Monday, April 28, 2008

Let's just call it Our little secret



Another little linked snippet, this time for folk who don't read the Mail on Sunday (perish the thought)...

"Bank bail-outs to be kept secret
Dan Atkinson, Simon Watkins, Mail on Sunday 27 April 2008, 8:59am

The Bank of England has imposed a permanent news blackout on its £50bn-plus plan to ease the credit crunch.

Ferocious and unprecedented secrecy means taxpayers will never know the names of the banks that have been supported through the special liquidity scheme, which was unveiled by Bank Governor Mervyn King last week. Requests under the Freedom of Information Act are to be denied. Details will be kept secret even after 30 years - the period after which all but the most sensitive state documents are released.

Any Bank of England employee leaking the names of institutions involved will face court action for breach of contract..."


but, remember, anyone who tells you that it's the bankers who are really running things is a mentalist

.

23 comments:

Anonymous said...

And of course, another little news item that seems to have escaped the majority of the proletariats' tiny attention span:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2008/apr/24/bankcharges.banks

Anonymous said...

Nothing to hide nothing to fear surely?

Ohh yeah I forgot, that only applies to us.

The bank charges thing is loose change down the back of the sofa compared to the vastly greater ways they screw us.

ziz said...

The nationalisation of Northern Rock placed the new "company" away from prying eyes by being exempt from the FOI.

Stef said...

@alex

yes, but as anon points out it's still piss all in the scheme of things and a distraction from people discovering the rather perturbing fact that most of the money banks lend them, and they have to pay back with interest, is made up out of thin air

Anonymous said...

So, what happens when a banks is ...

too ...

big ...

to ...

bail ??????????

Anonymous said...

Number 5491 of things people don;t realise about banks - the money in your account does not belong to you.

http://tinyurl.com/4f6qtw

"Money when paid into a bank ceases altogether to be the money of the principal x is then the money of the banker who is bound to an equivalent by paying a similar sum to that with him when he is asked for it The money into the banker's is money known by the principal be placed there for the purpose of being under the control of the banker it is then the banker's money is known to deal with it as his own he makes what profit of it he can which profit he retains to himself paying back only the principal according to the custom bankers in some places or the principal and a rate of interest according to the custom of bankers other places The money placed in the custody of banker is to all intents and purposes the money of banker to do with it as he pleases he is guilty of breach of trust in employing it he is not to the principal if he puts it into jeopardy if he in a hazardous speculation he is not bound to keep or deal with it as the property of his principal but is of course answerable for the amount because he contracted received"

Stef said...

@anon 08:57

there's an excellent chance we'll be finding out in the not too distant future

it's only a wild stab in the dark here but I think we'll find that all the food, water, fuel and infrastructure will by owned by a small number of safe hands which the majority of us will continue to pay moderate prices for

Anonymous said...

I think we'll find more and more spurious reasons why we can't withdraw the money from our accounts and I don;t think it will be too long before their are restrictions on how much we are allowed to withdraw.

For our own good naturally.

Stef said...

It's already happening - limits on how much you can withdraw out a cash machine or transfer over the phone have already been tightened by many banks

There's also the small issue of money laundering legislation compliance procedures which can add a handy amount of 'drag' to a transaction

Not that money launderers actually need to use banks when can they just pop round to their local launderette/ hairdressers/ western union 'multi-centre' and wire cash direct to anywhere they want, no questions asked

That's the wonderful thing about laws - only the law-abiding follow them

Anonymous said...

A man accused of duping a wealthy woman out of her divorce settlement, by claiming he was the son of banker Edmund de Rothschild and had masterminded the Black Wednesday currency crash, appeared in court today.
.....
Hatton, who gave his full name to the court as Alexander Marc d'Ariken de Rothschild Hatton, is accused of obtaining money from Ms Handy by deception between December 2003 and December 2005.


http://www.thisisgloucestershire.co.uk/displayNode.jsp?nodeId=231771&command=displayContent&sourceNode=231754&home=yes&more_nodeId1=231776&contentPK=20495153

Anonymous said...

