Great Britain "united against Mitt Romney"

Who hasn't Mitt Romney offended recently? Film producer Harvey Weinstein's remarks won't do much to improve the tattered reputation of Mitt Romney.

Mr Weinstein told the BBC: “I witnessed Prime Minister saying to a group of people, myself included, that Mitt Romney had that unique distinction of uniting all of England against him with his various remarks. On behalf of my love of England, I have to support the President [Barack Obama] who is anything but making faux-pas.”

Mr Romney did not win many fans during his visit to Britain when he publicly cast doubt on whether Britain was prepared for the Olympics.

The Republican candidate said that because of concerns about security, it was “hard to know just how well it will turn out”.

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UK pro-austerity government to cap unfair dismissal payout

Isn't it curious how wage earners somehow need to be controlled and limited yet the most abusive people - the 1% - are not being asked to sign up for similar controls? It wasn't the middle class that caused the economic crisis so why are they always on the front line of cuts?

There's nothing fair about this, at all.

The maximum £72,000 [$117,000] compensation cap for unfair dismissal is to be slashed as part of a package of measures designed to remove disincentives from employers to take on new staff. The new cap may be set at the employee's annual salary, or another lower figure.

Vince Cable, the business secretary, thinks the current maximum – though awarded in only 1% or 2% of cases a year – deters employers from hiring staff. The current median award is only £5,000 to £6,000, with just 6% of cases leading to awards over £30,000.

Cable has resisted pressure to adopt compulsory no-fault dismissal – a proposal advanced by Adrian Beecroft in a report commissioned by David Cameron and given near totemic status by the Tory right.

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UK's QE program benefits go to the rich

Whether it's in the UK or the US or anywhere else, the quantitative easing programs are more about helping the rich - welfare for bankers, you might say - than anything else. There's always talk about benefits for everyone but somehow those benefits never trickle down, do they?

The Bank of England's recent report promotes the idea of spreading the wealth for everyone though it also admits that it primarily benefits the top 10% of the population. The Independent:

In its report on the effectiveness of its controversial quantitative easing (QE) programme, the Bank said it successfully pushed up share prices and other asset values, delivering an overall boost to the net financial worth of UK households of around £600bn. The Bank said this worked out at an average benefit of around £10,000 per person.

However, financial assets are unevenly distributed around the population, meaning that the benefit was highly unequal. And an analysis by The Independent reveals that the wealthiest 10 per cent of households would have benefited from QE more than 240 times as much as the poorest 10 per cent.

The Bank's researchers suggested that the £325bn of sovereign-bond purchases enacted by the Monetary Policy Committee since March 2009 boosted asset prices across the economy by around 28 per cent. The most recent research on levels of wealth by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) in July showed that the wealthiest 10 per cent of British households held £2.5 trillion in pension wealth at the end of 2010, while the poorest 10 per cent held just £2bn.

If governments are going to use tax money to pump up the system, why should most of the benefits go to the select few? Even from a practical perspective, it's wasteful because the rich do not spend extra money but the middle class and poor will spend it. Read the rest of this post...

UK Conservatives promote NHS for-profit abroad campaign

The current Conservative government has been actively attacking the status quo at the NHS since the beginning. One day they're calling for a for-profit NHS, another it's about privatizing and now it's some of both, with the added (complex) idea of taking the system abroad to generate profits. All of this leads back to the simple question of how this helps British people have better healthcare.

While there may be specific one off examples of how the NHS has gone abroad successfully, it's a stretch to imagine taking the system abroad in a bigger way and it somehow will be a success. As someone who has opened up businesses around the world for over twenty years, there's nothing simple or straightforward about it. Assuming a few examples can be magically repeated in other countries, with other laws and different cultures is wishful thinking.

Even if it was easy to do and profits were there to be plucked from the sky, how does this improve the core mission of providing quality healthcare to the UK? This is a terrible idea that will only be a distraction. The Guardian:

Hospitals are to be encouraged by the government to sell their services abroad, setting up clinics with the famous NHS brand to pull in much-needed cash for the health service from overseas.

