Hopefully a lot of you have started to enjoy my postings about various political questions and fields, and I also hope that my attempt to make these issues clearer is actually working, because if its not then there is no point in me sitting here drinking Red Bull typing away on Microsoft Word. A few people have thrown wild accusations at me that the puns I have slipped into previous posts are “not even funny”; I apologise for this and pray that they will get better (unlikely). I want to set something up on here where I pick a random topic that interests me and then give my own personal view on it, hence the name ‘Viewpoint’. If you are here to expect an opinion piece that is backed up by 50 different academic sources then please leave right now, the whole point of this is to give my opinion on things and not to turn into an A-level textbook publisher. Here we go.

What is a banker?

Well, they’re certainly not piggy banks as much as we’d all love them to be. Unfortunately modern bankers have decided to part away with this simple concept of keeping our money safe for when we need to withdraw it. Oh no, they’ve decided to go much further than that. Great.

The Credit Crunch

I assume (hope) you all know what the credit crunch was. This crisis is the one of the reasons why your school cant afford to buy the right textbooks, or go on subsidized school trips anymore, and also why you’re generally worse off now than in 2006 (unless you’re lucky enough to be quite rich and have Russian caviar for breakfast everyday). Please do note that this is not an attack on people who are well off, I do genuinely believe in progress and that hard work should pay off. I am just deeply offended at how bankers pulled off the greatest heist in human history. This is literally like The Italian Job, but set in the City of London.

Significance of the London Riots

Yes, the shooting of an unarmed black man by the police set off the London riots, but if we always took things at face value then we would be nothing more than idiots. The real underlying causes of the disorder is widely agreed to be because working classes felt, and still feel stagnation in their lives. They are stuck in this bottomless pit of debt, insecurity and poor quality of life. Fair enough then, the rioting eventually ended; we even had a little pathetic copycat attempt in Chatham, Medway to entertain us. However, what happened after is the real issue that bothers me.

David Cameron and the government clamped down hard on those suspected to be involved, with courts being ordered to work 24hours around the clock to punish these poor youths for stealing football trainers. Harsher than usual sentences that were hugely overinflated were dished out on a seemingly random basis to those found guilty. By all means, these people are criminals and should be punished, but let me show you something quick.

6 months in prison for stealing some water. Do you know how many bankers have gone to prison for the credit crash in the entire world combined?

ONE

Only ONE banker is serving a 30month prison sentence, whilst this is the real damage that banks caused to you and me

Surely the law should be fair and equal for everybody? If I steal I expect to go to jail, why is it then that bankers are the untouchables of this era? I don’t know the answer to that question yet, but I wish I did.

Framed!

“There has been a 51% increase in people who use food banks compared to last year”. It is thought that around 1million people will use a food bank this year because their money situation is so bad that they have no other choice. Lets make it clear, people do not use these things because they want a free Pot Noodle or an extra bar of Cadburys chocolate; these are genuinely people who would otherwise starve to death. Instead of getting help to these hungry unemployed, we have gone the opposite way completely, with the help of our old friends; the media.

This campaign that most of us have bought into is very clever. We accuse those relying on the state security net as the scum of the earth. Is this an opinion that we actually have, are we really all-hateful people deep down inside? Or are those responsible using scapegoating of those vulnerable to distract us from the truth. Here is something I want you to see, which might actually shock you if you weren’t enlightened in the skullduggery of companies like Starbucks who make your favourite frapu-choco-caramelino lattes (if that’s even a thing).

I think I have said enough but just to summarise. You have worked out by now that I hate banks and the whole culture of greed that exists especially in the City of London. I don’t care that they make a lot of money for the country, that money never seems to trickle down to those who truly need it. Virtually no banker went to jail for these crimes, which have cost us, the public, so much. When the people do eventually rise up they get crushed, and then to make matters worse we get fooled into turning against those who had no connection with this financial fraud. Crazy. I want to finish off this post with a question for you to reflect on.

Should banks be allowed to get away with this?