Oh for fuck's sake

[andrewducker]

Dear Lib Dems, I am generally in favour of you, as the least objectionable party. However, when you pull ridiculous shit like this you make it very hard to like you.

If you want to protect a British company from being bought by a foreign country (which is a pretty stupid thing to want in the first place - if the British people thought it was worth more than that then they'd be buying the shares themselves rather than selling it off. They clearly think it's smarter to sell it off and invest the money elsewhere) - then the way to do it is through _law_, not preventing one of the many, many banks in the country from getting involved.

You're just attempting to point-score, which is childish, immature, and frankly beneath you.

Stop it.

Comments

[matgb]

Yup, agree. Annoyingly, one of the things that annoys me the most about the leadership currently is their general blame the banks for everything schtick.

Sometimes, they're right, but mostly they should be hammering Brown for his fuck ups.

And I'm really annoyed about the way pretty much everyone is having a go at all bonuses--we know it was the dodgy incentives of some bonuses, but performance related pay is normal, FFS.

[andrewducker]

Yeah, I thought yours was the most sensible comment on the Liberal Conspiracy post yesterday.

[chuma.livejournal.com]

As someone who used to the live in the Midlands and knows what a respected company they are there and how they used to treat their employees, You couldn't be any further wide of the mark with this post I'm afraid.


Wrong.

[stevegreen.livejournal.com]

Agreed.

[ninebelow.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure what any of those things have to do with Andy's point.

[andrewducker]

I don't care how respected they are - if you want to protect them you do it by using the Department of Business, or by blocking it through the courts. Telling RBS not to do it wouldn't have been any more than a gesture that cost the tax payer money, as it wouldn't have stopped the sale.

[stevegreen.livejournal.com]

Disagree completely, Andrew. Kraft has a track record of asset-stripping companies (which is why Terry's of York is now effectively Terry's of Poland) and this £7bn leverage deal will force it to start slicing Cadbury up just to pay its debts. That RBS - our fucking money - is being used for this abortion adds insult to injury.

Your argument is akin to somebody explaining he got into arms dealing or drug peddling because if he didn't, someone else would.

[drplokta]

If RBS didn't do it, some other bank would. The choice is not "RBS does the deal or the deal doesn't happen and Cadbury's is saved", it's "RBS (and thus the taxpayer) makes some money from the deal or RBS (and thus the taxpayer) doesn't make some money from the deal". Would you rather have have higher or lower taxes? So far, you're voting for higher.

This is, incidentally, a classic example of why it's a really bad idea to have state-owned banks.

[stevegreen.livejournal.com]

Will the taxpayer actually get a slice, or merely the money RBS already owes us? So far as I'm aware, we don't benefit in the same way as normal shareholders would.

Agree totally with your last point.

[andrewducker]

The UK government owns an awful lot of RBS shares, which it can sell at market value, but bought at 50p. So it's in their interests for RBS to make profits so that their value goes up.

[drplokta]

No, the taxpayer actually owns over 80% of RBS, and we're its majority shareholders. We'll get any dividends it pays, and the value when its shares are eventually sold back into the private sector.

[andrewducker]

Selling a company that's asking to be sold isn't arms dealing. Cadbury is owned by its shareholders - it's up to them what they want to do with their shares, and if they want to sell to Kraft then the government either has to use legislation to stop them or buy the shares themselves. Ordering RBS to stay out of a perfectly legal business decision makes no sense at all.

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

No, this is basically BNP style nationalist flagwaving in an attempt to garner popular support.

As the last year or so has shown, the economy is global, it's not just a whole bunch of countries who can do everything for themselves and not care about anyone else.

If it was the other way round and Cadbury were buying a foreign chocolate company, it'd be trumpeted about how Cadbury was a great british company and it would be great for britain. There are two sides to every story, and in this case the usually more rational british news outlets are descending to tabloid levels of RAR WE ARE BRITISH KEEP BRITISH THINGS BRITISH without considering for a moment that foreign companies bought by british ones might have felt that way in their turn.

As soon as people start talking about "british" jobs and "british" companies with any kind of moral outrage, they might as well start reading the Daily Mail and voting BNP because that's the language that they are speaking.

[stevegreen.livejournal.com]

I look forward to your explaining this to the people in Bournville now virtually assured of unemployment once Kraft begins breaking the firm up to pay off the £7bn debt this over-leveraged deal will create.

