Economy & Banks

gideon is a financial genius
he managed to pick the lowest price for the year at which to sell, he's doing a gordon

unless he knows about more impending doom for rbs and is insider trading

Obviously selling at the lowest price for 2015 is retarded.

But on the point of keeping shares because RBS is making a profit; how much does that actually generate in annual dividends to the Government/taxpayer?

No dividends expected until 2016/17

he's doing a gordon

No - He's selling at below value to people who will then show an instant profit when they mark to market, and pocket giant bonuses, handing some of that to the Tory party as donations, and offering Gideon a non-executive board role.

[edit to make sense]

This.

It's a reward to the city financiers who funded the Tories election campaign. They get the shares at below market value and make a tidy profit.

Dirty politics.

If RBS is making a profit and it's owned by the taxpayer then who does get the annual dividends/profit? One argument given for selling public owned things to the private sector is that these institutions are bureaucracy heavy and subsidied by the taxpayer so a drain on GDP, which isn't the case if the thing is making a profit for the taxpayer. Profit which could be used to...
Bolster the NHS
Buy back the electrical companies
Re-nationalise the railways
Maintain working tax credits for low paid workers
Offer decent care to old people
etc

In this economic climate these views are now considered extremist and dangerous when that was what the labour party WAS all about.

(Ooops I'm sounding like that pinko irresponsible robin-hood politician Corbyn)

No dividends expected until 2016/17

Right so just on the point about holding onto the shares there's no short term value in that and sale one way or another is the only way to recoop.

Still BS though.

Why would there be dividends/shares in a public owned bank? Surely the profit just goes either back into the bank to develop it or into the public purse?

Hmmm yes well you're moving into a wider discussion of privatisation. My view has shifted from being very pro privatisation to "it depends". I also think it's incredibly complicated and industry dependent.

Railways are a good eg of where I think you can make a good argument to say that transporting people for a sensible cost to a multitude of locations is a more important benefit to society than having a profiatble / break even business. An international bank? I'm less convinced.

Because it's not a national/ised bank.

It has a share ownership now. It's just that the Government owns 70something % of the shares. The mechanism for money leaving the bank and going into the public purse would be a dividend or by selling shares. (Unless I'm missing something).

You are right that railways may not be profitable but good for transporting people even if at a cost to the taxpayer. However a nationalsied industry that is making a profit surely must be good for the nation especially in these times of so called austerity and national debt. Can't understand why Tory's are so keen to sell such an asset. Can you explain?

I hope

Can you explain?

only relates to your last point. In which case I can hazzard a good guess and TW put it better than I can;

He's selling at below value to people who will then show an instant profit when they market, and pocket giant bonuses, handing some of that to the Tory party as donations, and offering Gideon a non-executive board role.

But I do think selling off a small number of shares at cost or just below cost if you need to generate some revenue and that overall cost is cheaper than borrowing on the markets is logical.

Yes it is clear that this is the reason for the sell off. This is hardly challenged by the media. This morning on BBC4 Today programme John Humphreys continually asked some Tory 'Why sell now?' rather than 'Why sell at all?'. Seems our economic politics have shifted so far right that what seems an even view afew years ago is seen as extreme. (See the way Corbyn is being attacked for holding views that once were mainstream).
Grrrrrr!

Sorry to point this out, but they were mainstream views in the late '70s... which was over 40yrs ago.

Yes I remember, I'm that old. Good times then. Free NHS specs and dental care, free tuition for higher education, free water, economic growth and low national debt, low council house rents etc in fact it all went wrong when they started selling England by the pound

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Rn9tzirks4

(A time when Genesis made good music too)

it's that thinking (free education, council housing) that has allowed the current crop of neo liberal fuckends to rise like scum to the top, and now they're in the process of pulling up the ladder.

/edit ^ yeah, snapz

Why such right wing views are now considered normal is neatly explained by the overton window , a concerted effort by neo liberal fuckends to make their pillaging normal and voted for even by hard-working-people. Will take a lot to shift things leftwards again if its not too late as the ladder gets pulled further up

It's impressive, however you cut it, that the Tory party has managed to get working class people to vote for them - if nothing else it proves that sufficiently good marketing can make Turkeys vote for Christmas.

if nothing else it proves that sufficiently good marketing fear-mongering can make Turkeys vote for Christmas.

FTFY

Indeed. Vote for us and we'll eat the foreign, gay, black, scrounging turkeys before we eat you

I don't know.

First off the closest thing there is to a traditional left wing party is the Lib Dems. And who'd vote for them? Not even Lib Dem voters who from the sounds of it (wasn't in the UK) threw their toys out the pram because while a minority in a coalition they didn't deliver all their election policies.

So who is left to vote for?

Labour both in England and Scotland throughout the Blair-Brown years proved to be just as incompetent, corrupt and anti-libitarian as anyone else.

So I'm not really sure who the "working class" are meant to vote for. Policy wise bringing up the tax threshold and minimum wage strike me as policies aimed specifically at low income workers.

Yes, but it's marketing - the analysis showed that it left those it purported to help worse off.

However I agree - there is no party that actually has coherent policies that is not essentially centre right to very right.

I voted Tory for their strong campaign on the changing of the Human Rights Act.

Oh, wait a minute...

skydancer:

(See the way Corbyn is being attacked for holding views that once were mainstream).

hugo7:

Sorry to point this out, but they were mainstream views in the late '70s... which was over 40yrs ago.

Funny that, I'll never cease to be amazed by the eagerness of economists not to be listened to:

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/aug/23/jeremy-corbyns-opposition-to-austerity-is-actually-mainstream-economics

It's coming. China looks to be leading an Asian crash. Wonder how this one will work its self out?