A friend just sent me an email. He joked that Gordon Brown was to be made head of the IMF on a salary of £330,000.
I've put the cricket bat in the back of the car and I'm driving round to my mates house now to give him a good thumping. Some things are just so tasteless and far fetched they really should not even be aired, even as a bad joke.
Just to make it worse he made out it wasn't really a joke - it was being seriously considered.
He even gave some links to this fairy land story from The Guardian (Here) and the The BBC (Here).
After I've taught him his lesson about how not to make sick jokes about financial incompetents I'm sure we will all feel better. Though my trusty cricket bat may be a little dented.
But really, who can my friend think he was kidding?
Surely nobody would be so stupid enough to give Gordon Brown a job on the tills at the local McDonalds, let alone a leading role in our financial future.
Honestly, Gordon Brown as head of the IMF? It is simply NOT funny!
Showing posts with label national debt. Show all posts
Showing posts with label national debt. Show all posts
The Bankers Achilles Heel
Billothewisp has been watching the unfolding farce surrounding bankers bonuses with probably as
much disbelief and disgust as the rest of you grubby littleEnglanders.
I suppose it really was too much to expect the arrogant ignorant and greedy to put anyone else before themselves. Even when we are all up to our bottom lips in their debt.
The bankers feel invincible. They can ignore the shrill cries about fair play and responsibility. They can sneer at the common hard working folk while gloating over their own growing mountain of gold.
This travesty will continue year in, year out. Until, out of nowhere, "something" will happen that turns them from an arrogant elite into a flock of foolish redundant dinosaurs.
And maybe that "something" had already happened.
Maybe an event has already taken place that spells doom for out extremely well fed friends. Perhaps they have been so busy swindling the rest of us that they did not notice the high tide of banking excess has reached a turning point.
Revolutions, even against the most despicable tyrants, never happen unless there is someone, or something of a revolutionary nature that sparks the gunpowder.
Billothewisp reckons (or at least hopes)the today that spark has arrived and has the name of Peer to Peer banking.
Currently the most popular manifestation is a company called ZOPA but there other infant companies like Funding Circle. The concept has even expanded into the charity field with an organisation called KIVA.
Currently all of these companies simply deal with arranging and financing loans. But all revolutions have to start somewhere.
Peer to Peer banking works in a completely different way to normal banking.
With a bank you borrow off the bank. They decide the rate. You get what you are given. The money they take in from savers gathers derisory interest. The bankers pocket almost all the profit.
Companies like ZOPA work in a completely different way. They are an arranger. They do not own the loans, but they take a commission for sorting things out.
A loan for £500 will have 50 lenders, each lending £10. Each lender, lending in total £500 will lend £10 to 50 different borrowers. All borrowers are credit checked as for a normal loan, and the risk of bad debt is reduced by the spread of the lenders money over many borrowers.
The best part is that the interest rate is determined by what the lenders is prepared to lend it for - and what the borrower is prepared to pay. Hence the name ZOPA (Zone Of Possible Agreement). Borrowers pay less and lenders gain more. This would have been impossible before modern computers.
It is revolutionary. The cobwebbed ossified banks have no answer.
I hope it works.
I hope ZOPA, its clones and competitors continue to grow exponentially. I really hope the greedy banking elite come to rue the day the scorned and swindled the British public. Maybe with a real revolutionary alternative to the big banks we will avoid ever getting in this mess again.
I'm having a go with ZOPA (you want to try lending through them, you can start with £50.00), also Funding Circle and soon KIVA. It's worth a punt.
I'll tell you how it goes.
much disbelief and disgust as the rest of you grubby little
I suppose it really was too much to expect the arrogant ignorant and greedy to put anyone else before themselves. Even when we are all up to our bottom lips in their debt.
The bankers feel invincible. They can ignore the shrill cries about fair play and responsibility. They can sneer at the common hard working folk while gloating over their own growing mountain of gold.
This travesty will continue year in, year out. Until, out of nowhere, "something" will happen that turns them from an arrogant elite into a flock of foolish redundant dinosaurs.
And maybe that "something" had already happened.
Maybe an event has already taken place that spells doom for out extremely well fed friends. Perhaps they have been so busy swindling the rest of us that they did not notice the high tide of banking excess has reached a turning point.
Revolutions, even against the most despicable tyrants, never happen unless there is someone, or something of a revolutionary nature that sparks the gunpowder.
Billothewisp reckons (or at least hopes)the today that spark has arrived and has the name of Peer to Peer banking.
Currently the most popular manifestation is a company called ZOPA but there other infant companies like Funding Circle. The concept has even expanded into the charity field with an organisation called KIVA.
Currently all of these companies simply deal with arranging and financing loans. But all revolutions have to start somewhere.
Peer to Peer banking works in a completely different way to normal banking.
With a bank you borrow off the bank. They decide the rate. You get what you are given. The money they take in from savers gathers derisory interest. The bankers pocket almost all the profit.
Companies like ZOPA work in a completely different way. They are an arranger. They do not own the loans, but they take a commission for sorting things out.
A loan for £500 will have 50 lenders, each lending £10. Each lender, lending in total £500 will lend £10 to 50 different borrowers. All borrowers are credit checked as for a normal loan, and the risk of bad debt is reduced by the spread of the lenders money over many borrowers.
The best part is that the interest rate is determined by what the lenders is prepared to lend it for - and what the borrower is prepared to pay. Hence the name ZOPA (Zone Of Possible Agreement). Borrowers pay less and lenders gain more. This would have been impossible before modern computers.
It is revolutionary. The cobwebbed ossified banks have no answer.
I hope it works.
I hope ZOPA, its clones and competitors continue to grow exponentially. I really hope the greedy banking elite come to rue the day the scorned and swindled the British public. Maybe with a real revolutionary alternative to the big banks we will avoid ever getting in this mess again.
I'm having a go with ZOPA (you want to try lending through them, you can start with £50.00), also Funding Circle and soon KIVA. It's worth a punt.
I'll tell you how it goes.
Labels:
bankers bonuses,
Funding Circle,
Kiva,
national debt,
ZOPA
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