Whilst I may still be in Spain, I also have Sky News, and can someone, anyone, please give me examples of where Gordon Brown has been calling for global finanical regulations "for years"?
I keep hearing him say that he has been doing this but I am yet to actually see an example of where he has. My instinct tell me that the man is lying through his teeth, but what I am wondering is why not one single journalist has asked him for an example when he did this.
I have read numerous Brown quotes from the past decades where he keeps on talking about light touch regulation and the need to back off, I have yet to see one that preceded any of these problems where he called for a global agreement on banking regulation though.
Seriously, if anyone can pull the quotes out with sources I'll be happy to say "oh look he's not a lying bastard after all".
Update: The Grumpy Old Sod has come up trumps, noting the detail of Brown's Mansion House speech last year (mentioned in the comments) where far from calling for what he claims to have been calling for he said we had to actually avoid it.
7 comments:
He lies like a stinking fish. He wouldn't know the truth if he caught it banging his missus.
His Mansion House speech last year was all "you're doing a grand job in the City, keep it up"
There are no examples because he is lying.
The only example available is where he blocked Germany's plans for greater transparency in the summer of 2007. See my blog post.
http://thecrownblogspot.blogspot.com/2008/10/who-called-for-what-transparency.html
Someone should send a freedom of information request, asking for the details of each occasion where Gordon Brown has called for greater regulation....along with each occasion where he called for less regulation. I think I know what the balance of the response will be.
Perhaps you should look here and at other statements by Gordon Brown to the World Bank and IMF - he has been banging on about the need fro improved international financial regulation for years. Unfortunately - the World Bank, IMF and BIS tended to be controlled by US dergulationists - and a go it alone approach for the UK was never an option.
http://www.imf.org/external/spring/2002/imfc/stm/eng/gbr.htm
I don't wish to be picky but what he's talking about in that speech is not what he is currently saying he has been calling for for years.
Lets be clear here, he is confusing well regulated with highly regulated. Furthermore the fundamental oint of free markets is that no-one knows what The Answer is. In other words having one common regulatory standard is inherently flawed as it would not allow alternatives to evolve that might be better, or of course worse.
The UK regulatory system is highly not well regulated. There is a lot of it and not much of it is any good. I work in it - I know this.
As an example of how UK FS regulation is NBG it hs taken it sine 1986 to approxiamtely catch up with and understand the advantages that accrue to customers if retail FS businesses are run the way I run mine. And they are still fighting it as if they fully accept it they will have to accept their own failures and pointlessness and pack up and go home.
What is actually required is very simple. National and international Banks need stricter minimum capital requirements, local banks need to be much narrower in their scope, big national banks need to be broken up. Professional supervision of banks needs to be provided by intelligent supervisors with market experience -poachers turned gamekeepers - and retail businesses like mine to be left well alone. There's more but I'm boring myself now.
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