The scheme – which has been put together by the Department of Health (DH) and the UK Trade and Investment department (UKTI) – attracted immediate criticism from the Patients Association, concerned that in times of financial stringency at home, establishing overseas clinics would be a distraction too far and could undermine standards at home.

But the government points to clinics that already exist, run by big-name NHS trusts with a reputation around the world, such as Moorfields Eye Hospital and Great Ormond Street children's hospital in the Middle East. The government thinks there could be lucrative possibilities for NHS-standard healthcare services in growing markets such as India and China.

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Assange may be trapped in Ecuadorian embassy permanently

It's not really clear how you get out of a water-locked country when the cops can arrest you the second you step foot out of the embassy so long as you're not inside an embassy vehicle.  Assange could be forced to remain in the embassy indefinitely.  Then it's an issue of whether the media and the public care, and which way they care, in terms of what kind of pressure it puts on Ecuador or Britain. Read the rest of this post...

I guess it's now okay for foreign govts to violate the sanctity of UK embassies

So Britain is no better than Iran.  At least now we know.

What a bizarrely ignorant thing for the UK to tell Ecuador, that it's actually thinking of violating the sanctity of the Ecuadorian embassy in order to take Julian Assange into custody.

First off, it's Julian Assange, not Osama bin Laden - so let's get a little perspective here.

Second, the Brits are seriously threatening one of the most serious breaches of international law - violating the territory of a foreign embassy?  That puts British diplomats, and embassies, at serious risk in the future.  For example, if the Brits actually think that it's okay for them to raid the Ecuadorian embassy, then it's also okay for the Americans to raid British embassies in the future the next time we want to carry out one of those beloved extraordinary renditions.

From Reuters:

"Under British law we can give them a weeks' notice before entering the premises and the embassy will no longer have diplomatic protection," a Foreign Office spokesman said. "But that decision has not yet been taken. We are not going to do this overnight. We want to stress that we want a diplomatically agreeable solution."

If that's the case under British law, then I wouldn't want to be a British diplomat - because it's now fair game on Brits worldwide if their government truly takes international law this lightly. Read the rest of this post...

Is a judge compromised by blogging?

British judges were warned against blogging recently. And while our initial reaction might be to cry "over-reaction," I'm not convinced that the warning (below) is without merit.

The new rules are:

1. Blogging by judges is still okay.
2. You cannot identify yourself as a judge.
3. You cannot post content which might lead someone to question your impartiality.
4. These same rules apply to anonymous blogging.

Well, let's dissect this a bit.

1. They didn't ban judges from blogging all together, so that's a good sign.

2. Their concerns about anonymous blogging - that it's not a guarantee that your secret identity won't be found out - is justified.

3. Now for the thing about identifying as a judge. People aren't stupid. It's not very hard to figure out that someone's a judge if they use their real name. So, while not saying you're a judge will help keep the general public in the dark (because most people won't google you to figure out who you are), it's not a guarantee that they won't find out.

4. And now for the crux of the matter, bias. I'm always a bit conflicted on this one. People often raise the same concerns about journalists - not only concerns about their supposed bias, but concerns that the bias not show. Is that a nuance without a difference? After all, a journalist is just as biased whether he shows his bias or not. The only issue with revealing his bias is that after it's revealed, at least now we know about his bias. And isn't it better to know about the bias of journalists, and judges, than not know about it? Which also raises the point of "why just judges"? Isn't this concern relevant to a lot of professions - journalists, any government employee?

One downside of knowing someone's bias is that people could try to play the refs, as it were. If you knew a judge hated bloggers, for example, you might try to get before that judge (or avoid him, as the case may be) if you had a case involving a blogger. You also might try to craft your case to appeal to the judge's bias. Same goes for pitching a reporter if you knew their biases.

One problem I foresee - defining "bias." What exactly is it that the judges shouldn't be opining about? The guidance isn't clear.

Second problem, the guidance only applies to "blogging." What about Twitter? What about Facebook?

