Entertainment For Lively Minds
Mayor of London speaks
Posted by Danmac on 15 January 2010 - 11:17am.
We are all to aware that it can be considered far too easy a point to bash bankers at the present moment , however when emotive headlines such as "Mayor Boris: 'Bankers Are Fleeing London' ' come across your screen is it unusual to just want to scream .
As a 49 year old the images of fleeing that have punctuated my life are for example a naked female child trying to run the napalm off her body , Hutus avoiding massacre , people running down Belfast streets or from a toppling twin towers . Then this week Haiti ( nuff said )
May I suggest that "Fleeing" be left as a term for real human tragedy !
- More from Danmac.
- Login or register to post comments
-
Danmac SLAMS Boris
Tabloid speak, innit?
not sure about slamming
Not sure about slamming but would like to slap him with the kipper of reality .
Although, to be fair, doesn't 'fleeing' mean
'running from trouble'? I don't think it has to be life-threatening.
nope
"run away from danger or evil" and it's glib to equate the plight of few invest bankers with people who have had whole their lives stamped on by nature or man's intervention.
A quick Google gives me
v.intr.
1. To run away, as from trouble or danger
2. To pass swiftly away; vanish
3. To run or move quickly; rush; speed
v.tr.
To run away from.
2 and 3 seem to cover bankers fleeing the city.
well stimpy you've taken
tap room beard stroking pedantry to new extremes. see ya.
Oh!
That's new to me then, using a dictionary to discover the meaning of words is now pedantry. I won't look it up, because I already know what it means. And no, I'm not a pedant because I'm really not all that bothered about whether they're 'fleeing' or 'flouncing out of' London on the whole, or whether that's even the precise word, ahem...BoJo used.
As for Boris, isn't it what we've come to expect? And of course the press will hype it just that little bit, because there's only so much real human misery you can print at one stroke (like Haiti) before your readership get queasy with the disaster porn and your adrvertisers get the willies. So, let's just stick to the inconsequential toss and everything will be fine.
I don't think I care
Bankers fleeing The City? Won't they simply be replaced by other similarly rapacious younger models?
I assume these will be sought after vacancies given the rewards inherent. And, really, what do these Bankers actually do?
That's a serious question for once. Would any within the Massive know? I accept an amount of in-depth practical knowledge tied to a vast amount of influence and acumen is key, but really it's just speculation and betting isn't it?
Please tell me how anyone can justifiably 'earn' many millions of pounds a year?
Hmmm, can't help thinking there are worse examples
"Tragedy" and "disaster" should be saved for greater human circumstances than being knocked out of TV talent shows, which should be more obvious this week than most.
"Starving" is another one I get angry about, when used by people who last ate 5 hours ago to describe how they feel.
I'm prepared to consider semantic arguments that these are just figures of speech of long-standing, but English is a pretty rich language with enough synonyms to keep us going I'd have thought...
It's a typo
It should read
"Mayor Boris: 'Bankers Are Fleecing London'"
Did Boris himself say fleeing?
The quotes from his letter to Alistair Darling in an article in the Evening Standard don't include the word. The article does say:
Labour MP John Mann said the new US tax had "delegitimised" claims bankers will flee abroad to avoid levies in the UK.
But then it's not clear to me from that sentence that John Mann actually said flee either.
It seems to have been attached by headline writers looking to beef up a story. It's like the "rows" that according to newspapers are constantly breaking out when any politician expresses a new point of view.
Yup
That's the same point I was clumsily trying to make.
I'm no expert, but aren't they going to leave
whatever the UK government do or say? The future centre of financial activity is going to be the far east, in particular China. Logically these kinds of investment banks will up sticks to Shanghai or Hong Kong in the next ten years because that is where the action is.
not so sure
Problem with China is the legal system. If the Red Army takes all your money (for example privatising your bank) who are you going to complain to? Democracies are a better bet for that reason. Of course they will have branches where the action in China, but do you want to base your assets?
But if China has lots of money and we are skint
-- which seems to be where we are headed -- won't they own all the banks ten years from now anyway?
The government bought the banks to save them but intend to sell them when they can in order to recover the money, which raises the issue of who will buy them. Presumably Chinese investors.
Merchant Banker - No Ref to Cockney Rhymes
No malice intended but God made banking rhyme with you know what for a reason. In reference to Boris, the cuddly chap; this is bloke who said his £250k for magazine editing was negligable! For clarity he is a Conservative politician. I am certain he knows very many people in the City who regularly bend his ear. I would suggest reprentitives from the banking unions would not get this access.
"...and your point is, caller?"
Point bluntly made
My point, rather roughly made; it is that Mr Johnson moves in City banking circles. He must regularly attend meetings/partys where they remonstrate with him and shout they are leaving the country. One in a hundred mean it and they are foreign any way. It is common sense that banking has to be internationally regulated and tightly, preferably with the casino risk section stripped out and standing on its own feet. Not subsidised from our overdraft or savings. Common sense if there was no vested interests.