living, the
cost of living…..or that of my mother, or my brothers, or my friends, or to my
children or their children.  You
know, I must have a case surely.  

In terms of the total cost of the bank
bailout internationally, we will probably never know.  In the US they talk about a bail out ‘package’ of $16
trillion.   I saw another
report somewhere where that figure was $28 trillion.   The Fed apparently handed out some undisclosed loans
as well presumably as a mate’s rates deal or because it was just too
embarrassing to do it publically.  
In Europe, they’re setting up a 600 billion euro bail out fund.   In the UK we’ve printed close to
£400bn in QE money that’s been, hush hush, given to the banks and that they
have not lent on to the economy as
they said they would.   In
Europe who knows how much the ECB has printed and handed to the banks.    I prefer to adopt the Brian
Cox approach.  I seem him with his
stick carving out the zeros in the sand explaining that if you were to total
all the money committed to saving the world from the banking crisis it would
come to “100 million million million million million million million million
dollars….or 10 to the power of 100, or a googol as it’s also known.”   A googol. Yeah apparently!   (using google and you find a
googol, what are the chances? Yeah….one in a ….)

I also imagine him comparing that figure to
a football pitch and saying that his entire life’s savings would equate to the size
of one of the millions of cells it takes to make “this one blade of grass”….

Perhaps with the size or should be quantum of
the figure it feels if that perhaps it should be studied in another way, chaos
theory, quantum physics, Brownian motion.

How much did it cost? It cost the world.  And that’s without adding its effect on
the world economy, it’s negative impact on growth.   Apparently the true economic cost in the UK has been
estimated at being between 11-13% of GDP.

It is amazing the banks have got away with
it without true sanction.  As yet
we have seen no financial transaction tax, no other financial penalty or levy,
no other recourse for recompense.  
Maybe it’s just too difficult to work out. 

I suppose we could ask the bankers, I mean,
they do know how to count, don’t they?

The
Guardian, “Reality Check: how much did the banking crisis cost taxpayers”, 12 September
2012

9
October 2012

Date: Tue, 9 Oct 2012 12:25:14 +0100
Subject: Fwd: Reality check: how much did the banking crisis cost taxpayers? | News | guardian.co.uk
From: marknbarrett at googlemail.com
To: OccupyLondon at groupspaces.com; occupycomms at email-lists.org; rdwg at googlegroups.com; lsxcampeconomics at googlegroups.com

Cheers for link Tom Mhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/reality-check-with-polly-curtis/2011/sep/12/reality-check-banking-bailout

So, basically it's a taxation without representation scenario - big time!
And on the national and global levels, with tax havens and a big seat at the global governance table via the bond markets and corporate influence they get represented without taxation so it works the other way around too! !

Cancel the Debts, bring about new democratic rights and a new economy 

Viva Iceland  !
Mark
---------- Forwarded message ----------
FYI, piece on the cost of the banking crisis

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/reality-check-with-polly-curtis/2011/sep/12/reality-check-banking-bailout

Sent from my iPhone

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