Time to prosecute the white collar crime

The thing that stands out most about the Barclays ( & others ) interest rate (libor) manipulation scandal is the lack of prosecutions. There is certainly a lack of taking responsibility at the top.

Remember manipulating interest rates arbitrarily robs some people to benefit the manipulator. Mortgages get more expensive - who knows how many people will have been forced over the edge by having to had pay more more on their loans ?

Yes its time to start making those who do the crime pay.

Inspector Yates might like to go after Melvyn King, Alistair Darling, Gordon Brown and George Osborne - who should be doing the perk walk for QE and artificially lowering interest rates ( the victims being savers and pensioners, especially those having to buy annuities ), despite knowing that inflation has always remained over target.

After all if its crime for the Banker's, then it crime for the politicians and civil servants.

Perhaps this is why we don't have many prosecutions right now ....

For the attention of my customer satisfaction champion at HSBC bank

The Shed,
End of the garden,
Woking
11 Oct 2011

Dear Sir/ Madam / Person of indeterminate gender,

Whilst I have long taken a traditional view of accounting practices and have till now believed what's mine is mine, what's your in yours, I can see that we live in extraordinary times.

I am also aware of the heavy responsibility as a consumer of Chinese electronics, Polish labour, German engineering and Scottish sour grapes that I must do my part in saving the world economy, by getting out there and spending.

You may be aware of the, till now, restriction of the low balance in my bank account which has prevented me from performing my duty in the world economy.

However I am now pleased to announce I am undertaking a programme of Quantitative Easing, and the £75.13 in my current account should be replaced with a figure of £1,000,000,000.00 at the opening of business tomorrow.

I promise to spend it all quite quickly saving the world economy.

Yours faithfully,


Man in a Shed.

PS I realise this may sound irregular, but its quite kosher for the Bank of England, so please give Sir Mervyn King ( chairman of the Bank of England and Monetary policy committee ) a call if you need to go over some of the details. Since this is just an electronic transaction there will be no need to undertake anything messy with printing presses and dead trees ( just the sort of bottle neck that caught out the Argentine government a few years back ). I take my responsibility to the environment very seriously indeed.

Will the Bank of England's printing presses be turned off soon ?

Rumours are circulating that the Bank of England will soon stop funding the government debt by printing money. ( We'll if you ask them or a Labour Treasury minister they will say the same thing, but with a hole load more guff ).

Anyone want to buy long term UK debt at low interest rates with the prospect of a hung parliament and no clear action to reduce the deficit being undertaken till yet another general election can be held ?

The risks are real as Greece is showing.

This will be interesting ... if you excuse the pun.