And finally, to cede one point to those concerned about judicial blogging, one could argue that blogging is no different than any other kind of writing, be it in a newspaper or where. So why issue special guidance? Because blogging is online, and is often done without an editor. Thus the sphincter of better judgment may be missing. Just as with emails, blogging makes it far too easy to fire off a nasty answer (or comment) to someone who ticks you off. It's an impulse you might not have followed through on, or at least would have caught it after the fact but before publication, had your comment been prepared for publication in the Sunday Times, and had to go through an editor first.

Now for the memo:

Blogging by Judicial Office Holders

Introduction

This guidance is issued on behalf of the Senior Presiding Judge and the Senior President of Tribunals. It applies to all courts and tribunal judicial office holders in England and Wales, and is effective immediately.

Definitions

A “blog” (derived from the term “web log”) is a personal journal published on the internet. “Blogging” describes the maintaining of, or adding content to, a blog. Blogs tend to be interactive, allowing visitors to leave comments. They may also contain links to other blogs and websites. For the purpose of this guidance blogging includes publishing material on micro-blogging sites such as Twitter.

Guidance

Judicial office holders should be acutely aware of the need to conduct themselves, both in and out of court, in such a way as to maintain public confidence in the impartiality of the judiciary.

Blogging by members of the judiciary is not prohibited. However, officer holders who blog (or who post comments on other people’s blogs) must not identify themselves as members of the judiciary. They must also avoid expressing opinions which, were it to become known that they hold judicial office, could damage public confidence in their own impartiality or in the judiciary in general.

The above guidance also applies to blogs which purport to be anonymous. This is because it is impossible for somebody who blogs anonymously to guarantee that his or her identity cannot be discovered.

Judicial office holders who maintain blogs must adhere to this guidance and should remove any existing content which conflicts with it forthwith. Failure to do so could ultimately result in disciplinary action. It is also recommended that all judicial office holders familiarise themselves with the new IT and Information Security Guidance which will be available shortly.

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A British perspective on Romney's visit to 'England'

If Romney wanted to start his visit to my home country, the UK, on the right foot he could at least get the name of the country right.

“I will leave Reno this evening on a trip abroad that will take me to England, Poland, and Israel.”

It may seem a trivial point, but Prime Minister Cameron is the leader of what used to be called the Conservative and Unionist Party. They changed the name, but its members still believe in maintaining the unity of the United Kingdom as one of their principal political goals.

The United Kingdom, while it is one country itself, also consists of four countries: England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.  When you say "England," instead of the United Kingdom, you leave out three of those countries.

To understand the political faux pas involved, imagine if a French Presidential candidate announced a visit to 'Quebec, Poland and Israel'.  Canadians who don't live in Quebec probably wouldn't be terribly amused.

This may seem a trivial point of diplomatic protocol, but this statement came in a speech on foreign policy in which Romney was trying to establish himself as a foreign policy expert.  While it may be a common mistake for many Americans to call the UK "England," people running for President should know better, especially when they visit the place.  Did the man get no briefings whatsoever?

Rather more serious was the gaffe by Romney's spokesperson that John posted earlier.

“We are part of an Anglo-Saxon heritage, and he feels that the special relationship is special,” the adviser said of Mr Romney, adding: “The White House didn’t fully appreciate the shared history we have.”

The problem here is not just the casual racism on the part of the speaker, but the assumption that these views are typical of the UK. Cameron and Clegg must be very offended by the suggestion that they could not work with a black US President. Such views may be acceptable in LDS circles, which only abandoned Brigham Young's loathsome 'Mark of Cain' racism in 1978 (under duress), in the UK they are not.

Try as they might to prove how they understand 'England' better than Obama, Romney's advisers only succeed in demonstrating how little they understand us at all. Take this passage in the original Telegraph piece, for example:

“Obama is a Left-winger," said another. "He doesn’t value the Nato alliance as much, he’s very comfortable with American decline and the traditional alliances don’t mean as much to him. He wouldn’t like singing ‘Land of Hope and Glory'.”

"Land of Hope and Glory" is a British patriotic song that extolls the virtues of imperialism and colonialism.

"Wider still and wider shall thy bounds be set;
God, who made thee mighty, make thee mightier yet."