[andrewducker]

So what you're saying is that the people of Bournville have a God-given right to those jobs that the people of somewhere else don't? I don't have a job for life. You don't have a job for life. Nobody I know has a job for life. But the people of Bournville must be protected against all comers? Because there are three possibilities here:
1) The best place in the world for Kraft to make Chocolate is Bournville - because of local expertise, and there already being a factory there. In which case, hurrah!
2) It's cheaper to make it somewhere else. In which case there will still be jobs, just somewhere else. And hurrah for the people who live there, who will now have jobs! The British government will then have to help the people of Bournville to find new jobs, retrain, etc. That's what they're there for.
3) The market for chocolate has dropped, so there's less jobs for chocolate makers. In which case Bournville people are out of luck - but would have been anyway, and this deal doesn't actually change anything.

I firmly believe that protectionism is an awful thing. If we can't run a chocolate making company as well as someone else, then we shouldn't be doing it. It's sad that real people lose their jobs when this happens - but people lose their jobs all the time, and this country has a social mechanism (that I thoroughly approve of) for helping people to find new jobs, injecting money into poor areas, etc. It's not perfect by any means - and I wish that more was spent, in smarter ways, but it's better than banning foreign companies from buying ours - which would lead to them doing the same to us, in a vicious cycle that would leave us all poorer (and with less jobs).

[stevegreen.livejournal.com]

You keep missing the point, Andrew. I have no interest in the vague nationality of Kraft -- for all I know, its majority shareholder could be a UK institution -- it's the deal itself I object to. Kraft will virtually bankrupt itself in order to take control of Cadbury, and the only way to pay of that debt will be to shed jobs, at Kraft, at Cadbury, wherever. This is the stupidity highlighted by Warren Buffet.

And there are always places where, thanks to subsistence wages, disregard for health and safety, all the usual suspects, most items can be produced at a lower unit price.

As for not having a job for life, I don't have a job period (and no, I'm not claiming benefits). Then again, I don't have much of a life, either.

[joexnz.livejournal.com]

We had a cadburys factory in Dunedin, nz (still do)
cadburys has long since ceased not being an international company
so fairs, fair
run with the big boys, expect to get bought out by them

[princealbert.livejournal.com]

"which is a pretty stupid thing to want in the first place - if the British people thought it was worth more than that then they'd be buying the shares themselves rather than selling it off. They clearly think it's smarter to sell it off and invest the money elsewhere"

I think you're mixing up smart with greed.

[andrewducker]

They're only investing in the company for the money. If you don't want your company to be owned by people investing to make cash then you don't sell shares to the public. Cadburys ceased to mean "nice" the moment they had a public share offering.

I totally agree with one of the articles in the Guardian yesterday - object to the way the banks are run? Switch to the Co-Op!

[woodpijn.livejournal.com]

That Guardian article was one of the most spectacular examples of point-missing I've seen.

Bragg's protest wasn't about bankers' bonuses per se - there's no problem with privately-funded banks paying bonuses. It was about the taxpayer-funded RBS using taxpayer money to pay huge bonuses. And so withholding tax makes some degree of sense (although I'm not convinced it'll actually work), but switching banks doesn't, especially if you're not a customer of RBS in the first place.

It's like saying "If you object to the government spending your money on bombing the Middle East, don't go on an anti-war march - just switch your bank to the Co-op because they don't fund arms traders." Non-sequitur.

(FWIW, I do bank with Co-op.)

[andrewducker]

I disagree. The problem is occurring because there's a general policy of all banks paying bonuses. You can't change that for just one bank unless you want them to fail - you have to change the culture. One way to do that, long term, is to support banks that don't do it.

[stevegreen.livejournal.com]

Assuming you have a choice. When the friendly society I belonged to was demutualised (I voted against), I was issued shares. When the newly-formed company was bought out, my shares were sold against my will for a knock-down price. The individual shareholder is powerless against the block vote of the institutions.

[andrewducker]

Yeah, you have my sympathy there. I work at a company that was a mutual until a few years back, and is now a PLC. If I cared about the ethics of it all _that_ much then I'd move my investments to an ethical fund, or to the CoOp.

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

I think he has a point actually.
We're effectively paying for Kraft to buy Cadbury. If we can afford to bankroll it, why not buy it ourselves?

And it's not as simple as British people buying the shares. Kraft is bidding over the share price and directors are pretty much compelled to accept.

