Top Bankers - Call their Bluff

The financial rewards given to the top people in the banking and financial sector is once again in the news.  This time it was the nearly £1million bonus which RBS Chief Executive Stephen Hester will pocket for his alleged achievements over the past year.  This of course is in addition to the £1.2million that he earns as his basic salary.  This has not surprisingly generated a great deal of outrage amongst the public and a great deal of hand-wringing on the part of the government and the banking industry in general.

What this recent brouhaha shows is just how out of touch and incompetent our top bankers and our government politicians are.  It is simply incredible that bankers can even think of awarding themselves any kind of bonus when the country is in the midst of the greatest and most severe bout of austerity since goodness knows when.  Benefits are cut or frozen and wages for most workers are cut or frozen.  Yet our top bankers just have to get their hands on million pound plus bonuses.  On top of million pound plus salaries.  And we are told that “we are all in this together”.  To make matters worse some of out champions of industry on multi-million pound salaries presume to lecture the rest of us about the need to cut back on our wages and salaries!  For how much longer can they get away with this smash and grab?

In the case of the RBS, the public anger is all the greater as this bank is now effectively owned by us, the people.  Public money has been pumped into just about all UK banks and in the case of RBS it seems we, the people, own about 80% or more of the bank.  And yet the bank’s board and top management carry on as if nothing had happened.  Our ownership of RBS is via the government, which as the major, almost sole shareholder, has the right to determine how the bank should be run.  Yet it seems our nasty Coalition has done nothing, absolutely nothing to ensure that RBS is run in a way that benefits the country as a whole.  This of course would include ensuring that the pay structure and actual salaries paid, reflected the banks’s new status as a company owned by the people.

The government could quite easily benchmark the salaries at RBS to the Bank of England, our state owned central bank.  There Mervyn King, the Governor of the Bank earns £305,000 per year.  Now why on earth does the government tolerate paying Stephen Hester, who is effectively a civil servant now, almost four times that amount?  Four times what the Governor of the Bank of England earns.  Unbelievable.  Or it should be.  Now the conventional counter argument is that banking at the RBS level is a global business and you have to pay the market rate in order to attract and keep “the best”.  This argument is just so much nonsense.  In the first place, paying our astronomical salaries and bonuses did not prevent banks from almost ruining their companies and just about bankrupting the whole country.  Without public there would be no RBS and no million pound salaries, never mind bonuses.  If the current and previous lot of top managers is an example of “the best”, then we are in deep, deep trouble.  Perhaps a salary in line with the Bank of England might attract a more cautious and trustworthy management.  It is after all other people’s money - ie yours and mine - that the banks are supposed to manage.  A good dose of caution is most welcome here.

The notion that there is a global market in chief executives is also sheer nonsense.  Just look at where they come from.  They are predominantly white, male and European.  As the government effectively owns two major banks, RBS and Lloyds, it is in the wonderful position of testing the market.  Pay Bank of England type salaries to the top management in these banks and see what happens.  How many of the current managers would actually leave?  And where would they go?  Where could they go?  There cannot be that many vacancies in equivalent positions in the rest of the world.  And as many will have families, with children at school, would they want to tear everyone away to a new country.  Just to earn more than Mervyn King?  I have already posted more about this idea here.

An alternative would be to use the tax system to ensure that the public got the lion’s share of any bonuses or very high salaries.  Introduce a tax rate of 90% for all bonuses above, let’s say £20,000.  Banks can then pay out whatever bonuses they like, but we, or at least the government would get most of the money.  The same could apply to salaries.  Again to take the salary of the Governor of the Bank of England as the benchmark, any salary above, let us say £500,000, would be subject to and additional tax rate.  This tax would rise by, say 5% or 10% for every additional £100,000.  After all, if we are all in this together, then shouldn’t the very, very rich have to face some kind of austerity?

By refusing to do something about this continuing outrage of excessive pay and bonuses in the midst of public austerity, the government risks revealing itself as a bunch of incompetents.  If they can do nothing about this, then public faith in the political process is in danger of declining even more.  More is at stake here than just a million pounds or two.  We need a government that can actually exercise power over the very, very rich.  There is only so much resentment that the public can bear, before something gives.  Marina Hyde in the Guardian has an interesting article on this.

