8 ms·
"Our goal is to bring more of our thinking into the public domain..." Like any other bank: Rob the small people, give to the rich, make the government your bit
by kinai 10y ago
"Our goal is to bring more of our thinking into the public domain..."
Like any other bank: Rob the small people, give to the rich, make the government your bitch
- spicerguy 10y agoI would suggest you find out a little bit more about the BoE. It's not an investment or retail bank, it's a central bank which is more about influencing economic policy and other banking policy than pushing money around. Interestingly the UK government decoupled the bank from direct control in 1998, which greatly reduced the risk of wild interest rate fluctuations driven by political motivations, which had caused a lot of pain in the previous decades.
- oarsinsync 10y agoNote that it's a group of private bankers dictating monetary policy for the country.
- spicerguy 10y agoThe bank itself is owned by the government but has independence from it in certain matters of policy. There are certainly many employees who come from private banking backgrounds but the bank is not a private bank.
- pjc50 10y agoThey're public bankers. It's an arms-length institution wholly owned by the UK government, which has mandated them to set monetary policy to meet statistical targets as a means of de-politicising monetary policy. It works quite well, certainly better than when it was directly run and the UK had a lot of inflationary instability.
- TheOtherHobbes 10y agoThe BoE provides political air cover for political decisions. In no real sense is it politically independent. It can be relied on to do absolutely nothing to promote economic policies that could benefit the majority of the population at the expense of bankers, land owners, rentiers, and speculators.
- cbeach 10y agoYikes! Do you know of a bank that has robbed from the small people? I work in finance and there's tremendous protection for the small people in everything we do. Their deposits are covered by government guarantees, whereas the richer clients are left more exposed. But if you have an instance where banks have stolen from small people I would love to hear more about it, and I'm sure it will make front page news around the world.
- eru 10y agoBritish banks (not the BoE) are shafting their poorer customers with lots of fees. They regularly get dinged for it by their regulator. (Can't complain about eg German banks too much in that regard. But the British banks are really the scum of the earth as far as `not being evil' to poorer customers is concerned..)
- spicerguy 10y agoThere's a debate to be had about "no such thing as free banking" - I'm very familiar with the world of prepay in the UK and retail banking practice is a big headwind here.
- eru 10y agoDKB in Germany and Ing Direct in Australia are giving me pretty much free banking. (At least, free enough. No stupid hidden fees, and no yearly fee.)
- viraptor 10y agoThey have to make money somewhere. If it's free checking account, then maybe the account interest is low, or maybe the connected credit cards have high interest, or maybe they do a hard push on loans, or... Basically banks are not charities - in the best case, the everyday banking is simply a loss leader for something else.
- 10y ago