Or did they?

Sir Fred Goodwin and Sir Tom McKillop of RBS along with Andy Hornby and Lord Stevenson of HBOS have said sorry for bringing the UK’s banking system to its knees.

So do we:

a) draw a line under it
b) hound the bastards until they fess up to what they really knew and did
c) other

I’m really very ignorant about banking so I’m keen to hear the views of others which might moderate or intensify my knee-jerk reaction to send them to Gulag.

I know this is similar to the “peerage” thread, but the focus is a bit different (before anyone starts!)

As an ex-employee, I’d personally like to see them hand over their extensive bonuses to the staff, then offer to lick each of their shoes clean. You may think that the “news” offered to the outside world was falsely slanted, but you’ve no idea how much more went on internally. Lots of regular folk were basically scammed into buying shares, or converting performance-related pay awards into shares. The propaganda which went into the rights issue should itself be examined for fraud.

Yes – the “Rights Issue”.

Am I right in thinking that HBOS raised £4Bn from share-holders right at the time when it was all starting to go tits-up? It’s inconceivable, surely, that The Masters didn’t know what kind of shitstorm was about to hit when they swindled their share-holders out of this money.

Not having druidh’s experience of what went on internally one of the most shocking aspects of the running of RBS to me was the takeover of ABN AMRO – seems to have been a decision taken by entirely by ego.

There bonuses would mostly have been paid in shares so are now worth no where near what they were when they were given.

Everybody was happy with what they were doing during the good times when they were seeing the benefits.

Still I’d like to see the current governemnt answer a similar inquiry into there handling of the economy.

I watched the whole two hours or so. A masterclass on questioning and delivering “the right answer’. Interesting and humbling TV.

Oh – and Andy Hornby, despite having “stepped down” from his position as part of the takeover, is now on a £60k per month, 12 month contract advising Lloyds on which bits of HBOS should be switched off/closed down. If he’s so ****’ sure of what bits these are, how come he didn’t do something about it earlier. Sort of screws his “I didn’t know” defence.

So what are the chances of these guys being indicted on fraud charges?

(Sorry if “indicted” is an American term – I’ve been watching too much of The Wire)

a) draw a line under it

good idea, declare a jubliee where all debts are cancelled and start again :o)

Simon. I like it. Can I just have a couple of days notice *before* the amnesty?

its a “Peace Crime” (similar to a war crime but with pens rather than bombs)

I say public trial followed by execution, not that it’d be rigged or owt!

maybe just get on with our lives?

it’s all nice to have someone else to blame for a society where screwing each other over to make another 10k on your house sale or needing to have the next best thing right now on credit you know you can’t pay back then banging it on to your mortgage because house prices will always go up while more and more people are trapped renting as they cant afford to buy then take on stupid mortgages to get on the bottom of the property ladder to fit in/do whats right and house prices will always go up……

so obviously the entire thing is the fault of the banks

I say public trial followed by execution

Do we go with “guilty until proven innocent” then?

I have no problem with that in this case.

Better yet send in a troika and get the job done with minimal expense to the already beleaguered taxpayer.