Someones pension fund takes a big hit, someones pension fund shows a profit, some trader somewhere gets fired and starts to liquidate his toys to see if he's got enough to live on for a year or two.

Do people still pay into a pension scheme?
Bloody madness if you believe what some random bloke tells you what you will get in 20/30/40 years time.
Ask him what the weather will be like tomorrow.

Some people don't have any choice.

I stopped giving the t0ssers my money to "invest" (read, gamble) when NatWest wrote to me with an end of year statement telling me they were "pleased to enclose your annual statement".

They had LOST 20% of the value of my pension pot in one year, and they were "pleased" to tell me that - I'd hate to open a statement and find that they were sorry to tell me something.

Having said that NatWest have finally seen the light and come to understand what I told them many years ago - that they are fookin useless at gambling on the stock market and they have sold all of their pension and investment business to Aviva - who then went and lost some more of my money last year, I'll be glad when they've spent all of my money and they stop sending me those fookin annoying letters.

cod'ead wrote:So because some useless c**t manages to lose the GDP of a sub-Saharan nation, it's the regulator's fault? Nothing at all to do with the culture of gambling and greed that has been fostered by this guy's employers then? You can clearly see in my original post where I blame the regulator for this happening. DaveO wrote:It says the culture on the trading floors of the banks and in the banks themselves has just not changed. They have just carried on since 2008 as before. Rubbish. I joined my bank in September 2008 and the culture is vastly different than it was when I joined. cod'ead wrote:Apparently he is very different from what you describe - LINK This type of transaction shouldn't be regulated, it should be abolished. It offers absolutely no benefit to anyone other than the protagonists, it is not an investment, simply because there is buggerall to invest in. It is gambling, pure and simple, no different to the turn of a card or a roulette wheel. The fact it is generally used to mitigate potential losses in real investments is no excuse, all it does is offer a safety net to those making the investments. If they need that, perhaps they shouldn't be making the investment in the first place. You haven't read the links at all have you? Or if you have you're too thick to understand what is going on (and hence shouldn't be commenting).

cod'ead wrote:So because some useless c**t manages to lose the GDP of a sub-Saharan nation, it's the regulator's fault? Nothing at all to do with the culture of gambling and greed that has been fostered by this guy's employers then? You can clearly see in my original post where I blame the regulator for this happening. DaveO wrote:It says the culture on the trading floors of the banks and in the banks themselves has just not changed. They have just carried on since 2008 as before. Rubbish. I joined my bank in September 2008 and the culture is vastly different than it was when I joined. cod'ead wrote:Apparently he is very different from what you describe - LINK This type of transaction shouldn't be regulated, it should be abolished. It offers absolutely no benefit to anyone other than the protagonists, it is not an investment, simply because there is buggerall to invest in. It is gambling, pure and simple, no different to the turn of a card or a roulette wheel. The fact it is generally used to mitigate potential losses in real investments is no excuse, all it does is offer a safety net to those making the investments. If they need that, perhaps they shouldn't be making the investment in the first place. You haven't read the links at all have you? Or if you have you're too thick to understand what is going on (and hence shouldn't be commenting).

The City of London (and the global financial system in general) is so riddled with fraud that these financial shenanegans will eventually bring down the entire world economy.

double post

Go on then, enlighten all of us:

What benefits, other than a bit of tax (if they don't manage to avoid paying it), do such transactions bring to society?

What jobs do they create?

What saleable, useful item do they produce?

Assuming the trade the FT have outlined is accurate (and it's highly likely it is) then JP are hedging the risk they have against the top 125 US corporates. So I don't know - do you think (look it up) they might be trying to offset any potential losses on loans they have made to top US corporates? Loans which allow those corporates to invest and create jobs?

I am consistently astonished at your ignorance. It's all there for you.

What do they "invest" in to hedge those bets though?

They are placing bets on the misfortune of other companies, commodities, currencies etc among other activities. What exactly does that bring to the party, especially when the temptation is there to hurry the potential misfortunes along a little?

I had to stop paying into mine when our company had to put us on a three day week due to lack of orders and pressure from the bank to cut costs yet again.