UNISONActive is an unofficial blog produced by UNISON activists for UNISON activists. Bringing news, briefings and events from a progressive left perspective.

Tuesday 20 April 2010

Goldman Sacked‏

It’s time to sack the bankers and the banks…well once they’ve been found guilty in a court. Now we know the truth. The financial meltdown wasn't a mistake – it was a con http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/apr/18/goldman-sachs-regulators-civil-charges

Will Hutton’s excellent article exposes what we knew all along that hiding behind the complexities of our financial system, banks and other institutions are being accused of fraud and deception, with Goldman Sachs just the latest in the spotlight. This has become the most pressing election issue of all.

Hutton goes on to say some strong words that we should all appreciate…. “The global financial crisis, it is now clear, was caused not just by the bankers' colossal mismanagement. No, it was due also to the new financial complexity offering up the opportunity for widespread, systemic fraud. Friday's announcement that the world's most famous investment bank, Goldman Sachs, is to face civil charges for fraud brought by the American regulator is but the latest of a series of investigations that have been launched, arrests made and charges made against financial institutions around the world.

Big Finance in the 21st century turns out to have been Big Fraud. Yet Britain, centre of the world financial system, has not yet levelled charges against any bank; all that we've seen is the allegation of a high-level insider dealing ring which, embarrassingly, involves a banker advising the government. We have to live with the fiction that our banks and bankers are whiter than white, and any attempt to investigate them and their institutions will lead to a mass exodus to the mountains of Switzerland. The politicians of the Labour and Tory party alike are Bambis amid the wolves”. Spot on Will!

Of course readers of this blog are familiar with our anlaysis…our pension funds own the banks, our fund managers let them committ acts of terror on the economy, our government bailed out the banks using money they borrowed from our pension funds…and who is meant to be sacrificed to pay our pension funds back…we are.

Say NO to the greatest con trick in history – say No to banker bailouts without them paying – Say No to cuts in public jobs, services and pension funds!