The Economic Mess - All the Fault of Welfare Spending?

There is quite a long list of people who can legitimately be held to account for the current crisis.   Most people I imagine would put bankers, particularly investment bankers and regulators high on the list.  However it seems that it is welfare spending by governments which is mostly to blame.  At least that is the consensus view of most of the mainstream media.  It is also the determined view of our present nasty Coalition in the UK.  Though of course they blame the previous New Labour government and not themselves.

A typical example of this thinking was to be found in today’s editorial in The Scotsman.  Their leader writer intoned: “The harsh reality is that across America and Europe, huge rises in government and welfare spending have been financed by resort to debt to the point where the ability of government to service and repay these debt obligations has come under question.”  The harsh reality is that this leader writer is talking a load of bunkum.  Let’s try and unpick his or her assertions a bit.

It is true that in many countries there has been a rise in government spending, but it is not true that this rise has been by historical standards huge.  As  Professor George Irvin, Research Associate at SOAS, puts it:  “For thirty years after the war, most major governments carried more debt than they do today. They serviced this easily and eventually reduced the burden because they were able to use fiscal policy to boost and maintain growth.”

What is manifestly untrue is that this rise is primarily down to welfare spending.  While welfare spending will have gone up, this is perfectly natural in an economic downturn.  This is precisely why welfare benefits were introduced in the first place.  To mitigate the damaging effects of downturns or recessions.  What usually goes along with this increase in welfare spending is a sharp downturn in the government’s income, as tax receipts decline due to the downturn.  So the reality is that there has not been a huge rise in welfare spending, but there has been a reduction in government income.

However this downturn in tax returns does not in any way explain the current high levels of government debt.  Here we need to look more closely at where this debt has come from.  And we quickly discover that most of this rising debt has come from the private sector.  Both individuals and companies.  And this private debt of course was financed by our friends in the banking sector, who were more than happy to lend out vast sums of money to all and sundry - no questions asked.  But as soon as the bubble began to burst, well these private banks immediately turned to their governments and begged or bullied them into bailing them out.  Which for some unfathomable reason they all did.  This is what has caused the issue of sovereign debt to raise its ugly head.  In a free market economy, companies, including financial companies that get into trouble are supposed to pay the price of failure.  It is known as market discipline.  And it applies to the shareholders as well.   The companies go bankrupt or get taken over by a competitor at a knockdown price.  And the shareholders lose some or all of their investment.   In extreme cases, where the company is of national importance to the economy, they get nationalized.  Now that is what has effectively happened with the banking system.  Unfortunately for the poor taxpayer, this form of nationalization was designed to protect the shareholders, by keeping the banks afloat.  And to complete the cave in, the management teams that got us into this mess were left in place.  Free to continue to pay themselves huge bonuses.

It is interesting to note that none or little of this gets much of a hearing in the media.  So, in a nutshell, the private sector gets into a critical mess and begs the government to bail out the private banks by taking on more and more debt.  The private sector then blames the government for this rising debt.  Wonderful.

Bankers’ Pay and Bonuses - A Suggestion

So, once again our nasty government shows its true colours.  Cuts to the welfare budget and wage freezes for public service workers, yet carte blanche for the bosses of our banks.  Despite promises to do something about the obscene bonus system and despite all these false, hypocritical claims that “we” are all in it together.  Clearly someone forgot to tell the bankers.  What makes all this even more galling is that in this case the government could and still can, do something about it.  After all “we” the citizens own two of our major banking groups - the Royal and Lloyds.

So here is a little suggestion for Messrs Cameron, Clegg and Osborne.  Why not simply impose a new regime for these two banks.  No bonuses and bring down the (already excessive) salaries of the top management of these two banks.  Now this is not just a matter of justice - ie if we are all in it together, then this is one way of ensuring this.  No, this measure would bring about a real measure of competition into the closed and oh so cozy world of finance.

