The general strategy would, presumably, be to increase shareholder value. To do this, again, presumably, we'd be doing the same as any other business: buy low & sell high. What's there not to agree with? If you're talking about specific trading strategies, well, these are so confidential that very few people have access to that knowledge and even fewer fully understand it.
Do you work for a bank or do you work in the financial services industry? And if you do what position do you hold/job do you do?
No-one can object to any business trying to buy low and sell high, as far as it goes, and generalised whingeing about bankers doesn't get us very far. I have quite specific objections to bank strategies like: * mis-selling payment protection insurance * mis-selling interest rate swaps * forcing viable businesses into liquidation * falsifying LIBOR information * buying up the political process * emasculating regulators by headhunting their best people * falsely overvaluing collateralised debt obligations etc etc. This is dishonesty on a gargantuan scale IMHO. The trouble is, banks are absolutely indispensable so wrecking them is simply not an option for UK or any other country. We all really need them, just like we need police, armed forces and sewage works.
Yes. Financials services include banks and other financial institutions. Project work within regulatory reporting, with the effective end user of the output being the US Federal Reserve. So, I don't do any of these activities: mis-selling payment protection insurance * mis-selling interest rate swaps * forcing viable businesses into liquidation * falsifying LIBOR information * buying up the political process * emasculating regulators by headhunting their best people * falsely overvaluing collateralised debt obligations
Do you think the guy behind the counter at your local BP station should get grief when BP spilled millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, killing 11 workers and countless marine life?
When I say I hate bankers, what I really mean is I hate banks, and am deeply jealous of bankers. The bonus culture falsifies everything. Not only does it give people riches they don't deserve (in a societal sense) but it inflates house prices in nice areas driving out anyone who isn't super rich. It adds pressure to all those in other jobs who suddenly look like failures. In a culture where your worth as a human being is quantified in your salary check, bankers make others look stupid. "Why didn't you go into the City??" To which the answer is, because Monty Python did the sketch "Why accountancy is not boring". But clearly the worst thing about banks is that when they win (or in this UBS case even when they don't) they award themselves massive bonuses (thus defrauding shareholders) and when they don't (having bamboozled themselves with they own shit products) everyone has to pay squillions to dig them out of the cesspit they find themselves in. Cue much wringing of hands, apologies and everything else - and then they do it all again. Someone, please tell me: a. Could the financial crisis happen again? b. What has been put into place regulationwise to make sure that it can't and that if it does, we won't care because the casino banks can go to the wall without bothering simple taxpayers. Until I hear otherwise the impression I get of the answers to these questions are: a. Yes b. Nothing. You know what top bankers remind me of? Prem footballers. Silly money (check). "If we didn't pay him that much he'd go to another club/bank (check). Their salary comes out of your pocket (if you follow football or use a bank, or are a taxpayer). Mediocrity (check) - like the England team are so talented for their £100k a week salaries that they are worried about losing to Macedonia. Like banking strategies are so random that they can routinely lose billions, fiddle books, have rogue traders doing things they don't even know about - the list goes on. Life isn't fair - obviously. But part of a decent civilisation is a sense of trying to make it vaguely fairer. The Prem and the City are just capitalism gone stark raving bonkers.
the thing that needs to happen with the greatest of urgency is the spilt between investment and highstreet banking arms. When the risk taking traders fuck us all over again, and their firms go under it shouldn't be public money that gets used to bail hem out. They should just crumble and the individuals be legally accountable. Sure, the fuckwits in the highstreet will still try and sell you loans and poor investments you don't want, and charge for stupid things which cost no money whatsoever to them but at the very least I won't have to have some fuckwits in parliament telling me that 20 grand has been added to my tax bill to bail these sacks of shit out. Money that could have wiped a chunk off my mortgage or cleared all my credit cards and a chunk off my mortgage. Money which I've been asked if I wanted to part with. I'll get asked if I want to protest against being told what bananas i can buy by brussels, but maybe I was on holiday when the thing came through the post to ask if I was ok with giving some smug bunch of cunts 20k of my money to let them sleep easy at night - fuck that, I would have let them burn. And so they'll go abroad... fucking let them. let some other country saddle the risk of their fuckups. "we need to attract foreign investors into britain" said the government spokesman - what he didn't say was because britain wrecked everything that was britain and now we cant even wipe our own arse, and its easier - not cheaper to attract the easy win from abroad than the long term rebuilding of your own house. Glid, your post rings out, how a sportsman can be worth that money is beyond me, yes they are talented, yes they have a short lifespan, and like bankers their arrogance and obnoxiousness reek of a belief that they deserve nothing less than the privilege they are used to. After all, if we weren't a bunch of filthy good for nothing peasants we'd be them wouldn't we, so its only right we pay for their fuck ups and we pay to watch the celebrity brand that is a premier league sportsman, as lets face it, he's no sportsman anymore. good grief charlie brown...
