''Don’t forget the organ grinders behind these monkeys''

From NewLeft Project

''Tax theft is endemic all over the world. It is organised through an intricate system of tax havens; the PR around it is astonishingly good, as evidenced by the fact that most people have no idea of its scale and can get distracted by the misdeeds of a few bad apples rather than seeing the barrel they came in; and one of the most vibrant and important hubs – the City of London - is sitting right under the noses of the British politicians who are today decrying the corporations who use it.''

read more 

''UK banks face £60bn black hole''

From The Telegraph

''In its Financial Stability Report (FSR), the Bank revealed that the big four lenders - RBS, Lloyds, Barclays and HSBC - may need to take £15bn of extra provisions on consumer loans and European debt, “a further £4bn-£10bn” to cover fines and customer compensation, and “between £5bn and £35bn” to meet regulatory risk standards.

Sir Mervyn King, the Bank’s Governor, said the potential losses distorted the “picture of banks’ health” and that lenders may have to “raise capital or take steps to restructure”. He added: “The danger to be avoided is that of inadequately capitalised banks holding back our recovery.''

read more 

“We are in a financial holocaust”, radical journalist Max Keiser says in Parliament''

max keiser is a rock star....................From London Loves Business

''The economic crisis has led to a “financial holocaust” which will lead to millions of deaths, said Max Keiser, the outspoken activist and financial presenter for the Russia Today television channel.

On invitation from Respect MP George Galloway to deliver an address on “the coming currency collapse” on Tuesday night in Parliament’s Westminster Hall, Keiser spoke of inviting HBOS whistle-blower and former head of risk Paul Moore onto his show.

“Over 100 million people have been thrust back into the poverty. That had its nexus in the City of London.''

read more 

''City of London jobs expected to slump to 20-year low''

From The Guardian

''City job numbers are expected to fall to their lowest level in two decades next year as banks and investment houses continue to make deep cuts to ailing operations, according to a study.

The number of people employed in the financial sector in London, excluding most accountants and lawyers, has already sunk below 250,000 this year, 11% down from last year. It was more than 350,000 before the financial crisis struck.''

read more 

''Illusion of unassailability leads to fresh outbreak of '‘mad banker disease’'

From Ian Fraser Blog

''During the 1980s British bankers changed for the worse. Having spent most of the past three centuries as financial herbivores — solid, reliable and rational members of the community — they metamorphosed into wild, hungry carnivores. Fuelled by commissions, bonuses and greed, they started seeing their customers as fair game.

Once respectable institutions were transformed into globally ambitious financial supermarkets whose business models revolved around selling as many financial products and services — including stockbroking, pensions, insurance, mortgages, and estate agency — as they could to as many customers as possible. Rent gouging corporates and gambling on complex financial instruments that few of the bankers actually understood added to the chimera of success.''

read more 

''UBS bankers in London head for the pub after being turned away at office door''

poor bastards.................From The Telegraph

''UBS bankers in London were turned away from their offices on Tuesday and handed a letter putting them on "special leave", just hours after the Swiss bank unveiled a radical restructuring to axe 10,000 jobs''

read more 

 

UK: ''Parliament's power is being passed to the banks''

From Public Service Europe

''Whenever major decisions are taken about the future of the United Kingdom, news cameras will be aimed at reporters standing in front of parliament. But is parliament really where the key decisions are being made today or has power shifted down the river to London's financial sector - the City? What we find now is a banking system that has more spending power than the democratically elected government, no accountability to the people and a massive concentration of power in the hands of a few individuals.''

read more 

''Keiser Report: Asphyxiation Nation'' (E357)

From RT.com...............''In this episode, Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert discuss mugging hoodies and asphyxiating economies with cynical bank fiddles and institutionalized fraud. They also review the past 18 months in which "Barclays has been exposed for ripping off the elderly, avoiding £500million in tax, mis-selling payment protection insurance to the tune of £1.5billion, manipulating crucial interest rates and now mis-selling loans to small firms." In the second half of the show, Max Keiser talks to Kwasi Kwarteng, a Member of Parliament in the UK and author of Britannia Unchained, about the golden egg of fraud in the City of London.''

''Crime Wave Sweeps City of London''

From Eurasia Review
By James Petras

''A veritable crime wave[1] has invaded the City of London, where millionaire investment bankers cook the books for billionaire clients and bilk the Treasury to pay their fines and flout the Law. Courses in business ethics are obligatory at Oxford and Cambridge since it has become standard operating procedure for mega-swindlers to plead guilty ,to pay a fine and avoid jail and to solemnly promise to never, ever, flout the law….. until the next mega-deal.''

