cambridgefox Posted 17 December 2014 Posted 17 December 2014 Why are bankers an unfair drain on society? I work in banking, know lots of people who do, and I wouldn't call any if them that or even close. Perhaps I don't know the 'types' of bankers that maybe you are referring to though...Did I tell you about the time when ( past tense) I was a manager at Lloyds and we had a load of wookies come in protesting about third world debt at 12.45 on a Saturday, Centre of Cambridge.They handcuffed themselves to desks,I told them we shut at 1pm and I couldn't care less if they stayed there all weekend.Staff went, I locked the door and waited ididn't activate the alarms,which I should have..Few minutes later they wanted to go.job done and I won.Must say when people talk about bankers and the problems they caused the country 90% of people slag off the wrong type of bankers eg someone on customer services.
Freesolo Posted 17 December 2014 Posted 17 December 2014 I love Russel Brand and i find the "Trews" very entertaining. He is a multi-millionaire and could live a easy life but takes the time to try and help people who it much worse situations than himself. He doesn't play on his drug addict past it always comes up because the media bring it upAs for people who say he isn't funny i guess its subjective but i think he is ****ing hilarious
Freesolo Posted 17 December 2014 Posted 17 December 2014 Why are bankers an unfair drain on society? I work in banking, know lots of people who do, and I wouldn't call any if them that or even close. Perhaps I don't know the 'types' of bankers that maybe you are referring to though... He is talking about the board of the bank the CEO's and massive shareholders not the general everyday employees
MooseBreath Posted 17 December 2014 Posted 17 December 2014 Why are bankers an unfair drain on society? I work in banking, know lots of people who do, and I wouldn't call any if them that or even close. Perhaps I don't know the 'types' of bankers that maybe you are referring to though... Almost a decade ago now, they took a few risky gambles and the economy paid for it in a big way and people still haven't got over it. Further issues like the libor scandal don't help. People then see a small proportion of bankers getting big bonuses and come to the simplistic conclusion that they're being paid well to fail in their jobs. Ignoring of course that large proportion of wealth in this country is generated by the financial services industry and without that, we'd be a whole lot poorer. There's some merit to the distrust of bankers but most of it is short sighted, dumb and dirty envy.
DB11 Posted 17 December 2014 Posted 17 December 2014 I didn't really like that as a read. And what was the point in putting "Russel" after every other word? It just broke up the flow of it. I managed seven paragraphs..
Captain... Posted 17 December 2014 Posted 17 December 2014 Why are bankers an unfair drain on society? I work in banking, know lots of people who do, and I wouldn't call any if them that or even close. Perhaps I don't know the 'types' of bankers that maybe you are referring to though... I'm referring to the people that grind Brand's gears.
Guest MattP Posted 17 December 2014 Posted 17 December 2014 He is talking about the board of the bank the CEO's and massive shareholders not the general everyday employees Be a good idea to actually turn up at the building of the former then wouldn't it rather than the latter? Although what right Brand thinks he has to start criticising CEOS and people in boardrooms while telling us what they should and shouldn't even I have no idea.
David Guiza Posted 18 December 2014 Posted 18 December 2014 This is how I feel. Why the hell does anyone give a fvck what this guy thinks? He shouldn't be famous. He's never been funny, which means he's just annoying. He's made a career of being a prat (not by telling jokes or being a funny person like actual comedians) and now he wants people to take him seriously on whatever opinion he's forcing down our throats. I used to know his type at school. Dressed liked a twat, hair like a twat, acted like a sarcastic, unfunny twat. And thought he was really intelligent and special because he watched the news and had an opinion on some political matters. I bet he only likes bands if no one else has heard of them as well. What a bore. So because YOU don't find him funny, he has no right to famous or use his fame to attempt to make a difference? There are hundreds of comedians that I cannot stand but I wouldn't go as far to say Miranda, Lee Evans, Sarah Millican, Michael Mccintyre etc shouldn't be famous. If you listen to any of his old work, he's always been serious about certain issues - it's not a new agenda that he's dreamed up for 15 minutes of fame. Without meaning to sound too much like a hipster, just because his persona and comedy doesn't appeal to the mainstream, doesn't mean he doesn't have a large fan base who will listen to what he says. In regards to him 'dressing like a twat', not being funny etc, I don't think it's affected his social life a great deal , Of course he's always going to be fighting a losing battle because of his history and the nature of his profession. He's thrown himself into the public eye to be ridiculed, and that has happened accordingly. Regardless of all of that however, he hasn't done a great deal wrong with regards to his campaign, some people have taken him far too seriously and judged him as some kind of recycled hipster Che Guevara or Malcolm X type chap, which really isn't the case. Anyway, each to their own :xmassmile:.
