Back to the Banks

There is talk of some kind of global tax on banking and now, more realistically, an insurance levy to build a crisis fund. All of this is good. But it does not alter the fundamental requirement to remove from all the calculations and bail out responsibilities that element known as investment banking. This is neither investment, nor banking. It is pure gambling, like betting on horses. The difference is that if the rich who engage in huge horse racing  bets back losers it is their money, not the taxpayers’,  they are losing. We have to sow it up so tight that no bank qualifying for rescue, insurance or any other kind of support, can engage in these activities.

The rise of the City to become the world’s largest financial and money gambling centre mirrors the corresponding decline in British industry over the same period. As I have said many times this activity, blasting billions in all directions every hour of the day in a socially useless quest for big hit wins, sucks resources from the base of the economy into this spinning cauldron of electronic cash most of which spins overseas. This is why our population is the most indebted in Europe and why the gap between rich and poor grows ever wider.