Personal Convictions - Principals

Christopher A. Rowe — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 21:36:52 GMT

This will be the 3rd small piece of scribbling to "Convictions", both the tow previous offerings written from my Personal conviction about something or another. We all have personal convictions and indeed prejudices, some feelings much stronger than others. In my first article I asked the question " Who can the man in the street trust now"?

If we apply that over the whole spectrum of modern life the truth full answer will be " Not many people at all" either in Public life or even in ones Private life. Around the world the poorer people struggling on next to nothing income have always been with us, and there are conversely good people in other countries who do try to help. But they are a small minority. The Politicians and Public figures in various world organisations, speechify fine words in elegant phrases and eloquent tones, with promises that most of them know they cannot keep. How do they rate their own convictions or principals I wonder?

We cannot cure the world overnight, but perhaps one day will come upon the scene a Politician, accompanied by a Banker who just may turn out to be men of Principal. Or is this just a dream of the poorer people of the world??

Swiss Bank Accounts

Christopher A. Rowe — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 12:59:41 GMT

Is it possible or even more likely that the secrecy of the Swiss banking system is attractive to the many Americans who have managed to open accounts there, only one of the facets of the Swiss.

In the past twelve months or so, we have seen that American Banks and Investment companies have, as the saying goes "been economic with the truth" Investors, Depositors, and honest citizens of from all ranks and levels have lost fortunes.

Perhaps therefore the secrecy of the Swiss system is coupled to their Honesty, and Inegrity. Two words which the American Financial World seems to have mislaid.

Christopher A.Rowe

Trustworthiness with Public Office

Christopher A. Rowe — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 23:40:59 GMT

Trust and the Man in the Street

C.A.Rowe

In all the furore of the last eighteen months or so, several things have emerged that, at the very least have established once and for all that Nobody in high office, or in a position of responsibility whether he or she, be an elected Politician, or a Civil Servant appointed by the Government of the day, or any Senior Official employed in the Finance world, can be trusted anymore.

We see, and hear daily, excuses of the rape and misuse of public monies –tax payers monies- and investment funds by persons in positions of trust, and responsibility. So how can we trust anyone anymore? Presidents, Prime Ministers, and, Public Servants (note the word for they are the Servants, of the People!), endeavour to stick their thumbs in the dykes, leaking hitherto unknown details of malpractices by Government Agencies, and personnel. Public Finance departments turning apparently a blind eye to false declarations by Investment Fund Directors, or the illegitimate claiming of expenses, coupled with the awarding of dubiously legitimate contracts to firms in which, hidden away, apparently un-scrutinised by the regulatory bodies were private connections to the government departments headed by Politicians with the hidden private link.

Why? Were they too lazy? Were they also involved in some of the scams being practiced? Whatever the reasons, the man in the street is left with the feeling of betrayal, that his elected candidate for office, or his chosen Banker for integrity, was and is an illusion

The time of trustworthiness has gone, disappeared with the ‘winds of change’ fuelled by instant technology, and the greed and voracity of those in Public office today. The worship of Mammon, in particular those in the world of Banking (Finance) and their arrogant beliefs, in their superiority were built on a castle of tissue paper falsehoods, which, now collapsed, and their expiation on TV and, or on paper, that ‘it was all someone else’s fault’, or that ‘they were not told the truth by others’, underlines their incapacity as so called leaders and experts in their fields. Many do not even admit their failure to uphold their Office of trust, but shift the blame to other circumstances, for which ‘they’ were not ‘blameworthy’. A sign of moral courage about par with the level of worms tail.

Governments has been left with the pieces of broken systems, and, in efforts to uphold those systems have condoned the payments of huge bonuses and pensions to those who lost their Investors and their Countries, untold billions of US Dollars, or GB Pounds , or Yen or Swiss Francs. The reason for rewarding those bonuses or pensions is morally wrong, and the “rewards for failure” should have been stopped without fear or favour.

The excuses that we need these people to restore the systems that they have manipulated is nonsense. What a dozen or a hundred have undone, then new minds and intelligence can restore. Is the Political will saying the perpetrators are more intelligent than others? Are they saying, that people with similar qualifications, or better cannot be found? Are they saying that there are no honest men or women of integrity available?

Let the thieves cry about illegality or abuse of human rights or whatever reason they can think up, we should turn deaf ears, just as they turned our money into worthless paper. Their properties should be foreclosed and the bank accounts frozen, and those Public Servants guilty of being less than economic with the truth, of what was, or had been done in their departments, purporting to be for the good of the country, should be dismissed and barred from public office. If the economists’ forecast of about a total fifty million unemployed is correct, what difference will a few thousand ex bankers, public servants etc make?

In recent history an American President, laid down a concept for all to consider – “Think not what you do for yourself, but think what you can do for your country” – That concept has been forgotten by the faceless, greedy, self obsessed, money grubbing herd, without any morality at all.

Further back in history, One hundred and five years ago a well known public figure and politician made these remarks :-

“” No one seems to care anything but about money today. Nothing is held of account except the bank accounts. Quality, education, civic distinction, public virtue seem each year to be valued less and less. Riches unadorned seem each year to be valued more and more. We have in the world an important section of the people who go about preaching the gospel of Mammon, advocating the 10% commandments, who raise each day the inspiring prayer “‘Give cash in our time, O Lord’”

It would seem that we have changed, but only for the worse in one hundred and five years, and for the man in the street? House loans foreclosed, jobs lost, and prospects at the beginning of this twenty first century as bad as, or worse than they were at the commencement of the twentieth.

Who do we trust now?

C.A.Rowe

June 2009