Finnegan Posted 18 December 2014 Posted 18 December 2014 I'd go so far as to say Miranda Heart and Russel Brand should not be famous.
Samilktray Posted 18 December 2014 Posted 18 December 2014 At the end of the day hes banged some fine women, earned a decent wedge and probably has a cinema room in his house. All this off of being an unfunny prat, hes doing alright for himself.
Bettsj2 Posted 18 December 2014 Posted 18 December 2014 Never really knew about him until I was given tickets to see him do stand up at the YMCA and it was hilarious. Started downloading his Radio 2 show after that and it had me in stitches every time. This stuff is just plain boring. Its fine that he has opinions on the bankers and politics. In fact, its great that he uses his celebrity to get his many fans engaged in political debate as its much needed in this country. The problem with this gash is it has no meaning. Like the letter said, if he turned up and they said, please come in and listened to what he had to say, would it make a difference? Of course not. I worked with quite a few commercial bank managers from RBS/Natwest and not one of them is a big bad ogre, stealing from the taxpayer. They work hard, take a lot of shit and the bonuses arent massive. The traders that caused the issues took risks and got burnt. As a result it fvcked us all, but the system fundamentally is fine. Make big money, get big bonuses. No problem. The letter was a bit boring. Eat your lunch on a bench and enjoy a couple of hours off. Job done.
James. Posted 18 December 2014 Posted 18 December 2014 Never really knew about him until I was given tickets to see him do stand up at the YMCA and it was hilarious. Started downloading his Radio 2 show after that and it had me in stitches every time. This stuff is just plain boring. Its fine that he has opinions on the bankers and politics. In fact, its great that he uses his celebrity to get his many fans engaged in political debate as its much needed in this country. The problem with this gash is it has no meaning. Like the letter said, if he turned up and they said, please come in and listened to what he had to say, would it make a difference? Of course not. I worked with quite a few commercial bank managers from RBS/Natwest and not one of them is a big bad ogre, stealing from the taxpayer. They work hard, take a lot of shit and the bonuses arent massive. The traders that caused the issues took risks and got burnt. As a result it fvcked us all, but the system fundamentally is fine. Make big money, get big bonuses. No problem. The letter was a bit boring. Eat your lunch on a bench and enjoy a couple of hours off. Job done. Commercial bank managers aren't really the focus here and will probably be paid less than a junior investment banking employee. As for the system being fundamentally fine... errr I think if the last few years have told us absolutely anything it's that the opposite is true. And if you asked the central banks (Fed, ECB, etc) that have pumped unprecedented amounts of money into the economy just to keep the wheels turning I think they would agree. Anyway my issue generally with this thread is that people seem to judge Brand's views in accordance with what they think of him as a person, including the guy who wrote the open letter. People should put their feelings about Brand to one side and think about the issues he's raising. Does no one think he has just a little bit of a point?
Webbo Posted 18 December 2014 Posted 18 December 2014 People should put their feelings about Brand to one side and think about the issues he's raising. Does no one think he has just a little bit of a point? Life's not fair, some people don't have much money, sometimes bad things happen. Is there anyone who didn't already know this? His blaming it on some capitalist plot isn't new either. Personally I get a bit bored of being lectured on poverty by multimillionaires.
pSinatra Posted 18 December 2014 Posted 18 December 2014 I don't understand why people are getting so worked up by him? He seems to be getting a hell of a lot of attention from people who claim he is an egotistical twat not worthy of that attention. The more you let him get under your skin & the more you acknowledge his existence - he's getting exactly what he wants. If everything he says is bullshit, ignore it. You don't want to see him on your telly, switch over. I don't particularly mind the bloke. He offers his opinion on various issues & I can take it or leave it. I find it a little bizarre that people are so passionately against anything he has to say. Disregarding whether he is making valid points or not, he seems to have somehow ruffled a lot of feathers. It appears he has become part of a media witch-hunt. He's loving every second of it.