It is not quite as explicitly jingoistic as Rule Britannia, and nowhere near as embarrassing as the third and fourth verses of the national anthem, God Save the Queen, but they're hardly sentiments that are widely shared in modern British society. It is a song that is very rarely heard outside the Last Night of the Proms, and on similar (rare) occasions.

I would not expect Obama or Romney to sing it any more than I, as a Brit, would recite the Pledge of Allegiance. In fact I would be rather offended if either of them did sing it. For better or worse, Land of Hope and Glory is a part of our heritage. It belongs to us. It certainly does not belong to either Romney or Obama. I would certainly hope that Americans would be outraged if their President did so, just as Brits would be outraged if their Prime Minister recited the
Pledge.

Finally, note the elegance of the last graph in the Telegraph piece, that neatly exposes the advisors as hypocritical liars:

The advisers spoke on the condition of anonymity because Mr Romney’s campaign requested that they not criticise the President to foreign media. After another adviser criticised Mr Obama in a German magazine last month, the President sharply instructed them that “America's political differences end at the water's edge”.

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"Mitt the twit": UK morning papers blast Romney visit

The DNC has a video summarizing the US and British coverage, then screen caps of 23 newspaper headlines in the UK:

And here's video of the mayor of London dissing Romney:

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Romney appears to have concerns about UK austerity policy

Romney was already in enough trouble this trip, now this.

From ABC:

During a meeting with Labour Party leader Ed Miliband, a British reporter asked both Miliband and Romney for their views on current British economic policy.

"While I'm on foreign soil, I'm very careful not to be critical of my own government's policies," Romney said. "I would be even more remiss if I were to be critical to any other government's policies. I will instead look forward to an exchange of ideas."

Um, the only time you refuse to answer a question because you don't want to be critical is because you were planning on being critical.  He could have simply said "I agree with the Prime Minister."  But he didn't, because he didn't want to be critical of the conservative austerity program, which is the same thing that conservatives - Romney's own party - are pushing in the US.

In poker, we call that a "tell."

Quite the seasoned diplomat, that Romney.  I wonder if he can see London from his kitchen?

Okay I was just joking about the Palin thing, but apparently the Brits have already reached a verdict on Romney.  From the Daily Mail's political editor, James Chapman:

@jameschappers: Serious dismay in Whitehall at Romney debut. 'Worse than Sarah Palin.' 'Total car crash'. Two of the kinder verdicts #romneyshambles

Chapman has more:

Can this get any worse for Romney? Boris is now mocking him in front of 60,000 people in Hyde Park#romneyshambles

The Guardian now has a story out about all the Romney gaffes.

And LeftFootForward blog notes that Romney dissed the Brits in his 2010 book as well:

“England [sic] is just a small island. Its roads and houses are small. With few exceptions, it doesn’t make things that people in the rest of the world want to buy."

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Taibbi and Spitzer on LIBOR: The business model of the banks "is corrupt and rotten to its core"

A nice three-way discussion between Eliot Spitzer (who's met corruption face to face), Matt Taibbi (who writes about it almost daily), and Dennis Kelleher (who has represented banks for a living).

As Kelleher says at 2:10 in the clip below:

Their business model ... is based on making as much money, as quickly as possible, in any way that they can not get caught (emphasis his).

Remember, Kelleher knows these guys inside-out — as Spitzer notes, he has a history as a banking industry lawyer.

This is a guy who knows these guys. He later (8:10) calls them "not banks" but "finance and trading companies."

Great discussion. Watch:



Taibbi notes (4:30), because the BBA throws out the eight outliers in the 16 daily quotes, for LIBOR to be constantly wrong, it has to be "all of them" doing it:

It's not just five banks ... really it's going to come out that it's going to be all of them. It's "cartel-style" corruption; it's not just Barklays.

Be sure to watch Kelleher's close — it touches the political system.

(If you want a backgrounder with a little more depth, here's ours.)