For in effect we would have a four year or more experiment the remaining lifetime of the current parliament.  We are constantly bombarded by the very high earners that they need to get paid all this money because it is a competitive and global industry.  Of course no evidence for this has ever been produced.  Well, under this proposal we would get the evidence.  If, despite the lack of bonuses and the lowering of salaries for top management, the Royal and Lloyds still managed to attract good staff and perform well, then the argument in favour of all these high bonuses and salaries would have been proved to be illusory.  Of course it is possible that these two banks do not do as well as the others.  That’s why the government should embrace this idea with gusto.  After all anything which promotes competition is good in their eyes.  At the very least it would save us some money - in all these bonuses forgone.

However I would doubt that these banks would not be able to attract good experienced staff.  Precisely because it is a global industry!  We do not even have to rely on the English speaking world - large though that is.  After all the language of the world of finance and banking is English.  These two banks can select ambitious yet experienced staff from all over the world.  All keen to develop their own talents and most importantly to show that they can make a difference.  Sure they want to earn lots of money, but not necessarily the obscene amounts that are now on offer.

I have previously mentioned the example of Stephen Hester, the current chief executive of the Royal Banking Group.  He was appointed on an annual salary of £1.2 million.  On top of which he is entitled to annual bonuses of up to £2 million, plus further bonuses in shares.  Now let us just focus on the annual salary.   Before he took on the Royal job, Hester was chief executive of British Land on an annual salary of £400,000.  At the Royal his salary has tripled.  Now as I have argued before, does Mr Hester now work three times as hard?  What level of salary would have tempted Mr Hester to leave the relative obscurity of British Land to lead a great international company?  I have always suspected that for the vast majority of people the thrill and challenge of such a post is in large measure reward in itself.  Sure they would expect to earn more, but surely not three times their previous earnings?  What if Mr Hester had been offered an annual salary of £600,000 - would he have refused the offer?

Well under my suggestion we would at least find that out.  Mr Hester could be asked to continue in his post, but on a much reduced salary, minus bonuses (after all “we” are all in this together, aren’t we?).  He could always say no and walk away.  He will by now of course be a rather rich fellow.  But if he wanted another similar job, where would he get it?  And if he did go, I am sure there are plenty of ambitious and experienced men and women who would love the chance to run the Royal Banking Group.  The same applies of course to Lloyds Banking Group - the other state owned bank.

So why not Messrs Cameron, Clegg and Osborne?  After all this is something you can actually do - you have the power.  It would almost certainly be a very popular decision.  It might even convince some doubters that we are all in this together.  Of course the downside is that it might actually work.  That really would annoy a lot of people in the UK’s boardrooms.

Ireland - What Went Wrong?

Ireland, or more precisely, the travails of the Irish economy are once again the subject of newspaper headlines and much panicking by politicians and the markets.  Even our nasty Coalition seems willing to cough up billions to help the Irish.   Why all this fuss and bother?  

As regards the timing of this stage in a long running crisis, it seems that the precipatating factors lie outwith Ireland.  In particular what has been said and done in Germany and the USA have brought on the current crisis.  However, it seems very clear that the cause of the crisis facing Ireland is all of the making of the Irish themselves.  Not all Irish people of course.  As usual some are much more guilty than others.

So, what did happen in Ireland?   Here Brian Lucey, an Irish financial comentator and former economist at Ireland’s Central Bank, outlines the key factors in the collapse of the Irish economy.  “The core cause of the problems lies in a monstrous credit-fuelled property bubble which started in the early 2000s and really roared in the middle years of the decade.

This was fuelled by a toxic combination; abundant cheap international liquidity coupled with a low interest rate (Ireland having joined the EMU) and a foolish procyclical fiscal stance by the government which released a wave of cash which in turn nicely intersected with the Irish love of property.

The results were an unmitigated disaster. Reliance, as a percentage of all funding, by the Irish banks on ordinary deposits from Irish residents shrunk by half in the 2000-2008 period, with the slack being taken up by foreign bank deposits and bond issuance. At the same time the banks nearly doubled in size.

