For bankers plunder is a way of life for a group, almost exclusively of of men, living together in society who have created for themselves in the course of time, a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it. Take away their power to create money as debt out of thin air and you take away their power to plunder and their ability to control our democracy.
Britain's banks were given the go-ahead last night to pay unlimited bonuses, drawing to a close a two-year political battle to rein in the City. After months in which a series of government ministers of all parties have threatened a toughening in the stance over City bonuses, Downing Street said the government did not intend to intervene in the pay of the UK's top bankers.
Banking industry sources have said that the bosses of the big four lenders are unlikely to agree to waive their payouts this year, despite the savage cutbacks endured by taxpayers who have also put more than £20bn into Lloyds Banking Group while spending hundreds of billions more in indirect aid to stave off financial meltdown.
Some estimates put the total sum injected into the banking sector by British taxpayers at £1trillion. The Coalition's apparent climbdown on bonuses stands in stark contrast to the statements made by ministers over the past two years. In a speech to the Tory conference in Birmingham last year, the Chancellor, George Osborne, warned: "We will not allow money to flow unimpeded out of those banks into huge bonuses, if that means money is not flowing out in credit to the small businesses who did nothing to cause this crash and suffered most in it." http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/tough-talk-on-bank-bonuses-comes-to-nought-2181107.html
Campaigners accused the Government of taking an indulgent stance towards bank bonuses. Brendan Barber, general-secretary of the Trades Union Congress, said: "Voters know the crash was made in bank boardrooms around the world, yet while ordinary people are facing service cuts, job losses and increases in VAT and fares, the banks and those who run them have been let off making a fair contribution. This is not the politics of envy, but it is monstrously unfair."
The problem for any government is that bankers control our money supply and without their loans to business and consumers the economy would collapse. This is why they have full political control over over the state. A Labour government should place money supply under democratic control and legislate for full reserve banking, this would stop the banks creating money out of thin air as and make then lend out the deposits of savers.
The government would then start to issue the required amount of money for our economy via the monetary policy committee under democratic scrutiny. It could begin a major public works programme to bring full employment, it could also pay down government debt without making cuts.