GP

To follow or send links: @Gaius_Publius
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British Conservatives continue assault on middle class and poor

The new plan for dumping massive healthcare costs onto others is "still under review" but if you glance at Tory history, there's a high likelihood of this succeeding. The bankers still walk free following their destructive policies yet everyone else is being asked, again, to pay for their crimes. Who has this kind of money when they're retired?

And yes, it's similar to the outrageous healthcare costs in the US that Americans already are paying whenever they get sick. For some reason, the Tories want to implement more of the US-style healthcare, which has been a colossal failure and the most expensive system in the world. What are they thinking?:

Elderly people could be forced to pay up to £100,000 [$155,000] towards the cost of their care before the state begins picking up the bill, the Health Secretary, Andrew Lansley, suggested yesterday.

The figure is nearly three times the £35,000 [$54,000] cap suggested by Andrew Dilnot, the author of an independent report into care funding. While the economist proposed a universal scheme that would cover the care fees of all pensioners, Mr Lansley indicated he was also considering the possibility of a voluntary scheme that would cap only the contributions of those who had paid for some form of insurance.

Pensioners moving into residential care homes would be able to borrow money from their local authorities, meaning that their homes would not have to be sold to meet costs until after they had died.

Whether in the UK or even here in France, I'm always amazed when people complain about their systems being inefficient or expensive or not that great. The dysfunctional US healthcare system that will start to change somewhat with Obamacare is by far the most expensive system in the world and it's been a nightmare to navigate. There's a reason why the US system is ranked #37 in the WHO rankings and the other systems are much higher.

Anyone who thinks moving towards more privatization and borrowing elements of the US system needs their head examined. It's a system exclusively by the rich, for the rich. It should have been gutted and thrown into a garbage dump rather than mildly reformed. Read the rest of this post...

Did the Bank of England approve Barclay's false LIBOR rate submissions?

See where this is headed? It spirals ever outward.

Not only are we looking at fraud and self-dealing by the largest banks in the West.

Not only are we looking at interest rate manipulation that deprives hundreds of trillions of dollars worth of interest-sensitive instruments of money they deserved to receive. (See our LIBOR backgrounder for more.)

We now have some evidence that the Bank of England — the UK central bank — had knowledge of the LIBOR Lies, and approved Barklays' artificially lowered submissions as a solution for Barklays.

If so, the Bank of England knew about it all. From ProPublica (my emphasis and paragraphing):

In October 2008, with the financial crisis at full bore, Barclays was again on the higher end of rate submissions. That month, according to filings, a senior Barclays manager spoke with a Bank of England official about Libor rates, and the idea that they might be artificially low.

Hearing of this conversation, other Barclays managers “formed the understanding” that the Bank of England wanted Barclays to lower its submissions.

This week, Barclays released an email confirming the conversation was between Diamond and Bank of England’s deputy governor Paul Tucker. It was another Barclays manager, Jerry del Missier, who determined what he thought Tucker’s comments meant, Barclays says.

Shorter Barklays: Sir, these other lying banks are killing us, making our rates look too high.

Shorter Bank of England: So? How 'bout you lie too.

This is still iffy; interpretation land. But it's pretty certain that the conversation took place, whatever meaning either side attached to the statements.

Even so — if the UK central bank knew that LIBOR was being manipulated, that itself is enough to make ... who? the UK government? ... complicit.

The parallel case would be if the Fed knew that JPMorgan Chase — a LIBOR bank, by the way — were doing the same thing. Whom do you arrest? Ben Bernanke?

And you should know that there are starting to be reports that what the Bank of England knew, the Fed knew. Business Insider:

But a research paper from the Federal Reserve's Jeremy Berkowitz (now a professor at the University of Houston) indicates that the Fed was worried about LIBOR manipulation as early as February 1998.

In that paper, Berkowitz tests alternative methods of calculating LIBOR rates specifically because the Fed has already seen three examples of misreporting from one bank in early 1996. While he writes those incidents off as being "undoubtedly...unintentionally misreported," the composition of a paper to prevent against such errors suggests a great deal of interest from the Fed in this subject. ...

While Rabinowitz's paper does not imply that banks had been colluding to manipulate rates at the time it was written, it suggests that the Fed was already be concerned about the effects of inaccurate reporting by banks about their lending practices ten years before the financial crisis.

