They would install better management.

Same happens all the time in other industries, why not in banking?

I agree, I am an Equitable Life Pension victim.
I also had some shares in RBS.
Feel like a fool now beleiving it was all being overseen by the Government watchdog.

The Government had early knowledge that the Regulators were not working with the Insurers, with the Equitable Life debacle (2000), untold missold insurance type investment polices, Mortgages etc etc.

They also had advance warning thet the Banks were not all they were craked up to be, remember Nick Leeson (how many years ago).

Do not look to the EU for any Financial help/Idea’s as their Accounts have not been passed/signed off by the Auditor for the past 13 years.
Who was investigating that ??
Think it was it Mr Kinnock ????

Do you think they actually thought they were buying assets? Rather than thinking it was an excellent opportunity to nationalize the banking sector.

After all, Brown has lost little time trying to direct his latest acquisitions to follow this or that policy. Even if there wasn’t a nationalization plan fifteen months ago, Brown’s socialist instinct must have led him to think this was an opportunity too good to miss.

My personal bank account is with RBS and I do wonder what the new year will bring. I have already emptied my NatWest credit cards.

It is also my hope that by March we will be at the mid-point of this mess and that from there things will either stop getting worse or begin to improve. Many people neglect the fact that growth starts at the bottom of a recession and not when you cross the “zero” line. A slowing in the rate of decline would be a good thing that might start to improve confidence. Recessions are all about confidence.

I wonder if anyone here wants to make a prediction on the rate of “growth” in the last quarter of 2008? -1% perhaps?

It would have surely been quite easy to rescue depositors but close the banks in trouble. Why do we need three or four bank branches per high street? Not for normal current or savings account banking! Banking transactions are much easier to do on the internet. When did you last visit your branch?

Once the new government owner applies due diligence to the banks regulatory process – they will find the whole charade is a can of worms. Who needs all the dodgy financial services products – the selling of which for commission is the main purpose of the branch network. Missold pensions, missold annuities, missold life insurance, missold endowments, missold credit cards, missold investments, missold mortgages – and scarcely a peep from the FSA from Equitable to the present day. If you think I am exaggerating, wait until you try to get a firm quote for your own retirement annuity.

MP’s are living in a dream world. The poor are being asked to subsise the rich.

Incidentally I am a conservative by leaning. But its not big hitters we need on the front bench. Its big policies, and a shadow cabinet with enough confidence to attack the government in the way that we know Blair/Brown would have done, and indeed did so effectively, 15 years ago.

Reply: Yes, all they had to do was to assess a sensible value for all the assets they were buying into. Anyone with some business sense could have told them the assets were bound to fall in value come the year end.

Reply: Yes – I have sent this story out to all national media outloets and briefed a couple of papers, but don’t hold your breath. The story did not come from Mr Mandelson!

I am sure you meant to say that BROWN AND DARLING have thrown the taxpayers’ money down the drain. There must be some form of sanction against this flagrant refusal to follow normal practice i.e. due diligence, and the subsequent massive loss of taxpayers’ money. In local government such action would have led to the personal surcharging of a councillor, perhaps leading to personal bankruptcy. Why is there no such retribution in central government? Even this would be too generous treatment for these two scoundrels but it appears they can do as they like without fear of personal penalty. Defeat at the ballot box, although essential and soon, is by no way sufficient punishment for their malfeasance.

Did the Directors know this when they asked shareholders for an investment (Rights Issue) earlier in the year ?.

Were the then Shareholders duped into investing into a Bank which was in a far worse financial position than was made public at the time ?

If this is the case then surely a Legal Class Action should be taken out against RBS for misrepresentation.

This is the situation at the moment with an action against Shell for knowingly overstating their reserves in past years. Such action being taken in America which also includes European shareholders.

reply: I have sent a sugesiton and will wait and see.

May the Good Lord bless us and keep us from the perils of a Labour government.

Amazing, quite amazing!

Be interesting to see where the losses are taken i.e. does it include the British commercial and housing sector which has only just begun falling!

Government decisions to recklessly throw our money away stinks of moral turpitude. Bankers being paid fat salaries and bonuses, knowing the only way they remain in business is as a result of government stupidity, is sufficient reason to hold an enquiry and order it to be repaid or their assets made forfeit.

Talk of banks getting back on their feet and our money being safe is just garbage. They are bust without our money, they have our money and they should be nationalised and forced to merge.

Government claptrap and spin must end so we can move forward in 2009 with honesty and integrity and with moral considerations which have been sorely lacking these last 12 years under a Labour Government.

Banks and Government should be made to pay.