A Banking 'Leveson' ePetition

[ahinton]

"Nevertheless a certain class of dishonesty, dishonesty magnificent in its proportions, and climbing into high places, has become at the same time so rampant and so splendid that there seems to be reason for fearing that men and women will be taught to feel that dishonesty, if it can become splendid, will cease to be abominable. If dishonesty can live in a gorgeous palace with pictures on all its walls, and gems in all its cupboards, with marble and ivory in all its corners, and can give Apician dinners, and get into Parliament, and deal in millions, then dishonesty is not disgraceful, and the man dishonest after such a fashion is not a low scoundrel." Anthony Trollope

Well, for "Apician dinners" read "country suppers" and there ya has it; "we're all in this together"!...

[ahinton]

the indie in form today

Yes, this is on the whole a good article - at least until the very last bit; an unduly rushed inquiry, parliamentary, judicial or otherwise, would inevitably risk failing fully to address the issues involved and, as a consequence, failing fully to rectify them so as to reduce or remove the likelihood that such things go wrong again in the future. The article's final sentence, however, does at least attempt to address the consequences of what I would imagine to be the very real possibility that any such enquiry might nevertheless overrun.

stiglitz profile in which he calls for bankers to be jailed and politically neutered

Formidable a figure in economics as Stiglitz undoubtedly is, the article's references to the phenomenon of asymmetric information neglect to consider the unavoidable fact that, in commercial practice, most information is arguably of necessity asymmetric in its application to some degree, in that no commercial organisation (except perhaps the one-person business) shares all of its information evenly and equally among its employees at all levels and, even if it did, this would likely give rise to yet greater confusion and the risk of interference in company policy by reason of problems associated with both lack of comprehensive understanding and wilful agenda-driven misinterpretation of such information; no more can anyone reasonably expect every company employee fully to understand and agree every piece of data on current or prospective company policy than one can expect every one of the company's shareholders to do so.

As for jailing and politically neutering bankers found to be miscreants on a large scale, this also raises problems and questions. Firstly, only a judicial inquiry would be able to find against such individuals to the extent of being empowered to ensure that they will have been tried, convicted and sentenced (so if the inquiry does not extend beyond a mere parilamentary one, it alone will be unable to achieve such ends). Secondly, British prisons are already overcrowded, so it will be vital to ensure at the outset that the numbers of bankers to be jalied will not be so great as to tip this situation over the edge; if the bankers at the top of the tree are jalied, we're all left with those on the branches immediately below them, so how far down that tree should the axe cease to fall and who should be charged and empowered to decide this? Thirdly, you cannot "politically neuter" a banker alone, for such "political neutering" by definition requires the neutering of the relevant politicans at the same time; we've already learnt from the Leveson inquiry that one of the problems that has given rise to widely criticised activities is that too many members of a particular profession (the media in the case of Leveson and the financial services industry in the present case) have manipulated themselves into positions where they are very much hand-in-glove with politicans (and, for that matter, with the police and the judiciary), so unless those kinds of associations and their likely outcomes can first be "neutered" - i.e. destroyed permanently - any attempts to "politically neuter" bankers will inevitably be for show only rather than something that might have the remotest chance of meaningful, demonstrable and sustainable success.

Yes, of course a judicial inquiry and its outcome could be rigged, just as could a parliamentary or any other kind of inquiry, but surely that's a risk that we all have to take and which in any case cannot possibly be avoided.

[amateur51]

Yes, of course a judicial inquiry abnd its outcome could be rigged, just as could a parliamentary or any other kind of inquiry, but surely that's a risk that we all have to take and which in any case cannot possibly be avoided.

Well we have the examples of the Hutton Inquiry which was almost certainly rigged by its tight remit and rather dim judge and its being held in court without cameras; and the Chilcot Inquiry, proceedings of which were held to a certain extent in public but the writing of which has dragged on for so long that most of us have forgotten about it; and the Butler Inquiry which was held in secret, excluded politicians, and has largely been superceded by the Chilcot Inquiry.

Although the Leveson model has its knee-jerk critics (too long, too expensive) it seems to me that Lord Justice Leveson has run a model inquiry so far and we have learned sufficient about process to enable a decent bankers'/financial sector inc government inquiry to be run fairly soon.

I for one look forward to it

[ahinton]

Well we have the examples of the Hutton Inquiry which was almost certainly rigged by its tight remit and rather dim judge and its being held in court without cameras; and the Chilcot Inquiry, proceedings of which were held to a certain extent in public but the writing of which has dragged on for so long that most of us have forgotten about it; and the Butler Inquiry which was held in secret, excluded politicians, and has largely been superceded by the Chilcot Inquiry.

Although the Leveson model has its knee-jerk critics (too long, too expensive) it seems to me that Lord Justice Leveson has run a model inquiry so far and we have learned sufficient about process to enable a decent bankers'/financial sector inc government inquiry to be run fairly soon.

I for one look forward to it

Good and salutary points all. The only genuinely reasonable concern that some people might still have about the inevitably substantial amont of time required for a fully comprehensive, unrestricted, in-camera judicial inquiry to take its course is what might still be allowed to happen within the financial services industry during its conduct; a whole lot of damage could still continue to be done while we all wait for the inquiry's conclusions and the subsequent conduct of any possible appeals against any of these. It's also worth bearing in mind that FSA comes to the end of its time at the close of this year, to be replaced by two authorities and, as this change will almost certainly occur while the inquiry is in progress, there is a real risk that it may yet delay its conclusions still further.

[Serial_Apologist]

Formidable a figure in economics as Stiglitz undoubtedly is, the article's references to the phenomenon of asymmetric information neglect to consider the unavoidable fact that, in commercial practice, most information is arguably of necessity asymmetric in its application to some degree, in that no commercial organisation (except perhaps the one-person business) shares all of its information evenly and equally among its employees at all levels and, even if it did, this would likely give rise to yet greater confusion and the risk of interference in company policy by reason of problems associated with both lack of comprehensive understanding and wilful agenda-driven misinterpretation of such information; no more can anyone reasonably expect every company employee fully to understand and agree every piece of data on current or prospective company policy than one can expect every one of the company's shareholders to do so.

You could have added commercial secrecy -the main ideological weapon of apologists for the free enterprise system to justify non-generalisation of knowledge beyond the confines of boardrooms. But this - the argument that rank-and-file shop floor and office workers are too thick to understand company matters - was always the argument used by the right against worker's control, and by their erstwhile friends in the trade union movement arguing that industrial relations should be confined to wages and conditions, offering a gift to the righ-wing-dominated newspapers to claim that indistrial disputes were largely unaffordable, pricing workers out of jobs, and all about greed. But in those rare instances in which workers have got access to the books, and found out about boardroom machinations, this has proved to have allowed a rapid learning and consciousness-raising situation - one which - to the terror of the bosses - raises the potential of ordinary people on socially affordable pay planning and running things in the interest of social and maybe environmental priority rather than profiting the few, while upholding divide-and-rule top-down privilege and power.

If the bosses deigned to listen to opinion from below, they might learn some wisdom, most especially that they are dispensible, and that there are other ways they should seek to act out their power complexes, like, for instance, those not invoking the insecurity and compensatory greed and envy the system they "try to" control constantly reproduces at everyone else's expense?

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

listening to Mr Diamond in front of the committee at the moment one recalls the superior forensic skills of Mr Jay and his learned chums ....

except that Mr George Mudie is on the bullet and has him nailed

[mercia]

more heat than light coming from this committee session in my view

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

on the whole i must agree mercia buit not without it's moments of truth