If the Fed was alerted in the late 1990s, they had to be paying attention. Do these Big Boy bankers talk to each other? I'm guessing once a month at least — at St. Andrews.

Just keep your eyes open. This hasn't begun to blow. (And if it never does, that will be even worse news.)

Watching...

GP

To follow or send links: @Gaius_Publius
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Tony Blair's political comeback delayed due to anti-war protests

Where does one go to give the protesters a big hug and thank them for delaying the return of Tony Blair? He will still be back, but humbling this pompous jerk is much appreciated. Much like Bill Clinton, Blair did his best to put a smiley face on doing deals with bankers, showing everyone just how reasonable and with the times the left could be, all while setting up the most destructive recession since the 1930's.

In Blair's case, soon after he left office he took a comfortable position with the sleazy Wall Street power, JPMorgan for millions per year. For everyone else, they were left with the expensive bill and recession due to the banking crisis. While Blair was setting up a hedge fund with equally oily Bill Clinton, the middle class was having to deal with job cuts, services cuts and an faltering economy.

Blair also spent time as the Middle East peace envoy despite playing a key role in the destructive Iraq war. Then there were those disturbing links to Gaddafi, another man not known for peace initiatives. Since leaving office, Blair has padded his bank account to the tune of tens of millions of dollars. In the developing world, I believe that's what the West might call "blatant corruption" but in the West, we simply call it "government."

Due to his long political career of selling others down the river so he could cash in by appearing "moderate", Blair even went as far as lecturing other "leftist" politicians to follow the model that Blair and Clinton used. The long and short of his plan is to be a right winger, but throw in a bone or two for the left so that you appear nice. It worked for Blair and Clinton who partnered closely with the right while unraveling decades of policies that benefited the middle class and poor. The added bonus (for them) was that they both had good business contacts to exploit for retirement purposes.

Just as some delusional Democrats might like to see the return of Bill Clinton, there surely are enough Labour members who would like to see the return of Tony Blair. It's sick and twisted to hope for the return of someone you know will continue picking apart the system to provide even more benefit to the 1%, but some people are happy to be ignorant and accept it.

More from The Independent on the delayed return of the banking industry's best friend and current lobbyist and partner, Tony Blair.

After more than five years of focusing on foreign affairs and his business interests, Tony Blair makes his return to domestic politics tomorrow – 48 hours later than expected.

The former Prime Minister had been due to address Labour activists last night in Lambeth, south London, in an event organised by his long-standing ally Dame Tessa Jowell. But his appearance had to be cancelled at the last moment when anti-war protesters found out about the event and threatened to mount a large demonstration against his presence.

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Austerity drags down UK economy, again

We keep hearing from the Republicans that austerity is the answer, despite the fact that it doesn't work in a declining economy. There's plenty of evidence that shows austerity is destructive and fails miserably when implemented in such circumstances. This is why the Republicans talk about the need for austerity and mistakenly relate it to a household budget, because it consistently fails when forced into a tanking economy.

The example that the GOP would rather not talk about (though they loved talking about it in the early days) is the UK. It's the classic assault on the middle class and poor that many on the right want to implement in the US. Cut services, increase school fees, privatize and hand over to friends and slash budgets for proper regulation so that the 1% can continue to abuse the system.

How's it all working out for the UK? If you consider rapidly rising unemployment, Wild West banking and bleak economic outlook good, they things are great. The Guardian with more on the crisis from the notable group of lefties at KPMG.

KPMG partner Bernard Brown said: "The latest recruitment data comes as a sobering reminder that we're far away from a confident economic situation.

"Indeed, with both permanent and temporary appointments declining at the sharpest rate in nearly three years and overall demand for staff showing the weakest growth since the start of 2012, the outlook would appear bleak … A real worry for me is the acceleration in the pace of decline, which suggests this isn't a mere blip.

"If this trend were to continue, there's a very real chance we could hit a 3 million unemployed figure in the UK in the not too distant future."

