banks still swindling customers
Which magazine has published a report that claims banks are still finding “sneaky” ways to add chrges to customers accounts.
It claims the rate on authorised overdrafts is at its highest level since records began in the mid-1990s.
RBS scandal
RBS, the royal bank of Scotland, has just announced the biggest ever corporate annual loss in UK history (Radio 3 news, this morning). £24,000,000,000 was he reported loss, and the ex-chief exec currently has a pension of £650,000 per year … at the age of 50
Times update today (24/11/2009):
RBS chief Stephen Hester and his [...]
who owns personal data on Facebook
Facebook scare about users’ data and who owns it.
Quote:Facebook would retain personal data even if someone deleted their account. this caused the rumpus. It might seem easy to ’succeed’ with an idea like Facebook, but it’s also easy to come to grief ..
japanese stocks 26 year lowest
Japanese stocks traded close to 26-year lows in Tuesday trading as investor concerns about the health of the financial system persisted.
on BBC news this morning.
Is anywhere exempt from this madness? a tiny country somewhere? an island?
US unemployed at record level:
US unemployed at record level:
On the BBC news today, and with a full story here
It has just exceeded the level of 1992, and the speed of increase is alarming.
open source UK government
UK government backs open source
Good news (at last) from the Uk government. The BBC has this story, and my favourite quote:
According to some in the open source industry, the shift from proprietary standards could save the government £600m a year.
Microsoft have had many institutions monopolised, likewise retailers of hardware [...]
largest quarterly loss in US corporate history.
Sheesh. The Uk stock exchange has reached its lowest value for 6 years after news like this from USA:
the largest quarterly loss in US corporate history.
The full story is on the Beeb, and considering AIG’s business is Insurance, you’d wonder how they’ve been looking after their own interests, let alone their customers.
Inequality tax overdue
And about time too. The nonsense about 2trickle down wealth” is shown by facts to be a complete sham. In recent decades things have got even worse, as the power of immense wealth is used to create further bondage of the disadvantaged.
A fierce debate within the government on how to tackle entrenched wealth inequality – [...]
Quantitative easing eases itself !
“
The Bank of England’s rate-setters have decided to pump an extra £25bn into the economy in their quantitative easing (QE) programme.
They also kept interest rates unchanged at 0.5% for an eighth month.”
The BBC economics editor (Stephanie Flanders) says:
“The MPC is not ready to take its foot off the accelerator, but it is easing it off [...]
barclays share price falls again
the barclays yoyo continues to surprise
There’s lots of mostly good news about Barclays Bank, as their share price continues to fall. does this make sense? Apparently not. most analysts recommend ‘Strong buy’ for their shares, even before the price began to fall.
The only reason that springs to mind is that last week a major shareholder [...]