my dear god

Something very close to my heart is the overdraft charges case that's been running. I am personally 'owed' a small fortune, that would be damned helpful, so I've been following this case a bit.

There was a quote that from the hearing that shocked me a bit [if I can find it]

"I do not consider that the payments are made in exchange for the whole package of services supplied by the bank when it is operating a current account. Secondly, I do not consider that the payments are the price or remuneration for those services. The payments would not be so recognised by the typical customer when he opens a current account with a bank, and they are not generally so presented by the banks in their terms or other documentation"

I mean after the blatant bonus scandal over publicly owned banks paying more in bonuses to their, frankly, inept staff, amounting to something like $33 billion [I can't find a source with the UK sum in such a hurry]

Now, I'm no economics analyst, but I'm sure if you're to take the sum of the tax bail-out used to rescue banks which are 'too big too fail' [x] and add the overdraft fees 'owed' to people [I say owed in inverted comers as actually they are technically agreed terms, but the argument here is fairness, not a technicality on weather or not it's allowed] [y] you get [z].

Now, Z still pails into insignificance compared to the bonuses paid in this country, which, so far as I'm aware, I, as a tax-payer, was not consulted on. I must have missed the memo requesting my permission for the go-ahead on some un-justly rewarded bonuses.

They should be kept for out-standing performance, now re-packaging bad-debt and sub-prime mortgages, then selling it on so many times it snowballs, doesn't warrant out-standing performance in my eyes.

Western banking is based to risk-taking to the highest level, and this should not be rewarded [ESPECIALLY WHEN IT GOES WRONG!], not only are we [the UK tax-payer] 51%[?] share-holders of banks like RBS, so it was our money allocated on saving them, but the FSA allow ridiculous bonuses and then they twist the knife further by this overdraft charges claim going their way!

Grrr... hate to sound like a sun-reader! Rant over

J-Treole string session in full effect next weekend... photos/audio/whatever to come

A