ousefox Posted 18 December 2014 Posted 18 December 2014 Hello Jo, thanks for your open letter, I do remember you from the melee outside RBS and firstly, I’d like to say sorry for your paella getting cold. It’s not nice to suffer because of actions that are nothing to do with you. I imagine the disabled people of our country who have been hit with £6bn of benefit cuts during the period that RBS received £46bn of public bail-out money feel similarly cheesed off. I can’t apologise for the RBS lockdown though mate because, I don’t have the authority to close great big institutions – even ones found guilty of criminal activity. The locking of the doors and your tarnished lunch came about as the result of orders from “the faceless bosses” upstairs after I wandered in on my own while we secretly filmed from across the street - then security swarmed, all the doors were locked and crowds gathered outside. I must say Jo; it felt like RBS had something terrible to hide. But more of that in a minute. Neither was I there for publicity, although you could be forgiven for thinking that; for many years I have earned my money (and paid my taxes) by showing off. If I needed negative publicity (and, believe me, that’s all talking publicly about inequality can ever get you) I could get it by using the “N word” on telly, or putting a cat in a bin, or having a romantic liaison with the lad from TOWIE. I was there with filmmaker Michael Winterbottom making a documentary about how the economic crises caused by the banking industry (RBS were found guilty of rigging Libor and the foreign exchange) has led to an economic attack on the most vulnerable people in society. I don’t want to undermine your personal inconvenience Jo, I’d be the first to admit that I’m often more vexed by little things; iPhone chargers continually changing makes me as angry as apartheid - so I can’t claim any personal moral high ground, but a chance to make a film that highlights how £80bn of austerity cuts were made, punishing society’s most vulnerable during the same period that bankers awarded themselves £81bn in bonuses was irresistible. The mob upstairs at RBS who exiled you with your rapidly deteriorating lunch have had £4bn in bonuses since the crash. Do they deserve our money more than Britain’s disabled? Or Britain’s students who are now charged to learn? Is that fair? They were some of the questions I was hoping to ask your boss – but we got no joy through the “proper channels” so we decided to just show up. Not just to RBS, but also to Lloyds, HSBC and Barclays. I know that the regular folk on the floor aren’t guilty of this trick against ordinary people; they’re like anyone, trying to make ends meet. As you point out though, it’s hard to get to the men at the top so we were forced into door-stopping and inadvertent lunch spoiling. The good news is that this film and even this correspondence will reach hundreds of thousands of people and they’ll learn how they’re being conned by the financial industry and turned against one another - that’s got to be a good thing, even if it makes me look a bit of a twit in the process and the national dish of Spain is eaten sub-par. Now I’ll be the first to admit your lunch has been an unwitting casualty in this well-intentioned quest but I couldn’t resist the opportunity to ask new RBS boss Ross McEwan if he thinks it’s right that he got a £3.2m “golden hello” when the RBS is sellotaped together with money that comes from everyone else’s taxes. I wonder what he would’ve said? Or whether it’s right that Fred “the shred” (he shredded evidence of impropriety) Goodwin gets to keep his £320k a year pension while disabled people have had their independent living fund scrapped. And it’s not just RBS mate. Lloyds, Barclays, Citibank and HSBC have all been found guilty of market rigging and not one banker has been jailed. Trillions of public money lost and stolen and no one prosecuted. Remember in the riots when disaffected youth nicked the odd bottle of water or a stray pair of trainers? Criminal, I agree. 1800 years worth of sentences were meted out in special courts, to make an example. Some crime doesn’t pay, but some crime definitely does. My school mate Leigh Pickett, a fireman is being told that he and his colleagues won’t be able to collect their pension until five years later than agreed, five more years of backbreaking, flame engulfed labour – why? Because of austerity. Put simply Jo, the banks took the money, the people paid the price. I was there to ask a few questions to the guilty parties, now I know that’s not you, you’re just a bloke trying to make a crust and evidently you like that crust warm - but again, it wasn’t me who locked the RBS, I just asked a few difficult questions and the place went nuts. The people that have inconvenienced homeowners, pensioners, the disabled and ordinary working Brits are the same ones who inconvenienced you that lunchtime. They’ve got a lot to hide, so they locked the doors. You said my “agro demeanor” reminded you of school. Your letter reminded me of school too, when the teacher would say, “because Russell’s been naughty, the whole class has to stay behind”. I’d never knowingly keep a workingman from his dinner, it’s unacceptable and I do owe you an apology for being lairy. So Jo, get in touch, I owe you an apology and I’d like to take you for a hot paella to make up for the one that went cold – though you could say that was actually the fault of the shady shysters who nicked the wedge and locked you out, I’d rather err on the side of caution. When I make a mistake I like to apolgise and put it right. Hopefully your bosses will do the same to the people of Britain.
