Friday 13th February
The banks are now almost universally held in the sort of disrepute previously reserved for estate agents and lawyers. There was the financial crisis of 2008, where ‘investment arms’ of big banks not only loaned money recklessly but then bundled up these dubious debts and resold them to each other in complicated financial instruments. It nearly brought the whole system down, if it hadn’t been for Governments all over the world stepping in and propping up the banks many poor and innocent people may have suffered great losses. Some say it should have been allowed to crash – who knows? We are certainly paying for it now. Then was the mis-selling of PPI and the LIBOR scandal, where rich traders manipulated rates to increase their own profits. And now HSBC has been caught red-handedly advising rich clients how to evade tax in Swiss bank accounts. And in all probability they weren’t the only ones.
The real scandal though is that our own tax authorities have had the data for five years and have not only been extremely slow in pursuing these rich tax-evaders but did not think it was in their remit to hand this information over to the Financial Conduct Authority, or if their statements are to be believed bothered to let ministers know what was going on either.
Why is it that benefit cheats are pursued through the courts over often relatively small sums, and yet when millions are involved meetings are held and deals brokered and no prosecutions even considered.
Why indeed is there this cosy relationship between the rich and those supposed to ensure that the law is upheld. Many small company directors not only bend the rules but actually consider that the company they control is theirs to do with as they will, and find it hard to discriminate between their own money and the companies’. The whole ethos of Private Enterprise is that it is based on individual greed, and if an accountant or a bank suggests ways of avoiding or even evading tax then these already greed motivated people will invariably take the bait.
And you don’t now hear “We are all in it together” quite so loudly from the Tories. They know that they are tainted by these scandals, and yet they will not do anything to change the system. It is always a case of a bad individual, or a few traders who were rotten; the truth is the system is rotten. We are taught from an early age to worship money and it is hardly surprising that these scandals keep coming out of the woodwork. We need to instill different values in our young people, instead of worshipping celebrities and the rich we should be teaching them about selflessness and kindness and a world where no one goes hungry, where cruelty is banished and…….
Oh wake up Adrian….that was just a dream some of us had.