SIX years on from the biggest financial crisis in living memory we appear to be no further forward in seeing a solution to the innate greed and unethical practices of some of our banks and financial institutions.
It is incredible that not one person in institutions guilty of mis-selling products, of gambling with the world economy, of causing countless thousands of people to lose their jobs, homes and pensions and in rigging the Libor rates - surely one of the biggest frauds in history - has gone to jail. No-one arrested; no-one held responsible.
This reluctance of the establishment, in which I include politicians, regulators and the police, to pursue the perpetrators of what is, surely, in many cases, fraudulent behaviour has reached the stage where ordinary citizens can make one judgment only: nothing is going to happen.
I have chosen to do the only thing I can in the circumstances as an individual. I am removing my custom from the Royal Bank of Scotland, with whom I have banked for more than 40 years. I will take my custom to a mutual building society. The RBS has proceeded from one abysmal disaster to the next with no apparent intervention from the Government, who own it on our behalf.
Recently the chief executive of RBS has defended the continuing payment of absurd bonuses to the chosen ones in his establishment as being necessary to keep the best talent. This will be the same "experts" who brought about the disaster in the first place. It is high time this assumption of bankers departing for greener pastures was tested. Let them go. They are not rocket scientists. It is a myth that they cannot be replaced. Their salaries alone are more than substantial.
I would like to point out that the ordinary staff of RBS always have been, in my experience, efficient, helpful and decent folk. They, of course, will be the ones to suffer in any further cuts in employment.
Roger Graham,
23 Cullen Crescent, Inverkip.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article