That Corbyn fella...

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I think the boom in the financial sector in London has definitely generated a massive amount of work and income for the construction industry, look at all the huge stuff being built. Also the service and retail industries, all the people who sell booze, food, coffee, bicycles etc to all the people who now come to the city to work. Whether you like it or not, london is a better place to set up a business and find work due to the boom in this industry. The question is: do these benefits justify the greed, and massively bloated salaries of many in the financial sector, and the resulting widening of the rich /poor divide? I suspect the consensus on this forum would be a big fat NO.

Some questions for Corbyn supporters.

What do you think the purpose and role of government is?
Are you opposed to the free market?

the free market?

Any answer to this depends on what you mean by "the free market"...

Massive boon for the cocaine industry.

I fear you are confusing Corbyn supporters with Engels supporters.

Regardless of what the newspapers say Jez isn't actually a Communist, he just has a beard and hat. Not even that good a beard TBH.

Possibly I am. What economic system does Corbyn believe in?

Now, you'll have to correct me if I'm wring, but doesn't the financial sector pretty much only benefit the very richest? And isn't the financial sector also extremely volatile and most likely to cause a recession every 5 or 10 years because it's run and staffed by criminals and gamblers?

In short, no.

I (generally) love making generalisations and sweeping statements, but you've gone seriously all out there. It's a bit like saying all English working class people are lazy.

First off, saying financial sector is like saying the service industry. You're starting from too broad a base.

Second, à huge number of people are employed at every level, from cleaners, to facilities managers, to back office admin teams all the way through to the tiny number of people leading giant financial institutions.

In terms of where the benefit goes, as well as employment, tax, and funding complementary jobs lots of areas of FS provide gains to lots of people - interest on your bank account, pensions, funding for start-ups. Yes, of course there are certain areas that you can say don't generate any "new" revenue and simply continually move money between different groups. But as a proportion of the whole market I'd guess that is tiny.

It would have been great if we'd retained some of our manufacturing infrastructure, but in terms of our position as one of the wealthiest and influences countries in the world a large part of that is due to London being the financial capital of the world.

Does he believe in social ownership of the means of production, or does he accept capitalism albeit with a higher level of tax and government provision of services?

http://goo.gl/EM3pqs

^lmgtfy fail

Yep, fair enough. Must try harder not to fall into the trap of easy targets I suppose.
However, is it fair to blame the recessions of the last 20 years on the financial industry? Or is that a broader symptom of ever growing corporate power and greed?

ps. I keep noticing typos in my posts - I'm gonna blame it on fucking OS X autocorrect.

https://youtu.be/TmGFPigYPLQ

This fella works on the issue of tax havens predominantly but from 5 mins in he discusses the dominance of the finance sector in countries, in particular the UK, and compares it to the resource curse in countries with oil and how it fucks manufacturing etc. Not definitive but tapers the pro finance positions above

His book Treasure Islands totally changed the way I look at the global economy. Worth a read

The problem with financial services is that the commodity they deal in doesn't exist. It's fictional money, traded on fictional money. It's held together on, essentially, faith. It has no real world worth short of what the banks tell you it's worth... and when it all comes tumbling down a-la 2008, it's bailed out with real money by real taxpayers.
The banks continue to do what they do without fear of penalty. It's going to happen again.

By the last 20 years do you mean the post 9/11 slump and the 2007 Financial Crisis?

I think you can mainly lay the blame for 9/11 with the perpetrators. The paralysis post is a fairly natural reaction as the markets never react well to unknowns.

Obviously just my 2p but I think anyone who blames any one group for the 2007 Financial Crisis is probably incorrect. To me it was a clear systemic failing at every level.

it's bailed out with real money by real taxpayers.

Aren't you contradicting yourself? Why is the money the Government "gives" any more/less notional?

Well mainly because the government then cuts everything in order to pay back the debt/reduce the deficit. Mind you that could just be a nasty government fucking everyone over because they like doing the evil thing.

I like that Hugo and Sebastian (me) are debating matters of socialism. Couldn't be more Islington dinner party if it tried.

Indeed!

Next stops are the "coffee thread" , followed by the "whiskey thread", closely followed by the "I know it's not exactly fair trade and I don't usually, but let's have a cheeky line thread" .

Depends upon your definition of 'financial services'.
To most people this would, some kind of instant access banking account,
a savings account, potentially a mortgage and various insurance policies.
Add on some foreign curreny availability, and
internet access and atm cards that function all over the world
and for most people that is all they will ever need.

What the banks have done is re-interpreted their Banking Licenses
as permission to use the security and value of domestic properties,
often by taking over de-mutualised building societies,
to bet/speculate on any commodity you have ever heard of,
and many you could never imagine.

No UK bank has ever made a £1billion profit lending to small engineering firms in the East Midlands,
but they all did speculating on metals, vegetable oils, wheat, soya
and, of course, fixing the LIBOR rate.

National Poetry Week was last week, wasn't it?

No UK bank has ever made a £1billion profit lending to small engineering firms in the East Midlands,
but they all did speculating on metals, vegetable oils, wheat, soya
and, of course, fixing the LIBOR rate.

UK universal banking has traditionally been retail & corporate heavy - the investment banks have tended to be secondary.

Barclays made £2.8bn pre-tax profit from their Personal & Corporate Banking business last year and £1.3bn from Cards. They made £1.4bn from the investment bank.

Lloyds made £7.8bn from retail, commercial, consumer, insurance & tsb. They don't really do IB that much, other than treasury.

RBS - Personal & Business Banking £3bn, Commercial & Private Banking £1.7bn, Corporate & Institutional Banking £3.5bn loss. Even before 2008, their IB was dwarfed by corporate & retail.

Breakdown of what went to businesses to create growth and what went to leveraging up people in the housing market and consumer debt would be interesting