Spain needs reform NOW

Do any of you guys talk about this with your Spanish neighbours? What sort of response do you get? How strong (or weak) is the Spanish resolve to find solutions and effect reform?

How can we force change????

When faced with this.................

I’ve been jawboning a fair amount about regulation lately, and a lot of you are getting in on the conversation. I always, always read every comment that’s posted here and I thank all of you for participating.

As a quick sidebar, let me say, you all are not a small group. Close to 200,000 people get Wall Street Insights & Indictments in their mailboxes every Thursday and Sunday morning, and that’s just the ones we send it to. WSII is picked up elsewhere and forwarded many times over. So, when you comment, your participation is noted far and wide.

You are becoming stars in the great galaxy known as “freedom of speech,” and I thank you for all your efforts. You make our conversations two-sided and always more robust.

So, in light of many comments that relate to me wanting more regulation, this morning I want to make myself clear, as in clearer. I am not for more regulation. I am for more-better regulations – as in “mobetter.”

Why mobetter? Because the only real way to give regulations real force and power is to make them:

• simpler (so the long and windy road of legal-speak can’t be manipulated or loopholed to death),
• more concise (so people actually understand what they’re reading and don’t have to hire teams of lawyers to read it to them, or hire them to find loophole side streets to meander down),
• and with cut-and-dried penalties.

If we can reconvene regulations down to be mobetter, we won’t always be singing the mobetter blues when bank crooks get away with their schemes by settling instead of being driven out of business and to jail.

Cases in point (make that just a few of the cases we know about)…

MF Global: Lying, cheating, stealing, and gross mismanagement. Client losses: well over a billion dollars and counting. No nothing: no case, no charges, no fines, no jail time, NO JUSTICE.

JPMorgan Chase: Lying to and hiding “whale” trading losses from over 100 regulators who are in their offices and watching over them. No fines, no repercussions, a couple of folks retiring early, maybe a job loss or two. We can only hope this ain’t over in terms of mobetter scrutiny of all the deceit and potential fraud attendant here. Standing by.

Barclays: Libor manipulation. $455 million paid, one job lost, no jail time.

ING Bank: Essentially aiding and abetting money transfers through New York money center facilities on behalf of “Enemies of the State” (that would be our state), also known as “sponsors of terror” and “rogue regimes.” Fine of $619 million (a record fine, whoopdee do!). No jobs lost, no jail time, and probably a few weapons of mass destruction bought and paid for by check or wire out of accounts shepherded by ING.

Wells Fargo: Discriminated against African-American and Hispanic borrowers by charging the least able to pay the most for mortgages. $175 million settlement. No guilty plea necessary (neither admit nor deny… ever), no jobs lost, no jail time.

Capitol One: Deceptive marketing; getting desperate credit card borrowers to pay for add-ons they didn’t need or want by lying to them when they called to activate new cards. Damages and fines: $210 million. Chalk up one, their first ever, for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau; the best thing to come out of Dodd-dumb-Frank. Still, no jobs lost, nor jail time.

Of course, we could go on and on, like adding HSBC money laundering, PFG Financial fraud and theft, Countrywide discrimination (that’s where Wells said they learned their tricks), Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs… all of them pretty much have been found to be liars, cheats, essentially crooks and what we might otherwise call criminals.

But they’re not, you see, because they’re never guilty, because we don’t have mobetter regulations.

That’s my indictment for today.

Surely for the sake of the future we must find a way - any ideas?

Regards

Norman

I am so totally with you Norman, although this seems to apply all over the World not just Spain. But the problem is that they seem to have sewn up all of the corners.

If we stand as one we are anarchists. If we ask for for equal rights we are communist & if we try to change things to quickly we haven't given it enough thought & we should go through the channels. It's said we voted them in & should listen to that government or council, as that is democracy.

Remember "Yes Minister" years ago on BBC, that was serious not comical it is (not was), true.

Beaurocracy is much to strong & decision making to slow; change that & we're half way their.

The thing that really gets me these days is for failed boss's to reap enormous pay offs & massive pensions. And not just failed, but cost the poor public millions & millions. And that is ALL the bosses for the Concerns you have listed, we paid them trillions for failure.

We are simply are much to soft on lying, fraud and deceit

I worked as a salesman all my life, if I failed or made serious misdemenours I didn't get paid and lost all benefits and would probably have been sacked losing my good character.

