BEWARE! THE BANKS ARE OUT TO GET YOU!

[Tizer]

In May we had:
`KPMG fined £5m over Co-operative Bank audit'
and now we see:
`SEC fines KPMG $50 million for cheating, calls misconduct "astonishing" '
LINK

[Stanley]

Can we be blamed for believing that essential systems are failing? God alone knows what will happen later in the year....

[Tizer]

Would you trust Facebook with your money?
`Facebook’s Libra pitches to be the future of money' LINK
`...an alliance of big players in payments such as Paypal and Visa, Silicon Valley players such as Uber and Lyft and major venture capital firms.'

I've mentioned before how big businesses worldwide are now more interested in accumulating personal data than in selling their products and services. They often use data instead of money when trading with each other. This is not some tinpot conspiracy theory thought up by me, it's a fact well known to financial journalists. So I was not surprised to read this in the BBC article:
`What do the partners get out of it?
`It is being reported that partners such as Paypal, Mastercard and Visa are paying $10m (£8m) each for the privilege of operating a node in the Libra network. It seems bizarre they would want to support an organisation whose whole pitch is it can do a better job than them. But, then again, they will have access to the data flowing across the network, albeit in pseudonymous form, and that should give them valuable insights into what is being spent and where.'

On a related point, Donald Trump recently said he wanted to `buy into the NHS' but our government ministers said `Never'. Philip Aldrick in The Times has since pointed out that American big pharma has already `bought into the NHS' - it is acquiring the NHS's valuable anonymised data pool.

[Stanley]

I believe absolutely that 'Data is the new oil'. When it teams up with 5G tech and the Universe of Things we are really in trouble.

[Stanley]

The climate change protesters interrupted Spreadsheet Phil's speech in the City yesterday (LINK) but they should not be allowed to deflact attention from the real and present danger which Brexit poses. Even a 'soft exit' will be bad and the consequences of a 'No Deal' will be many times worse. As Mark Rutte said yesterday, all this talk about sailing bravely into a bright future are pie in the sky. However, will this have any weight with the Tories in the Shires who are reported to be sanguine about a short period of hardship in order to regain sovereignty?
We are heading for the biggest foreign policy and financial mistake I can recall. Tin hats on lads.....

[Tizer]

`Southern Water punished over 'shocking' wastewater spills' LINK
It's been going on for 9 years!

[Stanley]

What they did was so egregious and deliberate but still Ofwat stop short of threatening their licence.
As I have said before, executives in handcuffs would be an excellent prescription in cases like these. Give the US their due, they are marginally better at it than us.

[Tizer]

Yes, that bank CEO, Varley, the only bank boss charged over the credit crunch, has been let off due to the usual `insufficient evidence' excuse.

[Stanley]

I am usually loath to swing to the 'hang 'em and flog 'em' spectrum and check myself when it rears its head but in this case I am certain I am right. The deep power used to be held under a Feudal System by the landed magnates, it swung to industrial capital in the 19th century and in the 20th it shifted to the financial Lords of the Universe. Their lobby is now so powerful it protects them. Look at the 'revolving door' syndrome and the sources of Party Funding for the Tories. Even their Treasurer is the subject of deep suspicion.
The case of Southern Water brings this into focus. Time to remember Nye Bevan and his dictum to control the high ground of the economy. Basic services should be at least non-profit making. Unfortunately everything is monetised today, even our personal details.....

[Stanley]

Worth reading Private Eye this week on the failings of the FSA. They are more concerned with their 10,000 pages of rules than actually doing their job and some particularly egregious circumstances like the state of the big accountants and proven frauds like the forced bankruptcies and ripping off of bank clients who went to the banks for help but were shafted instead go unpunished beyond piddling fines. High time the whole machinery of regulation was overhauled and given teeth.

[Stanley]

I heard Martin Lewis questioning a man yesterday who runs a form of lending not covered by the regulations. I forget the name. What struck me was the facile way he argued for a form of lending that despite his protestations can charge 1000% interest..... How can anyone justify this mad form of credit....

