Link to this page: http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/issue/634/10085
From The Socialist newspaper, 4 August 2010
How the banks rip us off
CON-DEM Business Secretary Vince Cable told journalists he thinks banks are "ripping off" taxpaying customers with unfair charges and cynically using massive bail-out packages to pay their top speculators ridiculous bonuses out of the public purse.
The BBC considers this news. The rest of us are already painfully aware that the banks have had the taxpaying public, and successive pro-capitalist governments, over a barrel for some considerable time.
As a low-paid, taxpaying worker employed by one of the big bailed-out banks currently ripping off the country, I speak to customers daily who are being saddled with spiralling debt that pushes them further and further into poverty.
The bank is very well aware that its irresponsible speculation and near-collapse has contributed to this.
This corporation pays me £7 an hour to enforce its exploitative charges system, threatening me with disciplinary action if I refuse to do so.
The bank is clawing back credit from financially struggling customers to whom it previously lent with extreme irresponsibility.
It is levying impossible charges on them to raise enough capital to buy back the shares it sold to the government, so it can speculate further.
It knows it can do this because it has the backing of the courts. They previously ruled that such unethical charges are in fact legal and above board, and because this pro-capitalist government is so in thrall to the financial markets, it is powerless to do anything to stop it.
The only answer to this sorry state of affairs is the genuine nationalisation of the banks, democratically controlled by the workers, as part of a planned socialist economy based on the needs of the masses and not the profits of greed-driven capitalists.
By a bank worker
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In The Socialist 4 August 2010:
We need 'biggest movement since poll tax'
Anti-cuts campaign
'Radical' cuts require serious action
Waltham Forest's Labour council faces opposition
Coventry campaigners fight cuts of £140 million
Swansea trades council leads battle for services
Campaigners answer Bristol's 'Big Conversation'
Cuts news: Mental health services facing the axe
War and occupation
Afghanistan: US strategy in disarray
Accademies
Oppose divisive academies policy
Workplace news and analysis
Talks resume at British Airways
Angry workers strike over pay freeze and bosses' bonuses
Witch-hunted Unison activist wins tribunal
Workplace Debate
Unite general secretary election
Youth fight for jobs
We won't be a lost generation, fight for jobs and education!
No to privatisation of our universities
For real jobs, not slave labour
Environment and socialism
Profiting from wrecking the environment
Tamil Solidarity
Daily Mail admits guilt over smearing Tamil hunger striker
Socialist Party LGBT
Socialist Party events
Socialism 2010 - a weekend of discussion and debate
International socialist news and analysis
Love Parade catastrophe was entirely preventable
Garment workers demand a living wage
Socialist Party news and analysis
Tories put profits before patients
Rich just carry on getting richer
Review & Comment
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