Mad Bankers' Disease

It has been fun seeing the Bankers and other fellow financial travellers' squirm in front of the Treasury Select Committee these last few weeks although I ultimately feel the whole process is rather ineffectual.What we really need is some kind of financial "NUREMBERG TRIAL" for the characters who created this mess.

The negligent ,and I'd say thieving, bankers should be facing some kind of proper financial or even criminal sanction for their actions rather than the slap across the wrist with a damp teabag these grillings represent.That Fred "The Shred" Goodwin gets to keep his near £700,000 annual pension,not to mention all the (supposedly contractually obligated)bonuses being paid to other failed bankers is shameful.The fact is that if these banks had not been bailed out by the tax payer there wouldn't be any question of this money being paid at all.......they'd have been no money to pay them.

FSA chairman Lord Turner and Mervyn King,the Bank of England governor,in their grillings before the Treasury Committee both pointed the finger for the apparent lack of effective regulation at the government and its insistence of a "Light Touch" approach.In some ways this debacle is rather reminiscent of Mad Cow Disease in the early 1990s when a lack of proper and effective regulation lead to cattle being fed cattle with disastrous consequences.

But when all is said and done I don't think you can blame MAD BANKER DISEASE on the BANKERS any more than you can blame mad cow disease on the cows.What we had in both instances was a regulatory failure.But the failure was not with the regulators themselves,they could only do their job as prescribed ultimately by the politicians.

The bankers aren't blameless of course,they were greedy b*ggers and they should face penalties for their actions where appropriate.But it's bankers job to be greedy,it's their whole point for existing.If fox kills a chicken you can condemn that fox but it's ultimately pointless doing so.You need a freaking better fence and you should ask why the fence wasn't sound enough in the first place? The politicians are the real ones culpable here.They are the ones who should be grilled.And in particular I'm thinking one politician...........

Please step into the dock Gordon Brown.