A discredited financial sector (11th May 2010)
As I write there are dire warnings from city analysts BNP Paribas threatening that the UK credit rating will be downgraded if a Lib-Lab deal comes to pass.
These ratings agencies are subject to an interesting and critical analysis in an article in the Irish Independent. See
These ratings agencies are funded by the banks and they were guilty of failing to see any problem with the unsustainable debts of the banks who have caused this unholy mess.
Gary Younge in the Guardian sums up the gross hypocrisy of the financial sector nicely when he writes: “So the very sector we bailed out with public money, run by incompetent people who are once again paying themselves bonuses is now threatening to destabilise the next government unless it fires thousands of low paid workers, cuts their wages and withdraws the sevices to millions of mostly poor people.
It’s as though you borrowed money against your home to save a wayward relative from penury only to have them roll up a week later in a new Porsche and tell you to cut your food bill or they’ll repossess the property.
Why do we stand for it?