How about socialism for the rest of us?

[Thinking Man's Idiot]

How about socialism for the rest of us?

(Monday 13 October 2008)

by PAUL HASTE in the City of London







WHAT ABOUT THE WORKERS?: Trade unionists protesting in the City on Monday.


ANGRY union activists derided bosses for "going cap in hand to the workers" on Monday as fat-cat bankers were given yet another multibillion-pound handout from the taxpayer.


Prime Minister Gordon Brown lavished £37 billion on just three banks on Monday, seizing control of the Royal Bank of Scotland and taking a huge stake in Lloyds TSB and Halifax Bank of Scotland.

The banks’ directors and chairmen have been forced to resign without the stratospheric multimillion-pound payoffs which such executives have become accustomed to. And those bosses who stay will have to do without their usual exorbitant bonuses.

In a further sign that wealthy bankers’ spree of unrestrained greed is coming to an end, Barclays announced that it would not hand over more than £2 billion in dividends that its shareholders were expecting this year.

Mr Brown declared the bank takeovers "unprecedented, but essential for all of us."

But demonstrators outside the Bank of England took a different view, demanding that the government "bail out the workers, not the rich."

Accompanied by a Grim Reaper wielding a scythe, union activists at the protest called by the London Shop Stewards Network called for the government to "seize all the banks and their profits."

"What we are seeing is not the nationalisation of the banks but the bailing out of wealthy executives in the City," said Communications Workers Union senior deputy general secretary Tony Kearns.

"But it’s not the bankers who get hit the hardest at times like this but ordinary working people," he added.

Public servants’ union PCS rep Andy Reed asked: "How often do we see the bosses come cap in hand to the workers? And where was this money when low-paid public-sector workers had a 2 per cent pay rise cap imposed on them?"

Holding a placard declaring "No Return to the '30s," Unite union activist Kevin Parslow pointed out that, "when workers get into financial difficulties, no-one bails us out.

"The billions being handed to the few who own the banks should be used instead to invest in work and homes for the many," he said.

The protesters also urged bank and office workers in the City of London to join a union "before it's too late."

Unite union activist Teresa said: "They need to organise, unionise and fight back because the bosses are going to want to throw them out on the street at the first opportunity."

Isaiah, a City of London street cleaner swept up in the protest, pointed towards the Stock Exchange tower rising behind the Bank of England.

"I don't think those people ever thought they would feel the same constant panic over money that people like me feel every week," he said.

Turning to look up at the Grim Reaper looming behind him, he added: "Says it all, really."

[Thinking Man's Idiot]

New Labour hands £37bn lifeline to banks

(Monday 13 October 2008)

by ADRIAN ROBERTS





MISSED OPPORTUNITY: The government injected £5 billion into Royal Bank of Scotland.


MPs and unions condemned new Labour's failure to fully nationalise three of Britain's biggest banks on Monday after they were thrown a £37 billion lifeline of taxpayers' cash.



The government is injecting £5 billion into Royal Bank of Scotland and also underwriting a £15 billion share issue by the bank.

Lloyds TSB and its proposed new partner Halifax Bank of Scotland are also receiving up to £17 billion of emergency funding, with the terms of the banks' merger also being reworked.

Under the unprecedented package, the government could theoretically end up owning around 60 per cent of RBS and 43.5 per cent of the combined Lloyds TSB-HBOS.

However, around a quarter of the taxpayers' cash will go to "preference shares," which return a fixed dividend but do not grant voting rights. While the government was pumping public cash into the banking sector, a new report by Incomes Data Services showed that bosses in top finance firms earned an average of almost £3.5 million last year, an increase of 11.5 per cent on the previous year.

The report said that the scale of top earnings in recent months "defied gravity," with bosses prospering while more workers risked losing their jobs.

Labour MP and Left Economic Advisory Panel chairman John McDonnell was exasperated at the government's failure to seize the opportunity to lay the foundations for transforming the economy.

"The Chancellor has insisted on an arm's-length role for government and on returning the banks to private control as soon as it can," he said.

"To give the taxpayers a return for their investment, the government could not only insist on board control, full transparency and stakeholder democracy of the banks but should also force through a new lending strategy prioritising lending to tackle the worst effects of the recession, promoting employment, ensuring environmental sustainability, and providing security of homes and public services."

Industry union Unite joint general secretary Derek Simpson said that it was not acceptable for the government to socialise the risk without allowing the wider society to capitalise on the rewards in the finance industry.

"Workers in the financial services industry are not the culprits of the credit crunch and we are not prepared to allow them to become the victims," he said.

"The taxpayer must now get a firm assurance that the financial lifeline extended to these large organisations will be used to protect jobs and the public."