I felt it very much read like the opening of a good mystery thriller. A
compressed */Angels and Demons, /*worthy of expansion.*//*
And I wouldn't be so hasty to rework the last line. It's totally in
character with the majority of imagined male needs in that male
dominated sector of the male dominated economy. Character building is
everything in a good novel.
Did you read this version of the story on Diamond?
It cites a co-conspirator--The Bank of England.
*Natalia*
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/03/us-barclays-idUSBRE86208S20120703
(snip)
Barclays released an internal 2008 memo from Diamond, then head of its
investment bank, suggesting that the deputy governor of the Bank of
England, Paul Tucker, had given Barclays implicit encouragement to
massage the interest figures lower during the peak of the financial
crisis in order to present a better picture of the bank's financial
position.
According to the memo, Tucker told Diamond he had received calls from
senior government officials. "It did not always need to be the case that
we appeared as high as we have recently," Diamond said he had been told.
The Bank of England declined to comment, but analyst Ian Gordon at
Investec said: "Based on first inspection it does seem to suggest that
Barclays have received a message from the Bank of England which
provided, to put it mildly, significant encouragement.
"So they're maybe trying to share the blame but with justification. It
raises a whole bunch of questions, and they're very serious and they're
for the Bank of England to answer."
However, Alistair Darling, Britain's finance
<http://www.reuters.com/finance> minister at the time, said he found it
hard to believe that the central bank would have made such a suggestion:
"What Bob Diamond or Barclays appear to be saying is that the Bank (of
England) told them to do this," said Darling, whose Labour party is now
in opposition.
"I would find it absolutely astonishing that the Bank would ever make
such a suggestion and equally I can think of no circumstances that
anyone, certainly in the department which I was responsible for - the
Treasury - would ever suggest wrongdoing like this," he told Channel
Four television.
(snip)
On 05/07/2012 6:40 AM, Arthur Cordell wrote:
Excellent. Should be published as an op ed or letter to editor. I
would just drop the word "male" in the last line. The issue is "power
corrupts" and therefore checks and balances are needed, always.
arthur
*From:*[email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] *On Behalf Of *Keith Hudson
*Sent:* Thursday, July 05, 2012 4:40 AM
*To:* RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, , EDUCATION
*Subject:* [Futurework] Yesterday was Reality Day
Yesterday, an academic who spent his lifetime in relative obscurity
became the happiest man on earth. Also yesterday, the career of a
banker of world-wide eminence was brought down to something equivalent
to a Dickensian boy-clerk.
Yesterday, with the likely confirmation of the Higgs Boson, the world
of science may have gained its first chink of light into the workings
of the universe, 95% of which, at present, is still a total mystery.
Yesterday, with the most decisive rupture yet of the hitherto
incestuous relationship between high politics and investment banking
during the last century, ordinary folk may have gained their first
chink of light into the workings of the currency world -- printed
banknotes, arcane derivatives, artificial interest rates and all --
which has been a closed shop to them so far.
The action of the first, of course, took place at the 27 kilometre
circular underground particle-crasher, the CERN reactor, in
Switzerland -- the most sophisticated piece of engineering in the
world, built to the finest tolerances. It cost about $4 billion. The
action of the second took place in a small unprepossessing committee
room of the House of Commons in London, the most sophisticated
financial centre in the world. It cost nothing, apart from a few
carafes of mineral water and plastic cups.
Professor Peter Ware Higgs, 83, wiped away a tear of joy when the
discovery of his long-awaited sub-atomic particle was announced. Mr
Robert Edward Diamond, 61, ex CEO of Barclays Capital, Barclays
Corporate and Barclays Bank wasn't observed wiping away a tear
yesterday as his career and Barclays' reputation was humbled, but he
might well do so in private. Indeed, if I were his doctor, I'd
probably advise his family to put him on suicide watch for a few weeks.
The immediate effects of the Higgs Boson discovery will be zero for a
while before the minds of the 10,000 visiting scientists who make use
of the CERN reactor start to chew over the matter. With luck, the
immediate effects of the exposure of the Diamond's negligent
management and cowboy antics of young traders at Barclays and about
ten other investments banks in America and Europe who've affected the
movements of $450 trillion and the lives of millions of people and
small businesses ought, if there is any justice in the world or any
common sense in governments, reinforce the so-far feeble attempts at
reforming the banking and financial sector.
We'll see. At all events, yesterday ought to be Reality Day as regards
to two of our deepest instincts and where they take us, the one being
our deep curiosity, the other being the male's need for power and status.
Keith
Keith Hudson, Saltford, England http://allisstatus.wordpress.com
<http://allisstatus.wordpress.com/>
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