[andrewducker]

well, they aren't compelled to accept if they think that the shares will rise to a higher value anyway, because of the way they're running the company. And, of course, the shareholders can overrule (or sack) them at any time.

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

But the question remains: why should the UK govt, the major shareholder of a bank, bankroll this foreign takeover? If we don't care who owns Cadbury, then fine, but if it a matter for concern, then something can be done. I suppose Kraft could get the money elsewhere, but still. There's principle here.

[andrewducker]

What principle? If it's the principle that "We should protect our strategically vital chocolate factories" then that's a matter for law/the department of business.

And the whole point is that stopping RBS from bankrolling it _isn't_ stopping it, it's just preventing the taxpayers from getting the money back they lent to RBS!

[a-pawson.livejournal.com]

There is no principle here. RBS is still being run as a business so that one day the shares can be sold again to private investors and the UK will get its money back.

RBS is presumably making a lot of money from these loans, banning it from doing so will just mean one of its competitors will and RBS will suffer as a result. And besides Cadbury is most likely not British owned anyway. The shares will belong to all sorts of institutions, pension funds and individuals of varying nationalities.

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

I think there absolutely is principle here. Maybe not for Cadbury's, but in general. We own that business. If we don't like the things it does, it's our call. Banksie made a call a few months ago for the govt to stop RBS from making unethical investments and he was spot on.

[andrewducker]

No. Absolutely not. If the government wants to stop unethical investments then it can pass a law making them illegal. Crippling one bank by causing large numbers of its investors to move elsewhere is gesture politics.

If the government was planning on owning RBS permanently then I can see it being different, but as it is it's planning on being a temporary shareholder until the share price rises high enough to back out without making a loss. Its major responsibility is to the taxpayers - to get our money out of their ASAP without making a loss.

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

So what kind of investments is it okay for RBS to make?

[andrewducker]

Any that are legal. That's what the law is there for. If the government believes that certain acts should not be carried out by banks then it should be making them illegal.

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

There are things I don't mind citizens doing but don't want the government doing in my name with my cash. Probably.

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

And: gestures matter.

[missedith01.livejournal.com]

Not sure when the British people ever got a say? This is to do with a very few making large profits out of job losses and asset stripping. It's capitalism, sure, but that doesn't mean that any of us have to like it.

Personally, I'm refreshed to hear a politician float the idea that we don't have to sit and do nothing. I agree stopping RBS making the loans wouldn't stop the deal, something more is needed, but at least the Lib Dems are thinking about how to stop it, and not just making idiotic comments about the assurances Kraft are giving about the future, which aren't worth shit.

[andrewducker]

Why on earth would we want to stop it? I'm totally against the idea of reserving jobs for the British. It's horribly nationalist provincialism that I expect of the Daily Mail.

[missedith01.livejournal.com]

I'm against people losing their jobs in general, and particularly when it is done to make a few people rich. Nothing to do with being British or not being British.

I'm also keen for this country to continue have a manufacturing industry. In my part of the world, that's how people have traditionally paid the bills.

[andrewducker]

Except people won't lose their jobs overall. They might shift around the place, and end up in other countries - but unless the demand for chocolate has dropped, we'll still end up with people making the stuff.

[missedith01.livejournal.com]

I don't believe that. And even if it were true that jobs of equal value were to be created elsewhere, I'd prefer not to have my Fruit and Nut shipped to me from the other side of the world.

[andrewducker]

You'd rather they had their Fruit and Nut shipped to them from the other side of the world?

[missedith01.livejournal.com]

Yes. On the grounds that I eat more FnN than they do, and probably by some distance. In fact, if there was any concern for the environment, it should be manufactured in my garage. :-)

[andrewducker]

This is true - except that everyone would need to have their own chocolate making machinery, which probably be a lot less efficient, and thus use more energy (both to make the machinery, and to make the chocolate).

I wonder how much of the energy spent on getting a chocolate bar from (say) Bulgaria to you would be spent on making the bar, and how much on the transport.

[xquiq.livejournal.com]

"If the British people thought it was worth more than that then they'd be buying the shares themselves rather than selling it off"

The British people will not mobilise themselves in this manner without some kind of incredibly strong catalyst. One would require a British institution or a spectacularly good campaign to stave this off.

FWIW I have reservations about Kraft given their record. Unfortunately (if we assume) a bank operates on the basis of return on assets (broadly) so therefore if the best return to the sharedholders (including British government) is to finance this deal they'll go with it. The bank will not generally have a wider 'good of the country' view in mind.