Thank you Norman for that article.

This fellow appears to be spot on the mark in terms of the need for better regulation. But I would place the emphasis thereafter on the monitoring and enforcement of regulation. 

For instance, the lack of effective Spanish Banking supervision acts as a classic example where citizens appear to have had  the wool pulled over their eyes. Just recently Keith Rule identified the following

Regarding the Banco de España claims service – this is from their website:

The reports issued by the Claims Service are not binding on the parties.

SO WHAT IS THE POINT OF HAVING A CLAIMS SERVICE AND SUPERVISORY BODY IF THEY FAIL TO ENFORCE THEIR FINDINGS???

To me there is little point in having better regulation if it is not effectively monitored or enforced. And here's the point..... the bottom line to enforcement is a system of workable disincentives to act as a deterrent. And who is going to administer the deterrent?

Is it an independent legal system? But then we are back to ensuring that the legal system enforces the law and that those practising law are enforced by regulation themselves. And so it goes on............ 

This message was last edited by ads on 23/07/2012.

Hi Ads

I did not idenity that about the Banco de España just recently.  We were aware that their reports were not binding on the parties at the time we filed our complaint to the Banco de España in October 2010 - a complaint that they ignored and failed to deal with!!

Kind regards

Keith

Yes, It's so frustrating Keith and this acts as a practical example of the realities we are dealing with here.....

Probably not that much to do with the politics and finances of Spain but if Spain needs to be bailed out make it a REGULATION that they stop cruelty to animals, I have recently bought a house in Spain and seen how they treat their animals, what I think is a rest when I go on holiday has my head in a muddle, I spend most of my time worrying about all the barking dogs I hear, I imagine whats going on and have seen first hand how they are left to their own devices, spend time feeding them and constantly worrying about them.Have read some vile, cruel things about what some Spanish do so before we give them any money, lets make it COMPULSORY to be nice to animals!

I hope you are not suggesting that nice Mr Cable wanted more than just to admire those lovely News of the World legs, that could not possibly have corrupted him, could they??????

no not a chance be off with you.......

Norman

www.washingtonsblog.com/2012/07/big-banks-are-criminal-enterprises.html

More grist for the mill entitled "Are Big Banks Criminal Enterprises?".The only thing that surprises me is that it's phrased as a question. I fail to see where there's room for any doubt now.

Regarding 'solutions', this guy says it best:

"Here is something I have detected as I travel around the country: there is a clamor for “solutions”. Everywhere I go people say "Don't be a doomer, give us solutions." And I discovered that the subtext to all that is they really want solutions for allowing them to keep on living exactly the way they are living now."

www.peakprosperity.com/blog/79264/james-howard-kunstler-too-late-solutions

In that case, the only honest answer is "We are now too far gone for such faux solutions". 

But we just don't get it. Just as problems created by too much debt cannot be solved with even more debt, problems caused by living that debt lie, as we have done for several decades, cannot be cured by choosing more lies masquerading as solutions - no matter how appealing its packaging. 

Good find JD01. They murdered “Pussy” - one of their own - in the Sopranos, and I can assure you from my own experience that there are people connected with big banks who are more than capable of “applying a little pressure” up to and including  such an act to any of their own staff who make the error of questioning their shadier practices. An example of the "terminate with extreme prejudice" mentality that exists in some quarters was the machine gunning of the Russian banker earlier this year within spitting distance of Canary Wharf. Don't know what they thought his crime was, but don't we have courts for deciding who has been wronged in a banking transaction? Perhaps lodge a complaint with their call centre first? Yeah, right.

Much more, though, is not illegal, only because bankers have successfully lobbied politicians to ensure there are no laws against it. How much has dodgy Libor and Euribor fixing cost you and me? Plenty, I can assure you. Mortgage interest payments that swung from E1,000 to E200 when the con was rumbled. How many of those who did that to us are in the slammer? How many ever will be? Where were the fines going to be paid before the hurriedly revised FSA ruling over Libor? Yes, the banks. Very, very bad joke led by abysmal legislation, purposely defective, and aimed at attracting business of any stripe to the City. As the Romans used to say: “Money walks hand in hand with power.”

Guys stop complaining and get on with life - it's all there for the taking.

Believe me she'll be right, just give it time. Enjoy your time you may not get it over again.