This money was disproportionally lent out to property and property-related investments. Lending to the private sector as a percentage of national income rose from about parity in 1998 to nearly 300% in 2009, with mortgage lending rising seven-fold in the 1997-2008 period and lending to property development rising 11-fold.”

So far this is not too dissimilar from what was going on in other countries. What seems to have made the situation in Ireland so much worse was the government’s decision in 2008 to guarantee the total liabilities of the banking system, then estimated at some €440bn.  Now this was something that no other government had done or has done.  It was more importantly, a guarantee that the Irish government was in no position to honour, then or now.

As the extent of the liabilities of the various Irish banks began to emerge the government was forced into effectively nationalizing the banks.  As the banks are in essence insolvent this means that the Irish state, or to be more precise, the Irish taxpayer is now responsible for the private debt of private banks.  So much for the discipline of the market!

How did all this come to pass?  Here we get into the tricky and murky waters of Irish politics and the cosy, perhaps incestuous relationship between the upper echelons of the political and business communities.  At any rate the Fianna Fail government was only too willing to bail out their friends in the banking system and pass the buck on to the poor taxpayer.

Of course in order to bail out the banks the government has had itself to borrow vast sums of money, thus landing the government with a massive deficit.  To help make this deficit more manageable the government has also introduced a series of austerity budgets which have cut public services and public sector pay.  All to no avail.  The much vaunted, or should that be mythical? private sector has so far been pretty conspicuous by its absence.  With a depressed EU and the USA still mired in its own economic woes, there is little prospect of increased demand for Irish products.

However the banks' debts still have to be covered.  Hence the current spot of bother.  The reality is that though this is presented as a liquidity crisis, it is in reality a solvency crisis.  The Irish banks are insolvent and there is no way that the Irish economy can grow sufficiently fast to pay off these debts.  But why are the EU and the UK only too willing to offer substantial loans to help Ireland?  Why not just let the Irish clear up their own mess?  The reason is simple - too many EU and UK banks too deep into the Irish mess.  It is estimated that UK bank exposures to Ireland could be as much as £139bn.  If Ireland were to declare its banks insolvent then this would lead to great losses to these UK banks and to another financial crash in the UK and in parts of the EU.  So much better if you can persuade, or should that be bully, the Irish taxpayer into bearing the burden.  Though for how long is anyone’s guess

Things are particularly bad in Ireland right now.  Though it is only a matter of degree.  And the key mystery remains.  How is it that all these highly paid, highly respected people who got us into this mess - the bankers, the top civil servants at the treasury and the central banks and the politicians - how come they are all still there in their still lucrative posts.  To paraphrase Winston  Churchill, rarely have so few made such a goddam mess for the rest of us -  and got away with it. 

Big Bank Profits = Market Failure

Over the past few weeks the financial pages have been full of reports of the huge profits made by banks. Here are a few of the headline figures:

• J.P. Morgan made first-quarter profit of $3.3 billion
• Goldman Sachs declared $3.46 billion of profits
• Barclay’s Bank reported £1.47 billion of profits
• Deutsche Bank AG reported a 48 percent increase in first-quarter profit

What is most interesting about these figures is that they have had virtually no effect on the current general election campaign. This at a time when all the three main parties are vying with each other over who can cut the most public services. Yet none of the parties wants to discuss the issue of huge bank profits and the huge bonuses that go with them.

For what is key to all these profits is that they come from a massive market failure. In a competitive market, prices and fees should fall and margins should become thinner. Yet apart from a short dip, investment bank profit margins have remained sky high. Which is clear evidence of anti-competitive behaviour. The situation has become even less competitive with the disappearance of key companies leading to further concentration. It is clear that investment banks to not even attempt to compete with other banks. If they compete with other bankers, they drive down the profitability of the entire industry, and ultimately their own earnings.

