OK so maybe he didn't but he got close! Jim is quoted in an article in the Guardian and he reckons the current penalties for dodgy dealings in the City are nowhere strong enough to discourage the fat cats from doing what fat cats do best. In fact he reckons the "rattle of tumbrils" is required to to provide an effective deterrent.
Mr Cousins said that while the committee had been focusing on retail financial products, "back in the wholesale financial markets we have soft commissions, improper connections between analysts, late trading, share ramping, insider dealing ... We have got a market that makes kickboxing look like bells on Sunday. What is being done about this? Where have we got a successful prosecution of these things?"
Ms Kelly replied that the FSA did have a very clear enforcement strand, but Mr Cousins said that the UK's systems "simply don't produce the rattle of tumbrils necessary to change behaviour".
The article goes on to say we are 'behind the curve' compared to America's handling of financial irregularities. We'll have to catch up so we can have our own
Enron style scandal although
Shell seem to be doing quite well in that direction.
It's all very well advocating stiffer penalties but if you are rich enough to get a good, expensive doctor you can be diagnosed with Alzheimer's, which enables you to cut short any sentence you may have received. It's an even bigger bonus when you suddenly find yourself cured of an affliction which was previously thought to be incurable. Shouldn't we be doing medical experiments on
Ernest Saunders considering he is the
only person in the world to have recovered from Alzheimer's?
Read the
full article at the Guardian.