[Stanley]

The Purchase Manager's Index is out today and suggests that the economy has shrunk in the second quarter. The economy has been fluctuating because of Brexit stocking, the forecast for the full year at the moment is 1.1% which is far too low. Piketty reckoned that the average in the first part of the 21st century would be about 3% and that was not high enough to support any readjustments in most country's policies.
The stock markets are not behaving rationally, the US index has hit another all time high which needs some explanation. A year ago the US market stood at 20,000 points, it is now on 30,000. Is that rational?

[plaques]

A year ago the US market stood at 20,000 points, it is now on 30,000. Is that rational?

I suppose if you expect the Dollar to sink then exports should increase in line with the lower prices. Also businesses with a high capital content will see their value rise in proportion to the drop in the Dollar. But who am I who never gambles on anything thinks he knows what is going on.

[Stanley]

I have the same view P, it all puzzles me.There seems to be a disconnect between reality and the world of the stock markets.

[Tizer]

We've got to keep in mind that the US market is now dominated by a handful of tech companies and they drive the market and the index. Therefore the index is no longer a reliable indicator of the state of all the other companies in the US. It indicates how much money people are willing to invest into big tech companies even if they don't make any profit. In other words, the system is bust, no longer fit for purpose.

[Stanley]

That makes a strange sort of sense... Nowhere safer to put the money.
Later another straw in the wind if you are trying to assess the present state of the economy. I can't find anything I trust on the web but a BBC report this morning flagged up June as another miserable month for sales on the High Street. This makes June the latest in 15 out of the last 16 months where footfall and spend has fallen. Complex reasons of course but this just at the time when the major betting shops are closing down thousands of High Street outlets..... This is not an encouraging picture.

[Stanley]

Another straw in the wind but this time in Europe. Have a look at THIS BBC report on Deutsche Bank which is in difficulties. We don't have a monopoly of economic problems, they are global and largely hushed up in the interests of maintaining confidence.

[plaques]

The Deutsche Bank has been in trouble for some time. An international bank that is 'too big to fail' so far they have tried every wheeze in the book, mergers, good banks/bad banks, closing down trading centres and quietly letting senior people go before the inquiries start. Total failure would probably put Europe on its knees along with America and a lot of other countries.

[Tizer]

It's only a couple of months since this...
`Deutsche Bank Needs Serious Laundering' LINK
`According to a recent Bloomberg article, “Deutsche Bank's U.S. Unit Kept Danske's Shady Billions Flowing,” before regulators discovered “what may be one of the biggest money-laundering pipelines in history, low-level bank employees in Jacksonville, Florida, sounded repeated alarms. Compliance workers for Deutsche Bank AG flagged some of at least $150 billion in transactions that the bank’s U.S. subsidiary handled for a tiny Estonian unit of Danske Bank A/S.” '

[Stanley]

It looks as though globally 18,000 jobs are to go 'before 2022'. Basically they are withdrawing from investment bank activities and share trading which have been running at a loss. Their major centre for these activities is in London where they employ about a thousand highly paid traders. Tin hats on Lads!
Hot off the press at 07:20. British Airways have been fined £183million for the loss of customer data last year.....
See THIS BBC report on the fine.....

[Stanley]

See THIS FT account of the latest figures on retail trading both on the High Street and online. In total they are down in June and the implications for the High Street are dire as they are the ones who have suffered the major falls.
Another straw in the wind indicating the state of the economy.......

[Stanley]

See THIS BBC report on the latest developments in the troubled travel firm Thomas Cook. Opinions vary as to whether this is their last chance or simply a sensible move. If I was a shareholder I would be doing some very careful thinking.....

[Stanley]

It appears they have been. The share price fell by almost half yesterday and has lost 90% of its value in the last 12 months.

[Stanley]

THIS Article focuses on Mike Ashley and the takeover of Debenhams but casts wider light on the problems the High Street is facing. It begins to look as though Ashley's vision of the High Street of the future is slightly flawed and could be a bum steer.
Looking a the wider picture this is par for the course in our failing economy in the real world despite the optimistic noises we hear from government.
Who is right? We may get an answer to that conundrum sooner than we want.

[Stanley]

I see Martin Lewis has won his case against Facebook. Good man!
Later.... See THIS report on the Sterling exchange rate. A straw in the wind?