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Following Barclays scandal, British customers moving from banks

When (not if) the Libor scandal reaches the US shores, there's a high likelihood of US customers shifting away from banks and into credit unions, again. The previous wave involved millions of customers shutting down their accounts with the mega-banks and moving over to smaller credit unions. Hopefully action groups are preparing for the next wave of disgust with the corruption of big banks because we're getting very close to a lot more news of blatant corruption within that putrid industry.

If you are banking with one of the big banks, chances are very high that you're only enabling bad behavior by giving them business. It's a hassle to change, but why help the corrupt? The Guardian:

Angry bank customers have been voting with their wallets and bombarding co-ops, building societies and credit unions with applications for current accounts over the past week, after the NatWest computer meltdown and the Barclays rate-rigging scandal.

Data compiled by the campaign group Move Your Money UK shows an explosion in requests to switch from large high street banks to smaller alternatives that consumers hope will take a more ethical approach. Charity Bank, which lends its savers' money to charities, has seen a 200% increase in depositors; the Ecology Bank has had a 266% jump in applications; and Triodos, a Bristol-based "sustainable bank", a 51% increase.

Credit unions, which are often small institutions investing people's savings in their local economy, have seen week-on-week increases of at least 20%, some of them up to 300%. Evidence of the growing number of switchovers comes as Ed Balls, the shadow chancellor, on Sunday calls on the government to make it easier for consumers to switch to another bank or building society. Speaking on the BBC's Andrew Marr Show, Balls will say that while people are increasingly dissatisfied with their banks, it is still too difficult for customers to switch accounts. He told the Observer: "Ministers are dragging their feet on reforms to improve competition and consumer choice in the banking sector. Consumers must come first. It's time for action."

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Barclays CEO Diamond resigns under pressure

Following yesterday's resignation of the Barclays Chairman, CEO Bob Diamond had suggested a hard fight to remain on the job. This morning Diamond resigned though the details of his exit compensation remain uncertain. As Joe Stiglitz has pointed out in his interview with The Independent, Diamond has spoken often about future bonuses being curtailed though nothing about the years of bonus money made based on phony business. Diamond, of course, has a lot of company in that department.

The Guardian is also reporting this morning that Barclays COO Jerry del Missier will also be resigning soon. Adding to the drama of the situation is Diamond's scheduled meeting with British MP's tomorrow. Diamond has allegedly told others that he would open up the scandal and detail how much previous (Labour) governments knew about the ongoing Libor scandal. Others have responded that unlike Capital Hill battles, the system in the UK is different and reacts quickly and harshly to such attacks.

Who will step in next to be Chief Gambler in Charge for Barclays? Anyone from his side of the banking world will be severely tainted. Not that being tainted has been an obstruction to power in the banking world.

The man who set up Barclays Capital and was responsible for much of Barclays’ increased profits stepped down as chief executive on Tuesday after calls for his resignation from politicians and shareholders.

Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne welcomed his resignation. "I think it's the right decision for Barclays, I think it's the right decision for the country because we need Barclays bank focussed on lending to our economy and not distracted by this argument about who should be in charge," Osborne told the BBC. "I hope it's a first step to a new culture of responsibility in British banking."

He led a storm of political criticism of Barclays in the wake of the London inter-bank offered rate (Libor) manipulation scandal.

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Barclays scandal takes down Chairman, CEO remains for now

The latest banking scandal (manipulating Libor rates by Barclays) has now claimed its first senior director, though most want more. Compared to previous banking scandals, the call for those at the top to go has been swift and strong. (Let's remember that Jamie Dimon is not only still running JPMorgan, but he still remains on the board of the New York Federal Reserve.)

At Barclays, the CEO Bob Diamond is still holding on by a thread though his days may also be numbered running the bank. The Tory government is struggling themselves to hold onto legitimacy, changing positions and trying anything they can do turn back the inevitable decline due to austerity. This is not a climate that gives them much room for normal Conservative apologist behavior for the banks. On the other side, Labour can sense that this is a key moment and they're jumping all over this latest banking ripoff.

