I don’t understand why BoI is getting the favoured treatment at all, at all. I thought it was about the shareholders, but the existing ones have been all but wiped out in successive waves of dilution (including the state). I don’t believe the loss figures coming out, but Blackrock apparently do?! I unerstand they ‘saved’ the state in the 'eighties. Perhaps they are being lined up to do the same again?
This is a great reminder. I would have fallen into the trap of listening to people who said that RB was a ‘good banker’. The facts speak for themselves. Your signature quote comes to mind.
It seems to be the case that possibly the most important requirement of anyone who enters a very public position of influence is that they are pretty thick to begin with. This obviously ensures that they are easily handled. Where do we think the phrase “a safe pair of hands came from”?
If a person is capable of independent thought they are also quite obviously capable of sedition.
The real question is who is really appointing the various “safe pairs of hands” in the first instance??
Is it the case that they just didn’t actually comprehend risk or recognise how to price it?
Should have been charging 25% interest on all their property speculation loans.
Were they being judged by the markets on the size of their loans books and given bonuses accordingly.
Well I was referring more to the manner in which a guy with the track record of Mr Boucher can secure a position as head of a “pillar” bank.
But yes, obviously, the wider system encouraged institutions and by extension, individuals, to chase ever greater profits to the exclusion of any level of sanity.
Problem as I see it is these are the very guys who have spouted the quasi social-Darwinist mantra in relation to all manner of human relations including business dealings for as long as I can remember. Such belief actually fed the entitlement culture which these people helped create. The narrative was that these guys were where they were because they had scrapped hard and won. They were winners and role models.
However, when the shoe ended up on the other foot ie it turned out that they are actually “LOSERS” (to use their own ugly-type parlance), not only were their organisations “too big to fail” but the individuals themselves refused to go away - and some such as Mr Boucher, reincarnate as fucking Chief Executives!!
So whats the truth here? If there is no meritocracy, if there is no capitalism in the sense of any risk attaching to the actions of such characters and their institutions, what is there?
Who or what is deciding who and what do and rise to what and where they do?
How does this society really work??
Ordinarily I wouldnt really care less if a load of overweight jocks want to play masters of the universe amongst themselves. However, when I or my family are expected to pick up the tab for their idiocy, surely the very least I can expect is to be told what exactly the fuck it is that I am paying for?
Is that too much to ask? Or is that the most ridiculously naive question to be posed on the Pin…ever??
Looking through WGUs “manageable” thread googled “richie boucher manageable” and up pops that piece from BOI from 2005 I’d only really heard about the Dunner advice this thing cracked me up with him being at the forefront of property lending in BOI CF.
And with the power of google, if Richie googles himself, this thread is on the first page
Glibness/superficial charm
Grandiose sense of self-worth
Pathological lying
Cunning/manipulative
Lack of remorse or guilt
Shallow affect (genuine emotion is short-lived and egocentric)
Callousness; lack of empathy
Failure to accept responsibility for own actions
