Why outrage toward the banks should stop

realitykeeper

After the credit crunch of 2008, the government bailed out the banks. This is different to the government subsidizing the HSE, schools, prisons etc but only in that those sectors receive annual subsidies whereas the banks get lump sums every ten years or so when they fail.

There is every reason to expect the banks to fail again and again now that they know the government has their backs and the proof is in the pudding. Irish banks are today speculating on financial products they know nothing about, just as they did pre 2008.

In short, the banks are now part of the public sector. Bankers get the high salaries for shoddy services and the tax payer gets the bill. Sound familiar? That`s right, exactly like the hospital consultants.

For as long as I can remember, people have been complaining about the health service and yet any suggestion that the HSE be privatized is dismissed. This strange behaviour suggests that vast numbers of people secretly like long waiting lists, expensive medication and crowded A&Es.

Similarly, people like bailing out the banks. Why else would they tolerate it? It is something to talk about on the bus I guess, so the gossip value makes it all worth it. Logically, the banks should have been allowed to fail, and the horrific consequences of that would have been preferable in that it would have reset the system. Bailing out the banks postponed the pain but sooner or later that pain will have to be suffered along with crippling interest repayments.

Why should people be outraged at the banks? What do they expect? After all, it is the public sector.

feargale

I don't believe that the banks being part of the public or private sector has anything to do with it. The banking sector was embroiled in scandal when it was wholly in the private sector and continues to throw up skeletons and to get away with "murder". Nobody puts their finger on the crux of the matter, the fact that some politicians, prominent journalists and high-ranking gardai, anyone who is capable of hurting the banks, can have access to special terms from the banks. It emerged that one very prominent politician had special terms from Anglo-Irish Bank. Does anybody seriously believe that he was the only one? When the Oireachtas Finance Commitee were told of threats by the banks everybody assumed that these threats related solely to potential litigation by the banks. When the lady was asked if there were threats she gave a very strange answer: " not officially." What on earth did that mean? Nobody at the Oireachtas Finance Commitee pursued this by asking the hard questions, who specifically made threats and to whom were they directed? Were there threats that the beneficiaries of special terms would be outed or that the rug would be pulled from under them, that their loans would be called in?
I know of only one instance of the banks' sweetheart deals being outed by a journalist, in a radio programme in recent years. I cannot remember who the journalist was. He spoke in general terms corroborating what I have described here.
Why is there such reluctance toe get tough with criminal activity? Why is there pleading rather than prosecution? Why in the case of one high profile prosecution was a very young, inexperienced lawyer put in charge, an unfortunate young man who seems to have suffered grievously as a result, just one more victim of an egregiously corrupt system? Meantime the full force of the state can be employed to prosecute hungry people who steal food, or street vendors who take a mite from established businesses, with no resources spared. And few seem to care.
Nothing will change until prominent people go to jail. And it seems that will only happen when the people flex their muscles.
Meantime let the hard questions be asked again and again until they are answered.

realitykeeper

feargale wrote: »

I don't believe that the banks being part of the public or private sector has anything to do with it. The banking sector was embroiled in scandal when it was wholly in the private sector and continues to throw up skeletons and to get away with "murder". Nobody puts their finger on the crux of the matter, the fact that some politicians, prominent journalists and high-ranking gardai, anyone who is capable of hurting the banks, can have access to special terms from the banks. It emerged that one very prominent politician had special terms from Anglo-Irish Bank. Does anybody seriously believe that he was the only one? When the Oireachtas Finance Commitee were told of threats by the banks everybody assumed that these threats related solely to potential litigation by the banks. When the lady was asked if there were threats she gave a very strange answer: " not officially." What on earth did that mean? Nobody at the Oireachtas Finance Commitee pursued this by asking the hard questions, who specifically made threats and to whom were they directed? Were there threats that the beneficiaries of special terms would be outed or that the rug would be pulled from under them, that their loans would be called in?
Why is there such reluctance to get tough with criminal activity? Why is there pleading rather than prosecution? Why in the case of one high profile prosecution was a very young, inexperienced lawyer put in charge, an unfortunate young man who seems to have suffered grievously as a result, just one more victim of an egregiously corrupt system? Meantime the full force of the state can be employed to prosecute hungry people who steal food, or street vendors who take a mite from established businesses, with no resources spared. And few seem to care.
Nothing will change until prominent people go to jail. And it seems that will only happen when the people flex their muscles.
Meantime let the hard questions be asked again and again until they are answered.

I agree with nearly all of this. I concluded a long time ago that the real reason for these committees is so politicians can get paid extra. The basic salary for politicians in the national parliament is for the time they spend bribing people in their locality to vote for them and anything like doing something for the country therefore requires a second salary.

Anyone who recalls the radio reenactments of the various tribunals over the years will know that the interviewee will often prevaricate and for some reason the judges do not sanction them for contempt. Again, these are money making schemes, nothing less and certainly nothing more.