The <a href="http://bankingcommission.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/ICB-Final-Report.pdf" title="Independent Commission on Banking report" target="_blank">ICB report</a> is out today - its a 358 page read BUT there is a handy shortcut to the commissions recommendations (pp.233-242). These include ring fencing 'high street' activities and those crucial to the economy on the procedural, corporate, legal and economic levels, as well as setting specific liquidity reserves and increasing transparency. To grow competition in the sector, the commission also recommends a review of the barriers to entry for new providers and a comprehensive and free account switching service available to all customers by September 2013. If any of these recommendations are not implemented by 2015 the market should be investigated by the Office of Fair Trading. It would seem clear that these measures will go some way towards preventing financial deterioration the likes of recent times and would partly fulfill the void of lawful retribution in the public consciousness against the banks that failed us.
All that remains is to create real and effective measures of deterrence and punishment to bring city slickers - like Perkins, who played with 7m of crude in an <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/jun/29/drunk-oil-trader-banned-fsa" title="Drunk trader banned for buying 7m barrels of oil after binge" target="_blank">"alcohol induced blackout"</a> - and MPs - who, amidst cuts in public spending, still think a 4 day week of mental masturbation and shit flinging entitles them to <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mps-expenses/7946745/MPs-expenses-disgraced-MPs-obtain-secret-refunds.html" title="MPs expenses: disgraced MPs obtain secret refunds" target="_blank">demand refunds of misappropriated public money</a> they so magnanimously repaid - back down to earth, justice and the reality of their rights and corresponding duties. Speaking of that societal bipartite, the reinstatement of national service, alongside a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zivildienst" title="Zivildienst - compulsory paid community service" target="_blank">Zivildienst</a> style alternative, would almost certainly remind a growing generation of Britons of the true nature of citizenship and alleviate the pandemic of hooded half truths that results in a Tottenham shooting causing resentment as far as <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2024203/UK-RIOTS-2011-David-Cameron-orders-police-come-hard-looters.html" title="August Riots" target="_blank">Miss Selfridge</a> in Manchester. Curiously the sort of resentment that only afflicts politically and culturally unconscious children and one that to date could only be cured by taking home a new pair of trainers. Yet, youngsters who suggested looting electrical stores are put behind bars, while Perkins gets a 50% discount and a 36 month easy and interest free repayment plan. The joke thickens.
It remains to be seen how far the ICB proposals will be watered down by the coalition government but they would do so at the peril of a better future for Britain. Bankers and MPs should not act like short-sighted greedy adolescents fresh off the paternal leash. Children should not act like criminals. The rest of us will not look on like startled children as big government is penetrated by big business and the big press. David Cameron's rhetoric of 'Big Society' is best fulfilled and at once overshadowed in import by a Grown Up Society.
All that remains is to create real and effective measures of deterrence and punishment to bring city slickers - like Perkins, who played with 7m of crude in an <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/jun/29/drunk-oil-trader-banned-fsa" title="Drunk trader banned for buying 7m barrels of oil after binge" target="_blank">"alcohol induced blackout"</a> - and MPs - who, amidst cuts in public spending, still think a 4 day week of mental masturbation and shit flinging entitles them to <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mps-expenses/7946745/MPs-expenses-disgraced-MPs-obtain-secret-refunds.html" title="MPs expenses: disgraced MPs obtain secret refunds" target="_blank">demand refunds of misappropriated public money</a> they so magnanimously repaid - back down to earth, justice and the reality of their rights and corresponding duties. Speaking of that societal bipartite, the reinstatement of national service, alongside a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zivildienst" title="Zivildienst - compulsory paid community service" target="_blank">Zivildienst</a> style alternative, would almost certainly remind a growing generation of Britons of the true nature of citizenship and alleviate the pandemic of hooded half truths that results in a Tottenham shooting causing resentment as far as <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2024203/UK-RIOTS-2011-David-Cameron-orders-police-come-hard-looters.html" title="August Riots" target="_blank">Miss Selfridge</a> in Manchester. Curiously the sort of resentment that only afflicts politically and culturally unconscious children and one that to date could only be cured by taking home a new pair of trainers. Yet, youngsters who suggested looting electrical stores are put behind bars, while Perkins gets a 50% discount and a 36 month easy and interest free repayment plan. The joke thickens.
It remains to be seen how far the ICB proposals will be watered down by the coalition government but they would do so at the peril of a better future for Britain. Bankers and MPs should not act like short-sighted greedy adolescents fresh off the paternal leash. Children should not act like criminals. The rest of us will not look on like startled children as big government is penetrated by big business and the big press. David Cameron's rhetoric of 'Big Society' is best fulfilled and at once overshadowed in import by a Grown Up Society.
ginebra:
Thanks for u love on my set 