Bob Diamond may still tough it out and hang on but at this point, his chances look increasingly slim. Talk of criminal prosecutions for market manipulation is heating up and unless something even bigger pops up soon to distract the media and public opinion, Diamond is probably going to be gone soon.

More on the ongoing scandal at Barclays via The Guardian.

But Monday's resignation did not puncture the political pressure on the bank with the Labour leader, Ed Miliband, calling on the bank's chief executive, Bob Diamond, to quit and stepped up his efforts to force the government to set up a Leveson-style inquiry into banks by bringing forward an amendment in parliament.

"I think there needs to be more a more general change of leadership including the chief executive, Bob Diamond," Miliband told ITV Daybreak.

The bank put board director Sir Michael Rake, the former top accountant and serial company director, in the new key role of deputy chairman to oversee an audit of the bank's business practices, the findings of which will be published.

For those of you with a spare 25 minutes, check out Max Keiser's report on this problem. He does a great job putting it into perspective. If Barclays and other banks can get away with this behavior, there is no rule of law left for the well connected.

I wonder how everyone now feels about the "Barclays bikes" of London now? It would be nice if governments could regain some self respect and scrap these disgusting deals where they give away the marketing rights to corporate interests. New York is doing something similar with Citibank for their new bike system but many other cities are falling victim to begging for money this way. Even my original home town, Charm City, is now eyeing such offensive programs. This is what happens when the corporate world dominates and it's not pretty. Read the rest of this post...

More banking scandals out of Wild West London

As if the latest Barclays scandal was not enough, Barclays and three other British banks are in new trouble with authorities. The political class is talking a good story, again, but we've seen it all before. There's always a lot of big talk to show the people that they're doing something though somehow the follow action never happens.

How many more times do the banks need to prove that they're untrustworthy and dangerous for society before the political class gets it? If the "three strikes and you're out" rule applied to bankers, they're all be locked up. Lucky for them, they're mostly white males with deep pockets so the rules are not the same.

More on the latest banking problem out of London via The Telegraph:

Britain’s four main high street lenders have agreed to compensate small and medium sized businesses mis-sold interest rate hedging products after the Financial Services Authority said it had found “serious failings” in the way they marketed to some customers.

Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds Banking Group and Royal Bank of Scotland have all agreed to immediately halt the sale of complex interest rate hedges to smaller businesses and have pledged to compensate potentially thousands of customers who have been hurt by the products that have left some firms with hundreds of thousands and even millions in costs they say they were never warned about.

Today, RBS (Royal Bank of Scotland) is set to be fined for the same Libor manipulation offense as Barclays, with more banks likely to be fined soon.

On a related note, Bloomberg is reporting that lawsuits related to the Barclays Libor manipulation settlement may end up costing more than the fines themselves. Once again, we've heard it all before so seeing is believing. Read the rest of this post...

Deficit increases in austerity-plagued UK

In other words, what liberal economists said would happen with austerity is happening. The Tories can't admit that their plan is a failure so will surely continue their program of destruction. Bloomberg:

The shortfall, which excludes government support for banks, was 17.9 billion pounds ($28 billion) compared with 15.2 billion pounds a year earlier, the Office for National Statistics said in London today. Economists forecast a deficit of 14.8 billion pounds, according to the median of 16 estimates in a Bloomberg News survey. Spending jumped 7.9 percent and revenue rose 1.6 percent. Income-tax receipts fell 7.3 percent.

The figures may provide ammunition to the opposition Labour Party, which says the government is making the recession worse by trying to cut the deficit too quickly. With the euro-region debt crisis intensifying, the data cast doubt on whether the government can achieve its goal of cutting the deficit to 120 billion pounds in the current fiscal year.

“The deficit is going to be higher purely on the basis that the economy is going to be weaker,” said George Buckley, chief U.K. economist at Deutsche Bank AG in London. “It’s not impossible that we get deficit that is 7.5 billion pounds higher and that growth is flat for the whole year.”

This failed economic plan is what the GOP wants to bring to America. Besides it's keen ability to undermine the social system and bring down the entire economy, it's hard to say why they think it will be a success. But maybe that's their plan. Read the rest of this post...