I know you are having to shoot the financial rapids. Markets are in turmoil. Bear Stearns and Northern Rock are etched indelibly in your memory. And now we have the stories of Lehmann brothers and Merrill Lynch, AIG and HBOS.
To a bystander like me, those who made £190million deliberately underselling the shares of HBOS, in spite of its very strong capital base, and drove it into the bosom of Lloyds TSB Bank, are clearly bank robbers and asset strippers!
We find ourselves in a market system which seems to have taken its rules of trade from Alice in Wonderland, where the share value of a bank is no longer dependent on the strength of its performance but rather on the willingness of the Government to bail it out, or rather on whether the Government has announced its intentions so to do.
Our country has built its financial strength historically on the manufacturing of goods, where money was the medium of exchange. In the last week we have has seen its systems come close to ruin because now money is no longer being the medium of exchange for goods, but rather is the very item which is being traded.
Meanwhile talk of bonuses being paid out to the few whilst the many suffer, cocks a snook at any talk of “fairness” or “equity”.
I lived in the UK (Reading, Berks) for 5 years. Went to British school.
I have no idea what “cocks a snook” means.
The Archbishop is from the former colonies. Remnants of the British Empire have a reputation for being more British than folks in London, but only in a Victorian era fashion.
Back in the days of Queen Victoria, to “cock a snook” meant to make a vulgar gesture (meaningless now) with your hand and nose that expressed disdain. (Sort of like sticking out your tongue).
cocks a snook == thumbs it’s nose
[blockquote]The Worshipful Company of International Bankers[/blockquote]
What a name; it sounds like some sort of syndicate from a comic book or a Sherlock Holmes mystery.