BARCLAYS QUAKER ROOTS
The bank that became Barclays was founded by a Quaker goldsmith in London towards the end of the 17th century. Quakers, as dissenters, were barred from university and high office, but known for their simplicity and business integrity.
http://assets.cambridge.org/97805217/90352/sample/9780521790352ws.pdf
Barclays included Swansea Quaker family, and was once known as Barclay, Bevan and Co.
http://bevan.rth.org.uk/Family-history
BANKING ON GREED
Barclays top earners paid up to £47 million, with over £500 million to top 200
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1363790/Barclays-bosses-47m-head-pay-bonuses-Bob-Diamond-says-greed-good.html
'Too big to fail and socially useless’
Bob Diamond video interview with Wall St Journal
http://online.wsj.com/video/too-big-to-fail-and-socially-useless/A9DA0E6A-FC38-44A9-9BBB-93F1CC9035AF.html
Bob Diamond CEO before Treasury select committee
American-born Mr Diamond, 59, who has raked in £75million in the past five years, will also face tough questions on Barclays’ use of tax havens.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/2011/01/11/barclays-boss-bob-diamond-to-be-grilled-over-8million-bonus-115875-22840313
Barclays bows to courts over insurance mis-selling, plus Diamond pic
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/city-news/2011/05/09/barclays-follows-lloyds-in-dropping-ppi-legal-challenge-115875-23117321/
BANKING ON BLOODSHED
http://www.waronwant.org/attachments/Banking%20on%20Bloodshed.pdf
War on Want report ‘Banking on Bloodshed’ (2008) said Barclays led British banks in bankrolling arms industries. About 90% of people killed and wounded by armed conflict are civilians. Barclays investments included cluster munitions (now banned) and depleted uranium warheads (birth defects etc), plus arms for Saudi Arabia, Libya and Israel.
Barclays and Israeli drones
Barclays is a leading investor in Elbit Systems (Haifa) which makes Hermes 450 drones that were tried and tested in Gaza. Adapted and renamed Watchkeeper, these are used by UK forces in Afghanistan, with a test site at Aberporth.
http://www.nasdaq.com/asp/holdings.asp?symbol=ESLT&selected=ESLT
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3975540,00.html
Barclays and US drones
According to the WoW report, Barclays funds Boeing and Northrop Grunman. These US companies help build the Predator drones used in Afghanistan, Pakistan etc. Where drones are used outside conventional war-zones, it is usually by the CIA, to escape public scrutiny.
(See also: US extends drone strikes to Somalia (Guardian 30.06.2011), after Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen and Libya. In Pakistan drone strikes have killed an estimated 2,500 people since 2004. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jun/30/us-drone-strikes-somalia
Drones, some as tiny as bugs are poised to alter conflicts (NYT 20.06.2011) http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/20/world/20drones.html
Arming Gadafy
Barclays beneficiary General Dynamics (UK) reported supplying battlefield communications equipment and training to Gaddafy troops in Libya. As a UK subsidiary to a US company, GD(UK) escaped US ban on supplies to Libya.
Military-industrial-financial complex?
In 1961 outgoing US President and former WW2 supreme commander warned of
"unwarranted influence… by the military-industrial complex." Now it’s here, says former US Defence Department official on RTE
http://americasfailureiniraq.com/2011/05/20/the-military-industrial-complex-warned-of-in-1961-now-were-there/
BANKING ON INEQUALITY
Top 100 UK bosses get 32% payrise while most of us lose out, May 2011
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-13588114
OECD reports widening gap between top and bottom paid: with UK fourth after Mexico, US and Israel
http://econfix.wordpress.com/2011/05/05/oecd-countries-see-a-widening-inequality-gap
UK Pay gap widening to Victorian levels
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/may/16/high-pay-commission-wage-disparity
High pay commission forecasts top earners' slice of national income will rise from current 5% to 14% by 2030
Bank lending to UK small business falls again – Bank of England report April 2011
http://realbusiness.co.uk/news/bank-lending-to-small-firms-falls-again
UK mortgage lending slumps by 14% in April 2011 (5% down on 2010)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2011/may/20/mortgage-lending-slumps
'Squeezed middle' the big losers when the economy recovers (Resolution Foundation, Observer, 11.05.2011)
Low-to-middle income households will see their living standards continue to fall far behind the more affluent.
http://www.resolutionfoundation.org/articles/2011/May/22/why-squeezed-middle-here-stay-observer/
Inequality in Swansea
People in East Swansea can expect to die 13 years younger than people in West Swansea according to Council Strategy Report.
http://www.thisissouthwales.co.uk/Shock-life-expectancy-gap-east-west-divide/story-12387293-detail/story.html
Why inequality is bad for most of us and more equal societies work better
http://www.equalitytrust.org.uk/ Or ‘The Spirit Level’ (Allen Lane) by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett
BANKING ON EXTINCTION: wealth of nations laid to waste
The years 2005 and 2010 were the hottest in recorded history. Weather more extreme and less predictable. Flood and drought, water short in food-source areas. Food and fuel prices already rising. World population to double in next 50 years. While banks, as main distributers of world resources, act only for themselves.
At the top of the foodchain, banks set the pace in widening the inequalities between rich and poor, within and between nations. The resulting competition and conflict is damaging in itself. It also distracts us from the even greater threat of continued unsustainable growth, exhaustion of natural resources and chaotic climate change.
What UK could and should be doing
Government’s Renewable Energy Review says UK should be investing in offshore wind and marine energy as least-cost strategy for meeting carbon targets. But...
http://hmccc.s3.amazonaws.com/Renewables%20Review/Executive%20summary.pdf
Massive shortfall in UK private investment prospects torpedoes climate change targets.
New Green Investment Bank barred from competing.
http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/environmental-audit-committee/news/report-published-green-investment-bank/
Oxfam says world food prices set to double due to climate change, growing population and consumption.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-13597657
Banks bigger than governments, unaccountable and committed only to profit: Vince Cable on over-mighty banks ‘global in life but national in death,’ with balance sheets larger than UK economy.
http://www.bis.gov.uk/news/speeches/vince-cable-mansion-house-speech-2011 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-13480971
‘Disaster capitalism’?
How governments, wars and markets combine against people and world
See Naomi Klein ‘The Shock Doctrine’ (Penguin)
WHAT WE CAN DO
Eric Cantona called for mass withdrawal from banks December 2010 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-11811238
It didn’t work. Too few responded, effects too scattered and big banks don’t depend mainly on personal accounts.
Now for Cantona-Plus: target and transfer
Concentrate withdrawals on ONE bank (e.g Barclays) and transfer accounts to more useful and accountable alternatives (e.g Co-op Bank or mutual building society.) This would not break a big bank or empty cash machines, but work incrementally, in a positive as well as negative way strengthening the best while weakening the worst.
To review alternatives: http://www.yourethicalmoney.org/
Commonsense revolution, direct democracy…
Not an alternative to political protest or government action, but doing what we can with what we’ve got. Our savings for a start. Our money and the life time it represents are too important to be left to unaccountable banks and bosses. Especially when what's at stake is our children’s future and the world as we know it.
Demand the RIGHT TO KNOW
Of course the government should cut high street banks free from the vagaries of global investment banking. But that still leaves the bigger problem of what to do about those casino operators who between them control more money than governments and waste the wealth of nations, our common wealth. Meanwhile, the least we can expect is for banks to comply with the principles embodied in government freedom of information law and requirements of product labelling. Before we can make responsible decisions about our own investments, banks must be forced to tell us what they spend our money on.
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