As to the Reuters account of the Special Treasury Committee meeting
on Wednesday, I'm inclined to believe the word of Alistair Darling,
just about the only honourable person among the sycophantic others
close to Gordon Brown, PM at the time. (AD was only close to GB for
functional reasons. He was never close socially. AD is a Presbyterian
Scot [and Labour Party member] of the old school and is scrupulous in
his dealings.) It's significant also that when Paul Tucker, the BoE
Deputy Governor, heard he was being quoted by Diamond, he immediately
made it known that he wanted to be heard by the more powerful Enquiry
that the government is now setting up. On the other hand, when
Diamond referred (several times) to those at "the top of the
government" he used the word "officials" but on one occasion the word
"Minister" slipped out.
There was a time, decades ago, when any British merchant bank (later
known as investment banks) would instantly obey the slightest hint of
any Governor of the BoE, his Deputy or any of his Court (the BoE
Treasury Committee -- almost as powerful in banks' eyes as the
Treasury Department of the Government). But those times have gone
and, besides, Barclays is now Anglo-American, particularly in its
speculative operations. And, anyway, Diamond was regarded as a rough
diamond (excuse the pun, but it's a pretty exact one) and to be
treated carefully.
My own interpretation of the phone chats between Diamond and Tucker
is the same as Ian Gordon's (below). If the hint didn't come from
Alistair Darling himself or any of his top Treasury officials*, which
I'm sure it didn't, then it could only have come from the Prime
Minister himself at the time, Gordon Brown -- probably via the
Governor, Mervyn King. (*Normally there's a high degree of
confidential interchange between high Treasury Department officials
and the BoE. But Treasury officials had suffered 12 years of
bullying, not to say tyranny, under Gordon Brown -- 10 years
previously as Finance Minister -- and they would have been the last
people on earth to be helpful to GB.) It is, I think, significant
that Gordon Brown (still an MP) was missing from the savage debate
that took place yesterday in the House of Commons (when setting up
the more intensive Enquiry). However, Tucker would have been
extremely careful in the way he'd have mentioned LIBOR (the
inter-bank short-term interest rate) among many other things they
would undoubtedly have talked about, just in case Diamond was recording him.
(As a personal aside, I watched every minute of the three-hour
grilling of Diamond on Wednesday, accompanied by two pots of tea
kindly made for me by my better half. Diamond was clever enough to
lead several members of the Special Committee up the garden path at
least 20 times [or maybe they were just being courteous to him], but
he wasn't clever enough to realize that there were several members
who were brighter than him and were incisive enough to reduce him to
stunned silence on three or four occasions. On one occasion he was so
abject with bowed head between his hands that I thought he was going
to cry. I even began to feel sorry for him. I think few of ordinary
us can appreciate the psychological desolation now visited on a man
who was among the 50 most powerful people in the world last week but
who'll now be lucky to find a few cronies to play golf with for the
rest of his life. Perhaps one will be Jamie Dimon, the present CEO of
JPMorganChase [otherwise known as the "King of Wall Street"] who's
also shedding credibility by the bucketload. [As, indeed, are all the
big investment banks.] )
Keith
At 20:00 05/07/2012, you wrote:
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>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
<http://www.reuters.com/finance>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:
<mailto:[email protected]>[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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Keith Hudson, Saltford, England http://allisstatus.wordpress.com
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