''London has become the center of global financial capital by engaging in long term large scale active collaboration with multi-billion pound drug, arms, people smuggling and sex-slave cartels. The “Brits” specialize in laundering funds from the Mexican, Colombian, Peruvian, Russian, Polish, Czech, Nigerian narco-kings. Albanian white slavers have their ‘private bankers’ at prestigious City banks with a preference for graduates of the London School of Economics.''

read more 

''What the Bankers Did Next... ''

From New Left Project...............''Our friends at Spinwatch have produced a short film on lobbying by the City of London called ‘What The Bankers Did Next…’  It takes a look at the government’s close relationship with the finance industry, some of the key players involved, and their efforts to manage public opinion and shut down debate.''

 http://www.newleftproject.org/

 http://www.spinwatch.org/

Book Review: ''The Oil Road''

From New Left Project

''Below is an excerpt from The Oil Road: Journeys from the Caspian Sea to the City of London by James Marriott and Mika Minio-Paluello, an important new book from Platform tracing the journey of Caspian Sea oil into Northern Europe, and exploring how lives and politics along the route of the pipelines have been transformed. ''

read more

''Britain’s Second Empire''

From New Left Project

"Why, in the era of Wall Street hegemony, do close to half of global financial transactions still flow through territories linked to Britain? New Left Project's Jamie Stern-Weiner spoke to Ronen Palan, Professor of International Political Economy at City University London and co-author of Tax Havens: How Globalisation Really Works, to find out.''

read more 

''US regulators have Britain's 'wild west' bank culture in their sights''

all banksters to GITMO.............From The Guardian

''The Labour MP John Mann, an outspoken member of the Treasury select committee, has called for a government inquiry into money laundering, and outlined fears that US regulators have British banks in their sights as they try to shift business from London to New York.

The allegations against Standard Chartered, made on Monday by the little-known New York state department of financial services, also prompted calls by the investment advisory agency Pirc for discussions with top bankers about the industry's ethics.''

read more 

''How London became the money-laundering capital of the world''

From Ian Fraser Blog

''Speaking on the Marr Show on BBC One on March 23rd, the former Daily Telegraph editor and historian Max Hastings said a “senior central banker” recently told him that London is now considered to be the “money-laundering capital of the world”.

Hastings was discussing the shooting of a Russian banker in London. The remark was all the more pertinent since Russia is now said to be controlled by a ‘gangster culture’ and because of the large number of Russian oligarchs and other business people who now live and work in the UK. A lot of these people carry criminal baggage, but the authorities seem entirely comfortable with the idea they should reinforce London’s position as the world’s “funny” money hub.

How did this state of affairs come about when, on paper at least, the UK has some of the strictest anti-money laundering legislation in the world?''

read more 

City of London: ''Wave of scandals ''puts reputation of Square Mile at risk''

From The Independent


''Business leaders this weekend expressed major concerns that the wave of banking scandals could permanently damage the status of London as the world's greatest financial centre.


The Barclays Libor fixing, mis-selling of interest rate hedge products, JPMorgan's "London Whale" losses and Royal Bank of Scotland's computer meltdown have sent the City's global reputation to a new low.''

read more 

''The de-industrial revolution''

From New Left Project

''Let’s start with a question: if I asked you to think of a place that sums up what’s wrong with Britain, where would you choose? For some people, it’s the City of London: all those bankers who broke the economy just a few years ago and are now back to business as usual - complete, of course, with megabonuses. For others, it might be any Jobcentre or some other place that speaks of poverty of ambition, welfare dependency and all those other terms they use in the Daily Telegraph. For me, there’s a specific place. It’s called River Road and it’s in Barking, in the furthest reaches of East London.''

read more 

''Sir Mervyn King tells George Osborne: you must act now to tame the City''

From The Independent


"The Governor of the Bank of England, Sir Mervyn King, has demanded that the Government speed up its reform of Britain's financial sector. He also attacked bankers for resisting new financial regulation in order to protect their large bonuses.

Sir Mervyn warned last night that "vested interests" in the City of London were trying to scupper reforms meant to prevent another crisis."

read more 

''Chancellor George Osborne tells EU he won't sign Britain up to 'idiotic' Basel III plan''

From The Telegraph

"George Osborne has warned the European Union that Britain will refuse to sign up to “idiotic” proposals that would water down tough international rules on bank capital requirements."

read more 

''The Bank of England Exposed''

from Bill Still 2009...

''The City of London & the Fabian Society''

h/t infocyde...........From 'oneworldscam'

CITY OF LONDON CORPORATION
"The City of London Corporation is a Masonic, private, independent, sovereign state occupying approximately one square mile within the heart of the greater London area inside the old Roman walls of London.
It either directly or indirectly, controls all mayors, councils, regional councils, multi- national and trans-national banks, corporations, judicial systems (through Old Bailey, Temple Bar and the Royal Courts of Justice in London), the IMF, World Bank, Vatican Bank (through N. M. Rothschild & Sons London Italian subsidiary Torlonia), European Central Bank, United States Federal Reserve (which is privately owned and secretly controlled by eight British- controlled shareholding banks), the Bank for International Settlements in Switzerland (which is also British-controlled and oversees all of the Reserve Banks around the world including our own) and last but not least, the communist European Union and communist United Nations Organization."

read more