David

"Why doesn’t someone form the anti corruption party. "

Mainly because most people limit their effort to asking "Why doesn't someone......".

If we can't be arsed to be the someone, that should go some way to answering your question why no one else can be either.

But keep repeating the same question "for entertainment".

This message was last edited by JD01 on 23/07/2012.

Really D B S? Really? Whose complaining? We have merely been ruminating on the horribleness of having our futures stolen, something that even you, a citizen of “The Lucky Country”, home of the tinny-fuelled-she’ll-be-right bloke, will be unable to avoid this time round. Anyway, you don't have to read this if you don't like it. I had the same choice with the emails from Sydney, where my uncle, Emeritus Professor of Economics and former adviser to the Aussie government would like to point out without complaining in any way that his research indicates we are so deeply in it that it will be worse than the ‘30’s, particularly as we have further to fall. It will begin in the next few weeks because that is the tradition of euro-crises past. In fact the Troika is heading for Greece with the starting pistol as we post, and it should go off just before the first shot is fired at the Olympics.

Woodbug was trying to suggest there was a way out. That is optimism that I admire, but optimism that I fear is sadly misplaced and needed to be faced with the cold hards from the epicentre where the sheer magnitude of what the greedy, guilty and gullible have done to us is clearly visible. We are stuck in the mire that is Europe 60 years after the last go round and a European plan that would see the previous result reversed. With the fruition of that plan the crimes that have got us to this point will, I believe, be shown to have been small beer. With war at the other end of the Med and unrest in Greece, the pool, strong drink and recreational drugs would quite possibly be a good solution, however with banker’s hands placed firmly in our pockets by Gordon Brown’s inability to impose any conditions on his largesse with our money many are forced to remain at work and take minimal recreational breaks. The results of that disastrous premiership are now being crystallised, while the results of Tony’s refusal or inability to say “no” to George are still being paid for through our sweating soldiers in Afghanistan, our taxes and the bill for countering the increased terrorist threat.

One complaint I will now make because you have already found us guilty of complaining is: the b******* insult us while treating us like a bottomless pit of money and deserve to be punished for that. Please, please, please can anyone get them to at least stop the insulting “we are all in it together” carpola. Should any of the crumbling pillars of our estates stand up to the guilt-ridden in any way, then I for one would applaud, but who, after the last decade of corruption and incompetence in all their forms is left - politicians, lawyers, press? Doubt it. They all have the blood of our civilisation on their hands precisely because they did not complain and instead worked the system, many just for their own personal enrichment.

 espana esta jodida. one has to work out how to make the most of it.

Question -  If things are going to get worse than the 30's, would it be feasible and possible for Govts to apply emergency constraints on ALL aspects of the money markets such that country's finances are protected from obscene speculation?

p.s. Those with in depth knowledge of the financial problems/impact and sympathetic to the need for reform etc- have you thought of drafting your thoughts and concerns to AVAAZ and request if they can organise a worldwide petition to start making Politicians take steps against the Banks/speculators that are causing such harm to their citizens? 

Ads Short answer – nope. As an example of why, politicians and economists have been bleating for years about the need for a return to the mount to brush the cobwebs off the tablets of stone that have carved into them the commandments by which global economics is supposed to be governed. Hasn’t happened yet. The GATT/IMF/IBRD were created on Mount Washington at the Bretton Woods Conference in 1944 when the first glimmer of the end of the world’s hard reboot were just visible. It appears, however that our leaders need things to hit bottom, the real bottom before they actually get off theirs and sort out the faults of the world. Most of them find domestic politics more than taxing enough, so when hot war is restricted to individual countries there appears not to be enough impetus for the short-termist politicians of the various nations to attempt to change the status quo. Why would they want to risk failure and having to do all that hard work when they could be out of the job in a few years anyway? The other thing is that some powerful countries benefit greatly from Bretton Woods as it stands, so may not want to be turkeys voting for Christmas, presenting spectacular barriers to agreement. It may eventually happen when enough people in enough countries park themselves outside their leaders’ bedroom windows and give them some sleepless nights. But that will probably have to wait until enough people comprehend the magnitude of the crimes and their leader’s failings that put us where we are today.

Give a man a gun and he can rob a bank, give a man a bank and he can rob the world.

It seems that Spain doesn't need reform at all.

It just needs another, rather larger bail out, so that it can continue with it's culture as before.

Norman