How do they get away with all this? In part because of the incredibly lax regulations governing the financial industry. In part because the people who use these investment banks - the chief executives of large companies - are more than happy to pay these huge fees. The reason is simple - the fees do not come out of the pocket of these chief executives. The costs are just passed on the poor customers. Who have no say in any of these transactions. When you think of all the take-overs and mergers that have happened in past decade or so - who benefits from any of them? Nearly all of them reduce competition, which according to the neo-liberal theoreticians who dominate economics, is the bedrock of our supposedly free market economy. Their is less choice for consumers and workers lose jobs. Yet somebody makes a lot, a very lot of money out of all these take-overs and mergers. Who? - why the chief executives, the top management and the boards of directors of all these companies.

So we have an economic system which steadily destroys jobs, reduces choice for consumers and generates vast profits and bonuses for a choice few at the top. Least anyone think this is just some left wing fantasy, read the views of the Financial Time’s Martin Wolf, no friend of the left. He has declared recently that "a large part of the activity of the financial sector seems to be a machine to transfer income and wealth from outsiders (that’s you and me) to insiders while increasing the fragility of the economy as a whole". And none of our main political parties wants to discuss any of this during the election campaign. Conspiracy anyone?

At a time of severe economic crisis, we are being offered in this election a false choice - cut public spending here or there. When we should be discussing the whole structure of our economy and how it can generate steady, sustainable growth which benefits all, not just the few. A key and necessary part of this restructuring will involve reforming the financial industry. The New Economics Foundation has produced a report on Better Banking which contains specific proposals for reforming the financial sector of our economy. You can see the report here. There proposal include the following”

• Separate retail banking from speculation
• Break up banks that are ‘too big to fail’
• Launch a competition enquiry into the banks, that looks also at the role played by ratings agencies and accountancy firms
• Introduce controls on bonuses
• Introduce a financial transaction (or ‘Robin Hood’) tax

So when the next government, whatever complexion it is, comes out with proposals to cut public services and jobs, freeze pay and pensions, remember that there is an alternative.

How much is a banker worth?

Just how much money is the Chief Executive of a large bank worth? Eric Daniels of the new Lloyds Banking Group gets £1 million as his annual salary, while Stephen Hester of the Royal Bank gets £1.2 million per annum. In addtion of course there are very substantial bonuses on offer. In the case of Stephen Hester these include a £2 million non-cash bonus, and nearly £6.4 million of long-term share and stock options if the bank's shares rise to 70p per share (currently 37p per share). Top executives at Goldman Sachs in both London and New York are also eyeing up obscenely high bonuses. The question has to be asked what exactly do these men, for they are nearly all men, do to justify these obscene earnings?

I'm not sure that earning is the right word for the amounts of money we are talking about here. Let us leave aside the bonuses for a moment, what justifies the basic salaries, which in the case of Lloyds and RBS amount to £1 million plus? There seem to be two basic arguments advanced in favour of these high salaries. The first is that the chief executives and other top managers have a very demanding job and that it is a very tough market out there. The othe justification is that banks and other financial institutions work in a very competitive market - if they didn't pay the "going rate", then their top managers would be snatched up by the oppostion. Both arguments are pretty much self serving crap.

While running a large bank may be a demanding job, lots of other jobs are very demanding and some involve a degree of personal risk. There are plenty of jobs in the health and education sector, for example, that will be extremely demanding, with far more direct exposure to criticism from the public than running a large bank. Furthermore there never seems to be any financial risk at stake. No matter how catastrophic the mismanagement, the outgoing management never seem to suffer financially. They are in a win-win situation. If the banks do well they make millions of money, if the banks collapse, they still make millions of money. What is demanding about that? There does not appear to be any reward or incentive for managing a sustainable concern. Manipulate the share price and you hit the jackpot. Who cares what the business actually does.

The other argument, that banks work in an internationally competitive market is also absurd. The fact that nearly all top managers are male, reduces the competition quite significantly. As does the fact that most top mangers are white. Given that Asian business schools produce top class graduates year after year and most of them speak English, why are most of our top managers not Asian? If there was real competition then most Asian managers from India, China, Taiwan etc would work for a lot less than £1 million. And probably do at least as good a job. The reality of course is that there is no competitive market for top managers. The salaries and total renumeration packages are agreed by the boards with their non-executive members who are often executives in other companies and the packages are then sanctioned by various committees made up of top managers from other companies. Since they are all in the same game they are most unlikely to recommend paying less. This is about as closed a shop as you can get.

