Bob Diamond bags a diamond tipped bonus from Barclays.

The banking business is now a computerised casino for making money out of bytes. Touch the button and zeros become prime numbers with alacrity. Bob Diamond is the chief of Barclays Bank. He gets a salary of £250,000 for his day job. For his croupier activities he gets a whopping £6,500,000!

Now I'm firmly behind David Cameron's notion that the entrepreneurial community is going to get Britain out of the mire. But what did Bob Diamond do entrepreneurially last year to get his salary paid 26 times over in ONE YEAR?

Bob Diamond tipped for Barclay's top job!

So Bob Diamond (here on the left) gets to run the show at Barclays. He's been the chief bottlewasher at Barclays Capital which is an investment bank of sorts. No more merchant banks. If Marco Polo had come looking for a loan, he'd have all his sails done over in a Polo mint livery for starters. Barclays is not flavour of the month as far as the Coalition is concerned.

But HSBC is! The new Trade Minister is none other than the Rev.Stephen Green, Anglican priest (Non Stipendiary Minister, that is!) and CEO of all he surveys at the world's local bank. He will join Vince Cable as a government trade minister, presumably as a Non Stipendiary one. This means he will enter the Lords as a reverend lord sitting not that far from the right reverend prelates. It will be interesting to see who gets in first when it comes to the problems that Mammon is causing this government.

Barclay's Bob Diamond Bags Bonus from Croesus!

Bob Diamond sees no recession. Barclay's Bank sees no recession. Gordon Brown does vaguely and all the while the national deficit gets whoppingly bigger. Bob Diamond is the American in charge of running Barclay's Bank and he carries on as if the Yellow Brick Road was real. In fact, Barclay's is no longer a bank, it has become a finance product retail shop. So much so that those with decent deposits get to be phoned up by British call centre workers trying to flog the latest "financial product" and the less financially secure get to speak to an Indian call centre with the delightful tones of 1940's English with a hint those teach yourself English CD courses. "Hello, Mr.Jones, I notice you only have two pee in your account - why is this?" "Rupee?" "No, not rupee, TOOOO PEEEE!" and the satellite phone system goes into it's own orbit.

Bob won't being getting any phone calls from Bombay. No, he's got some other place for the £63 million bonus bag. And I hardly think it's in a Barclays deposit account. "Hello, Bob, this is Brenda from Billericay, how are you doing today. Great. I thought I'd give you a call to let you know about the latest financial product we have on offer. It's got great returns!" A fantasy of course.

I find it hard to fathom where Bob Diamond and Barclays found this £63 million going spare. They aren't lending much, they aren't giving out mortgages as they used to, business is grumbling, so where did Bob make it all? Has he been to the funny money casino? It seems that this new thing called "investment banking" is just some kind of fancy money laundering, all done in the cleanest possible way, no doubt. I don't get to hear that banks have cleaned up their act. They've just re-invented the vehicle they last used. After all, if an impecunious hobo can be sold a house with a loan that, when it defaults, is wrapped up with similar loans and passed off as today's best investment deal, what chance have any of us to get a sense of the real value of money?

Who is fooling who? It seems two and two don't necessarily make four in the modern banking world. Five is just as good a number, or six or seven. Gordon Brown's arithmetic is at sixes and sevens. How do we know such an affliction isn't elsewhere?

Banking on a Barclays' pension?

Barclays Bank is in the financial package selling business. That's basically what banks have become. High Street offices with sales people ready to sell a "product". One of the products that banks are keen to promote is the pension. The trouble is one needs an eagle-eyed proofreader to go through the small print nowadays.

It is an irony of all ironies that Barclays has contemplated stuffing their own employees as far as pensions are concerned. The closure of Barclays' final-salary pension scheme to existing members has caused the union Unite to support the idea of strike action.

One has to wonder whether these banks, not just Barclays, have any notion of being proper stewards of other peoples money. All manner of excuses are being trotted out as to why employees should consider themselves lucky to retire on paltry pensions. I know my grandmother use to say to us that there are "starving children in Africa" as if to make us feel grateful but banks are in business to make money for others by investing properly. Over the last few years they have shown themselves to be barely capable of such a thing. In fact, they have been more driven by obtaining bonuses for their own inner circle of self-serving "executives".

I'm not a conservative that blindly supports the antics of business regardless. I have been a trade unionist when in the insurance industry and remember the subterfuge that employers can sometimes be capable of. Ever since Robert Maxwell was caught raiding his staff pension fund we have been told that the funds of companies are millions of pounds adrift. Ostrich-like we have gone on as if this problem can be rectified by a fairy with a magic wand. It can't.

Banks of all businesses should know how to look after their staff as far a pension provision is concerned. Barclays obviously has failed to keep abreast of proper investment. It begs the question who in their right minds would venture into a branch of Barclays to discuss buying a pension policy when those selling the things have such a dim view of their own retirement prospects!

Student's £100bn overdraft shock

The bank described the terrible blunder as a "technical error". Donald Moffat is a student from Irvine, Ayrshire and he was left in a state of shock when his online banking statement showed him to be overdrawn by almost £100bn. I must admit I'm a tad apprehensive when I go online. Not because of anything I've done, but because of all the stories you hear.

Barclays is the bank in question here. Mr. Moffat says he had "been passed from pillar to post" after making the error known to the bank. Of course, the problem is that banks offer a nonetity servicethese days. There are no bank managers, just managers of the bank. So the average person gets the runaround from Calcutta and back.

Mr.Moffat talks about stress, but I would be wary about campaigning for compensation. What we need to campaign for is better communication with bank staff. It's no good having jobsworths in the front line, however pleasant they may be, if they are never allowed to use their brains to sort things out. I find it can take a good hour to do ten minutes when the telephone comes into play. It's not much better in the branch.

Maybe we could have a summit where all the banks and customer representatives get to decide want we really want. Otherwise I'm distinctly afraid that 2009 will be more of the same. Considering that this whole credit crunch is some huge "technical error" - nobody is to blame we are told - it will be to the benefit of all to start the process of change from a clean sheet!

Fuld versus the fiesty female and the fitness fist!

This fiesty take on Fuld's oblivious thoughts on his own diabolical credit crunching show that the media is allowing folks to let rip. Apparently some guy socked him one whilst he was in the gym with a heart monitor on. It all get's more bizarre.

He should have been tagged with a credit monitor, but hey, that's a fantasy I suppose!