One law for them.....Chapter 86

PPI

“Payment protection insurance is the biggest ever mis-selling rip-off of British consumers, far exceeding personal pensions, endowment mortgages or split-capital investment trusts.

Sales of the expensive but more often than not worthless policies to ineligible buyers supposedly covering loans, mortgages or credit cards were made to maybe as many as 20m consumers from the Nineties to 2010. The credit boom after 2001 saw an estimated £34bn of the hugely profitable PPI policies sold by the high-street banks, building societies, credit-card companies and other lenders. Compensation paid since 2011 is £7.5bn.

Yet this is a massive financial crime seemingly without criminals. Customers have been robbed; shareholders have been stuffed. But there have been no criminal charges of fraud, deception or theft (from policyholders, or from employers via PPI-driven bonuses) against any of those who peddled PPI. No director from a major lender has been sacked. None has been banned or even disciplined by the Fundamentally Supine Authority for mis-selling PPI. ....

....The regulatory response appears to be that compensation equals justice, that the guilty will pay. Except they don’t. Compensation is paid by the shareholders, not by those who profited from commissions and bonuses all the way up into the executive suite. PPI profit margins could be up to 90%, and at its peak, around 2005, PPI may have represented more than 50% of UK retail banking profits. Bonuses from the branch and call centre level to the boardroom were driven by PPI incentives.” Private Eye ‘In the City‘ 11/1/13 

The article goes on to detail at considerable length the bankers who benefitted from all of this - many of whom have since gone on to work for the government .....

Just before Christmas a city suit was challenged about the lack of criminal proceedings on the ‘Today’ programme. He was horrified to even contemplate such a process when it had all been ‘down to business.’ 

The Libor fixing scandal followed similar lines - the knowledge went right up to the top - fines are paid by shareholders not the culpable. 

And no-one has gone to jail. 

All the huffing and puffing about ‘welfare’ and ‘benefit fraud’ is as nothing when compared to the grand larcenies carried out by supposedly respectable institutions. The inaction of our egregious politicians can be explained quite simply. Many of them are cut from the same cloth and share similar values and backgrounds. 

On the take and on the make.