For those who are raising the point about the only person who has money in the bank is the banker; everyone else has a chose in action, here's something I posted on Head of Legal's site: as yet, he hasn't deigned to respond. Perhaps he thinks it's bollocks? Any other law bores out there?

I can post more on the Truck Act etc ... don't bother going to thickie-pedia (although, curiously, the site is representative of the UK's education system, in some subjects all the way up to degree level. That is, a Chinese room understanding of knowledge as proscribed by others ... but that's for a different comment.)

Stef said...

lol

and they look so happy together in the photo

Stef said...

@anon 13:18

slightly OT (but not as much as it might seem)...

one question that's always interested me is that how if, say, I spent my days tilling my own field growing my own food I don't have to hand over 20-40% of my food to someone else on pain of imprisonment

but if, instead, I spend my day working in someone else's field, or office, earning money to buy food I do have to cough up a large chunk of my earnings

not that I have a problem with taxation per se. I do, however, have a problem with the nature of what is or isn't taxed and the rate which is applied

Anonymous said...

Taxation's great - it's like been mugged at gunpoint but the thief then spends your cash on looking after orphaned puppies so it's ok.

The one thing no ones ever been able to explain to me is why the government borrows money at interest when it could create it itself for nothing. The 3rd or 4th largest government department by expenditure is debt interest payments. £32 billion in 2007!

It's almost as if private bankers own the government or something...

Anonymous said...

"Number 549[2] of things people don;t realise about banks " - "... a number of well-known authorities starting with Four-Maids Ltd v Marshall (Properties) Ltd [1957] Ch 317, submits that as a general proposition (but subject always to the court's jurisdiction under section 36 of the 1970 Act) a mortgagee (including a chargee) is entitled, subject to any express or implied agreement to the contrary, to take possession of the mortgaged property "before the ink is dry on the mortgage"."

Get that? In other words, the bank can kick you out of the house that you think is yours "before the ink is dry on the mortgage."

Notes to reading -

mortgagor - one who gives a mortgage (usually in return for a loan, ie householder).

mortgage - a charge on a property such that the one who receives the mortgage can take possession of the property.

mortgagee - one who receives a mortgage (usually in return for giving a loan ie bank).

So, if you've ever wondered why it's repossession, rather than just possession, now you know.

Anonymous said...

"I do, however, have a problem with the nature of what is or isn't taxed and the rate which is applied"

Of the three factors of production - land, labour and capital - why is labour taxed the most?

Anonymous said...

McCain accused of accepting improper donations from Rothschilds

Stef said...

Of the three factors of production - land, labour and capital - why is labour taxed the most?

bless you for illustrating why my comment isn't as off topic as it might seem

@tony

ha ha

conspira- tastic!

Anonymous said...

This is what I was really doing in Central Park at night with that rope. Magic!

Stef said...

Richard your quest is at an end

paul said...

Abraham Lincoln in a December 3, 1861, address to Congress said, “Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.”
fucking communist

paul said...

But bank lending and profitability has become decoupled from the economy at large. Banks are not lending to finance tangible capital investment and new hiring. Helping them thus does not help pull the US economy out of the deepening depression. (A recession is short and is followed by recovery. Today’s looming economic depression is headed toward a widespread forfeiture and transfer of property from debtors to creditors.)

The ultimate effect is to inflate the power of finance, credit and real estate relative to labor’s wages and industrial capital. This is not a way to encourage new tangible investment. It is just the opposite of Keynesianism. Rather than signaling “euthanasia of the rentier,” it is empowering finance and applying euthanasia to labor and industry.

paul said...

Another duckonomic gem from the same article:
(Economists call this a “backward bending demand curve” and find it an “anomaly,” as they find most reality to be these days.)