A report by Gary Anderson in the Mirror, dated 11 Dec 2011, is headed "Bankers cost each one of us £8.40 for every £1 they produce, study shows" it is marked EXCLUSIVE and the article starts "Rich bankers can today be exposed as a huge drain on society... costing the rest of us £8.40 for every £1 they produce."
The article goes on to claim that hospital cleaners create wealth because they prevent superbugs "saving the economy a fortune" and that tax accountants cost us £47 for every £1 they produce. The source for all this is a study by the New Economics Foundation (NEF), but oddly enough Mr Anderson does not appear to even know the name of the study. Needless to say there is no link to it. One might think at this point that the alarm bells would start ringing, but no -dozens of people have tweeted and re-tweeted this story without checking any further. Most of them along the lines of 'Bankers cost each one of us £8.40 for every £1 they produce, study shows'.
Four or five minutes research reveals that far from remotely being anything remotely resembling an exclusive for Mr Anderson, the Guardian's Phillip Inman had already covered the story on 14 December 2009. Yes, that's right 2009. This is a very old story.
The 2009 NEF report is entitled A Bit Rich: Calculating the real value to society of different professions
When any report comes to such an extraordinary conclusion it is always sensible to see what methodology is being used, and Appendix 2 on page 30 of the report tells us:
"Our model assumes that the financial crisis and recession would not have happened were it not for highly paid City bankers and traders engaging in extremely risky, opaque and complex transactions. We attributed the entire measurable loss to the UK’s economy and public finances to an elite few thousand very highly paid financiers – those earning over £1 million in bonuses. The model balances this value destroyed with the value created during a 20-year indicative career in terms of these financiers’ contribution to UK economic activity, taxes paid, and jobs supported."
So if you believe that Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, Alistair Darling, the Bank of England, the European Commission and the Financial Services Authority are totally blameless and bear no responsibility for the recession then you might continue reading the report.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
Fair enuf and well spotted, but surely the people mentioned in your last paragraph are to blame for not spotting it and not doing anything about it. The hideous crime remains.
ReplyDelete"So if you believe that Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, Alistair Darling, the Bank of England, the European Commission and the Financial Services Authority are totally blameless and bear no responsibility for the recession..."
ReplyDeleteI doubt anyone reposting this story believes that.
The media scam is certainly worth noting, but the methodology is not as faulty as you suggest: during a 20-year career" is a substantial time period built into the model, and of course any government inscribed in a neo-liberal ideology is going to axiomatically support the financial sector and its. neoclassical, investor class oritented policies
ReplyDeleteThe point about politicians is rhetoric or to illustrate the total corruption of neo liberals? Ditto pointing out how old the story is. I notice you can't find a link to a refutation which given the corruption of politics and academia by the City is interesting.
ReplyDeletePoliticians are as at fault but the behaviour has not changed even though the lunacy is obvious. The tragedy is Osborne adequately critiqued in opposition the: obscenity of QE: Bailouts: borrowing from China to consume goods from China.
In 97 I suggested that 2 things would happen the economics would not get better but the hospitals cleaned. I was wrong on the 2nd. Think how much Cleaners could have saved us if Labour had preferred to spend money on giving PFI to bankers rather than just cleaning the damn hospitals.
As to the clowns you mention they and the current Govt have been bought out by the dream of revenue that never comes. They were in it together. Labour with its light touch regulation. Then its PFI. Then Bailouts. Then QE. Look at the big contributors to the parties.
Clearly these people still have too much say when for the sake of a tiny fraction of the economy it's hard to argue does contribute (even if it's not an 8:1 loss) we play idiots in Europe negotiating with hands over our ears screaming "we're not listening"
An assumption of idiocy on people tweeting this because they may or may not know it is 2 years old is laughable smugness. Unless you wanted to point out the costs had risen?