Royal Bank Of Scotland Share Discussion Threads

[leedskier] 02/3/2017 05:54

It may have been nine years ago, but the financial crisis continues to throw its long shadow over Britain. Last week, RBS, at the time of the crisis the world’s biggest bank, announced another stunning loss of £7bn – so chalking up cumulatively some £58bn of losses since 2008.

It is now even clearer than it was at the time that had the government not stepped in, taking a vast £45bn stake, RBS would have gone bust, threatening a more widespread banking panic with cascading consequences hard to contain. At the very least, Britain would have had an even deeper recession – and much slower recovery. At worst, there would have been a full-scale depression.

In one way, £45bn has rarely been better spent; but, in another, a clutch of hard questions that would have been asked if the bank had gone bust were avoided. How could it be that RBS’s managers and shareholders could ever have allowed it to grow so large when so much of what it was doing was not just valueless, but actively value destroying? Why was the wider financial and regulatory ecosystem of which RBS was a part not more alert to what was going on, and instead, to an extent, egging the bank on? What system could permit a business horror story with such near-calamitous results; and even so was part of an inequitable capitalism that helped trigger the resentments contributing to Brexit?

[leedskier] 01/3/2017 22:00

The House of Lords said that they will not bother to defeat the Bill a second time, which of course they could, forcing a general election.

[leedskier] 01/3/2017 22:00

polar fox some of my professional colleagues, whom I know and have worked with, on both sides of the debate, spoke and voted in the HoL. They were not posturing.


These were not like Theresa May's team of political light weights.


Some of those speaking and voting were holding high office when she was in her gym slip.

[leedskier] 01/3/2017 21:52

maxk if like me you had actually tuned into the House of Lords debate they talked about little else.

[polar fox] 01/3/2017 21:40

SKY tweet:

Government sources say the Government will seek to overturn the House of Lords defeat on the Brexit Bill in the House of Commons


No problem - silly posturing

[maxk] 01/3/2017 21:16

Also, the Lords in all their high minded virtue signalling, didn't bother to address the small matter of brits in €uropa.

Status quo ante was offered at the outset, but rebuffed by Merkel.

[maxk] 01/3/2017 20:49

Where will €U fishermen make up the shortfall?

[leedskier] 01/3/2017 20:02

I agree with the EU fishermen. If Britain wants to tear up fishing agreements with the EU, it cannot complain if the EU tears up trade agreements.

As for selling British fish to China, are they having a laugh? The supermarkets freezer compartments of full of fish exported by China.

Searchable List of Frozen Fish Exporting Countries
Rank Exporter 2015 Frozen Fish Exports
1. China US$2.5 billion
2. United States $2 billion
3. Russia $1.8 billion
4. Chile $1.3 billion

[mondaytuesday] 01/3/2017 19:59

Sorry but why should EU folk doing remedial work be allowed carte blanche when Indian doctors are not. Farage was right about the points system.

[rburtn] 01/3/2017 19:57

I can well imagine the Scottish fishermen getting a better price from China and India than from the EU for its fish - not- and as for Canada, coals to Newcastle methinks. The Telegraph's misleading bile and cant has truly permeated this board.

[maxk] 01/3/2017 19:46

Fury over European Parliament threat: 'No free trade on seafood without access to British waters'






By Simon Johnson, Scottish Political Editor
1 March 2017 • 7:19pm




A powerful group of MEPs has prompted fury after insisting that the Brexit deal must force the UK to surrender access to its fishing waters in return for a free trade deal on seafood.

The European Parliament’s fisheries committee said it would be “unacceptable” to give the UK’s seafood producers free access to EU markets if trawlers from the Continent “no longer had access” to British fishing grounds.

It recommended that the parliament agree that the two issues should be treated as a “single block” in the forthcoming Brexit negotiations, stating that one is “inseparable” from the other.

But Ian Duncan, a Scottish Conservative MEP, said this was “peculiar, unprecedented and counter-productive” as no other trade deal brokered by the EU has included access to fishing grounds as a requirement.

He wrote to Alain Cadec, the French MEP who chairs the committee, warning that the recommendation endangers the chances of the two sides striking a deal and pointing out this was not the basis of deals reached with Norway and Iceland.

Scotland’s fishermen reacted with fury, warning the MEPs that they would be told to “sling their hook” and arguing that the British seafood industry would instead sell its produce to China, India or Canada.



More:

[gcom2] 01/3/2017 19:20

A lot of those lords are elite immigrants so it is to be expected, who is looking out for mr average british bloke- get nigel in there to kick some ass.

[leedskier] 01/3/2017 19:00

Needless to say the House of Lords voted to protect EU citizens by a substantial majority.

[leedskier] 01/3/2017 18:59

Viscount Hailsham (Douglas Hogg), the Conservative former cabinet minister, says he will support any of the amendments on this topic put to a vote.

He says he understands the government’s argument: that it needs to keep on the table the future of EU nationals in the UK as a bargaining chip.

He says while he understands this argument, he is not comfortable with it.

Many EU nationals came here thinking they would be able to stay for good. That could have been a life-changing decision for them, he says.

He says for the UK to deny them this right would be an act of retrospective legislation that would offend natural justice.

[maxk] 01/3/2017 18:22

Revealed: Jean-Claude Juncker's five 'pathways to unity' blueprint for the future of Europe after Brexit



By Peter Foster, Europe Editor
1 March 2017 • 3:10pm




Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European Commission, has drawn up a White Paper setting out five options for the future of Europe after Britain quits the EU in 2019.

The plan sets out five “pathways to unity” for the 27 member states who will remain in Europe after Britain leaves in 2019.



The proposals have already met opposition from recalcitrant eastern EU states, led by Poland and Hungary, who fear that they will be marginalised by a new drive to revitalise Europe's Franco-German federalist core.



More:

[mondaytuesday] 01/3/2017 17:54

Indians are harder working so they can stay.

[leedskier] 01/3/2017 17:49

Along with the Asians too, I trust.

[leedskier] 01/3/2017 17:27

None of that has any bearing on the Government using the residence of 3 million EU citizens or a similar number of British citizens in Europe as a bargaining chip!

Having watched the House of Lords debate, many there from both sides of the political spectrum agree.

[cfc1] 01/3/2017 17:05

Leeds..lets see what happens in Holland, Italy, france and Germany with elections and see where that leaves thje BROKEN EU!! the fact is its broken....
Markets play with currencies...lets see where Sterling is in eDec 2017