Debate I
f you are pretty much bamboozled by econom- ics, growth figures, different ways of measur- ing the nation’s wealth and what it produces,
and the way the economy can be doing well, recovering, going downhill, or whatever, and we don’t actually get to know about it until three months later when the receipts get counted up . . . and even then different experts argue about what it all actually means, then you’re not alone.
As I see it from a common sense point of view we are all still working very hard, maybe harder than ever, but we’re in a double-dip recession. European banks are on the edge of collapse, ours have been bailed out, and the Bank of England has been ‘printing’ money like crazy for years now. The best explanation seems to be that the money is out there but it’s just in all the wrong places!
The banks won’t lend, and we’re told this is at the heart of why the recovery is so difficult. They are responsible for many of the problems we are now suffering through their economic incompetence, which some, including me, see as out and out crimes by a bunch of crooks in pin-striped suits. So isn’t there some kind of deep irony in the fact that the biggest injection of cash into our money starved economy is the 9 billion quid banks are currently paying out in penalties for mis-selling Payment Protection in- surance, amongst other fines for other ill-deeds. Do two wrongs (irresponsibly gambling cus- tomer’s money and lying to them) make a right? I’m not convinced, since I guess we wouldn’t be so desperate for their fines if it wasn’t for their bad behaviour in the first place. To be honest, I’m half expecting one of those fat bastards to publicly state that if it wasn’t for their £9 billion penance cash we’d all be in real trouble, and that we should be thanking them for it!
I’ve also been thinking about this RBS banking situation some more and I really don’t under- stand why there isn’t a great hue and cry for Stephen Hester’s head, since he’s in charge of a government department that appears to be haemorrhaging cash, rather than getting us back a return on our bank bail-out billions. Come on, if it was any other chief executive of any other company with a balance sheet so far in the red he’d have fallen on his sword long before the numbers hit the press. Banks are supposed to make money and this one doesn’t anymore!
It’s going to be a lean few years for Stephen Hester, as he seems to be priming us for more bad news, leaving him to eek out a living on
37 entrepreneurcountry
his £1.2 million basic wage. He claimed that bankers have become ‘detached from society’, and need to reconnect with their customers. And with scandals aplenty, old, new and pos- sibly even unexposed, the boss of our national (78% publicly owned) bank also admitted there is ‘still a risk that you turn over rocks and find new things’. Who knows what he may or may not know, but my guess is that Mr Hester, who has famously, albeit under extreme political pressure, refused at least two big bonuses in recent years, may well be handing back a few more quid before the storm clouds clear and the magical reconnect with the British public is achieved. Good Luck with that Stephen.
Also, even if we do treat RBS a bit like a gov- ernment department, which aren’t in the busi- ness of making money,
it should at least be
doing some public good. How about lending to small businesses for a start? On all measures it would seem RBS is just not fit for purpose. The Home Secretary Theresa May has come in for quite a bit of flack lately, and to be frank she’s making a pretty good fist of a difficult job. But can you imagine what would happen to her job security if all of a sudden more illegal im- migrants were to start getting into the country than were being turned away? The department would be declared ‘not fit for purpose’, and it would be the back benches for May.
So, unless someone can explain to me how a bank that loses so much money isn’t in the same category, it seems to me Mr Hester should re- sign, or be sacked!
Want to hear more of Charlie’s straight-talk- ing approach? The star of C4’s Secret Mil- lionaire will be speaking at our Forum titled ‘Small is the new Big’ on Wednesday 26th September 2012. The Forum is a full-day, in- spirational event with 500 business owners and investors in attendance. If you would like to attend, click here.
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