MooseBreath Posted 18 December 2014 Posted 18 December 2014 I think that he gets attention shows that people do want to engage with those kind of topics. That he gets almost universal negative feedback suggests most people think he talks a lot of shit. When someone comes along talking a lot of shit at a political level it can't just be ignored, it does need to be met with a resistance otherwise you'd get other relentless shit talkers like Ed Milibland shit talking themselves into power. I wouldn't want to discourage the likes of brand from talking about issues he thinks are important, because engagement in political issues is the first and necessary step towards understanding how things actually work, and the more people engaged the better. I just wish someone who wasn't SUCH a thick cvnt could take on that role. Someone like Brian Cox would be great st it if he had any interest in politics.
purpleronnie Posted 18 December 2014 Posted 18 December 2014 Is the letter suppose to be satire or was it just funny unintentionally. If it wasn't intentional is a pretty awful attempt for an open letter. Either way its pretty bad and certinly not worthy of being printed, talk about lazy journalism.
Rincewind Posted 18 December 2014 Posted 18 December 2014 I like the references to Jo's spoilt paella lunch. Nice reply.
Rincewind Posted 18 December 2014 Posted 18 December 2014 Is the letter suppose to be satire or was it just funny unintentionally. If it wasn't intentional is a pretty awful attempt for an open letter. Either way its pretty bad and certinly not worthy of being printed, talk about lazy journalism. Well Russell Brand is the bad guy is'nt he? We can't have the ordinary man on the street thinking about the issues he raises. You were talking about Jo's letter assume? Not read it yet but I have gathered the gist of it from the comments on here. Not seen anyone comment on his cold paella though.
Guest MattP Posted 18 December 2014 Posted 18 December 2014 I think that he gets attention shows that people do want to engage with those kind of topics. That he gets almost universal negative feedback suggests most people think he talks a lot of shit. When someone comes along talking a lot of shit at a political level it can't just be ignored, it does need to be met with a resistance otherwise you'd get other relentless shit talkers like Ed Milibland shit talking themselves into power. I wouldn't want to discourage the likes of brand from talking about issues he thinks are important, because engagement in political issues is the first and necessary step towards understanding how things actually work, and the more people engaged the better. I just wish someone who wasn't SUCH a thick cvnt could take on that role. Someone like Simon Cox would be great st it if he had any interest in politics. That's pretty much how I feel as well. The fact Brand seems to think anyone who pulls him up on what he says he working for the elite is wrong, he showed himself up on Question Time with lies about fellow panelists and was rightly pulled up, if someone talks shit about football you can laugh it off, no harm done, if someone is talking shit about politics it can actually end up quite dangerous so challenging them is essential. And as has been said before if they want someone to go after tax dodging bankers then whoever that person is needs to be whiter than white with regards to their own taxation or they will be correctly identified as a hypocrite. The reply is what I expected, the disabled seems to be his goto card now even when it's nothing to do with it, shame Brand didn't go for the idea of having a banker on 'The Trews' to answer his questions but I think we can all see by now he's not interested in debate with anyone who could actually put a decent genuine riposte across to his points and accusations. He has a point about the handful of dreadful bonuses (although this was done to death 5 years ago so it's hardly news to anyone who speaks or takes in interest in politics) that were given out but he also hasn't answered the wider point that when the banks are sold they are likely now to make a profit for the taxpayer, to say 'trillions of pounds has been stolen' is ridiculous hyperbole.
Guest MattP Posted 18 December 2014 Posted 18 December 2014 Well Russell Brand is the bad guy is'nt he? We can't have the ordinary man on the street thinking about the issues he raises. You were talking about Jo's letter assume? Not read it yet but I have gathered the gist of it from the comments on here. Not seen anyone comment on his cold paella though. Why not just spend 5 minutes having a read Ken and then give us your opinion on it?
absolutelegend Posted 19 December 2014 Posted 19 December 2014 That got me thinking....who talks most shit, brand or milliband? Tough call. I'll go brand.
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