Over the last couple of months, we have published much-read extracts from Ray Perman and Ian Fraser’s books, Hubris and Shredded respectively, to mark the tenth anniversary of the financial crisis that hit western capitalist economies in 2008.Now in the latest Sceptical Scot podcast we ask Scotland’s two top financial commentators to explain what lessons, if any, we have … [Read more...] about Too big to reform? How banks capture the state
RBS
Conclusion? RBS Shredded Part Four
Fred Goodwin is deeply culpable for what happened to RBS, given that he was chief executive from 2000 to 2008.If he had run the bank differently, if he had been less blind to risk, if he hadn’t pushed for rapid growth in leveraged finance, commercial property and structured finance at the worst point in the cycle and if he hadn’t bought parts of ABN AMRO in order to assuage … [Read more...] about Conclusion? RBS Shredded Part Four
The Guilty Men: RBS Shredded Part Three
Royal Bank of Scotland was not alone in being shabby, reckless, greedy, dysfunctional and corrupt during the build-up to the crisis. Nor in its aftermath.Many other banks only survived as a result of broader rescue programmes and money-printing by central banks. The Royal Bank was very much a creature of its age. With growth its main focus, the board of directors and its … [Read more...] about The Guilty Men: RBS Shredded Part Three
Capital flight – how RBS was shredded: Part Two
At the end of August (2008), Alistair Darling (Chancellor of the Exchequer) gave a remarkably candid interview to The Guardian’s Decca Aitkenhead at his dynastic croft on Great Bernara, an island off the Isle of Lewis.The chancellor said the economic times ‘are arguably the worst they’ve been in 60 years’. He also said: ‘And I think it’s going to be more profound and … [Read more...] about Capital flight – how RBS was shredded: Part Two
How RBS was shredded: Part One
‘I am very disappointed. I am numbed by it. I am also galvanised by it.’ Fred Goodwin, August 2008 as RBS unveils historic pre-tax loss of £691m The summer of 2008 was marked out by atrocious weather, Chris Hoy’s three gold medals at the Beijing Olympics, Amy Winehouse singing ‘Love Is a Losing Game’ at pop festivals around the UK, Russia’s war in Ossetia . . . and a calm … [Read more...] about How RBS was shredded: Part One