One rule for bankers .....

Click on the link for larger image.
Be sure to take a good, long, hard look. The original won't be there to see come Monday

by johnofgwent

To reprise the title of this post. One rule for banks and bankers ...

... and another completely different one for mutual building societies, it seems. Thie following is taken from the "about us" page of the website of the Dunfermline Building Society.

With assets topping £3.3 billion, an electronic distribution service augmenting a network of 34 branches and 37 agencies and an expanded Commercial and Social Housing department, the Society is well equipped to meet the challenges of the financial marketplace.

The Society is a mutual organisation and as such, exists to serve the needs of members without the necessity to satisfy shareholders. Profits made are sufficient only to provide for the costs of the business. Coupled with significant and continuous investment in communities across Scotland through sponsorship and support to various organisations, the Society has earned the title of "SCOTLAND'S BUILDING SOCIETY".

What was that saying about good intentions being used as a paving material ? Well, the sociery is certainly going to hell in a handcart. The BBC News website reports that the The Dunfermline Building Society is to be put on the market by the government after it effectively collapsed. It was hoped the Dunfermline could continue with a government bailout of between £60m to £100m. However, the "tri-partite regulators" - the Bank of England, the Financial Services Authority (FSA) and the UK Government - have decided it is no longer viable, with a £26m loss expected to be announced next week.

Now maybe they deserve this because it sems the management of this mutual building society semto have lost £9 million on its IT business (I wonder who they outsourced it to ?) and "diversified" into property mortgages operated by those two fine upstanding property loan companies GMAC (the General Motors Acceptance Corporation, organisers of credit cards corporate fund deals and leases on company vehicles worldwide) and Lehmann Brothers

Someone tell me what the hell a Scottish Mutual Building Society is doing dabbling in that kind of hocus pocus. Please. But on the other hand, if the loss is only £26 million, well, can someone remind me again how much money had to be thrown into "Fred The Shred's" pension pot to give him that index linked £700,000 a year ? About that sum, wasn't it.