Another fundamental flaw which affects both arguments is that the continual pursuit of obscene amounts of money is not what motivates the overwhelming majority of people. This is not to suggest that most people don't want a decent income, but vast sums of money are not what motivates people. All the evidence points to the opposite. To restrict ourselves to banking for the moment, the majority of people working in banks are the relatively lowly paid counter staff. The tellers of old, the people who provide the front line service, the public face of the bank. None of them earn a great deal - in the case of the Royal Bank, counter staff probably earn about 1/80 (one eightieth) of Stephen Hester's basic salary. Yet these lowly paid bank staff turn up every day, work away under great stress and always have to put on a polite and cheery face to the public, however grumpy they - the public - may be. What motivates them? Not their measly salary - important though that is. They simply want to do a good job and support their colleagues in their branch. Sure, they would love to get paid more, probably a lot more, but they don't wait until they get a decent salary before they put in a decent stint at work. And what about our chief executives? Without his £1.2 million basic annual salary are we to believe that Stephen Hester would not turn up for work? Or if he did turn up that without the £1.2 million he wouldn't work that hard. He would only be a half hearted chief executive? Before heading RBS, Stephen Hester was the chief executive at British Land and only earned half of what he now gets at RBS. Are we to believe that Stephen Hester only worked half as much then as he does now? A pretty preposterous notion.

Two further points. People who make a fortune starting from scratch, people such as Bill Gates or Richard Branson, start off by pursuing a dream or an idea. Money is certainly a factor, but rarely if ever the main motivating factor. They simply want to make something or provide some new kind of service. If it works well they may then go on to make a fortune. But, millions and millions of people go down the same route year after year and never make anything. Some only make losses and end up bankrupt. Nevertheless they continue and other people keep on trying. Further evidence that obscene levels of remuneration are not needed. The final point is the vast army of unpaid workers - all those volunteers who freely give of their time and expertise to help others. This is what makes the world go round. Most of the current chief executives, not just of banks, but of all companies would continue to do their job and give of their best for much, much less in the way of salary, providing it happened to everyone. Those who are only motivated by money, should not be in charge of anything.

Break up the Banks

A New Way Forward is a grassroots campaign which has recently started in the United States. The campaign centres on the demand to break up the big banks – the big banks that got us all into the current financial and economic mess. They plan to hold a series of public rallies throughout America on Saturday 11th April.

The new way forward involves three fairly simple steps:
NATIONALIZE: Experts agree on the means -- Insolvent banks that are too big to fail must be taken over by the state - no more blank check taxpayer handouts.
REORGANIZE: Current Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) and board members must be removed and bonuses wiped out. The financial elite must share in the cost of what they have caused.
DECENTRALIZE: Banks must be broken up and sold back to the private market with strong, new regulatory and antitrust rules in place-- new banks, managed by new people. Any bank that's "too big to fail" means that it's too big for a free market to function.

This seems an excellent idea and one that could and should be applied here in the UK. Once again we need members of the public to protest loud and clear and often. In particular it is vital to attack the notion that big is good and the bigger the better. Any bank that is too big to fail is a danger to all of us.

This is seen most clearly in the recent actions of the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS). Bailed out by the UK taxpayers, RBS has still payed out huge compensation packages to the former top executives who were responsible for the collapse of the bank. Sir Fred Goodwin is only the most conspicuous of the culprits. Most of the current board and the other top executives are still in place – most of them will have been equally guilty and yet they are still in place, still earning very substantial salaries and bonuses. And to cap it all the RBS has recently announced a second round of massive cut backs which mainly involve massive staff losses. So the high heidyins who messed things up get huge pay-offs or get to keep their jobs while those in the front line who had nothing to do with the bank's losses and collapse are to lose their jobs. And who is to pay for all this? Why the UK taxpayer in a double whammy! First we pay for the bailout and bonuses and then we will have to pay for the unemployment benefits that will arise as unemployment soars. RBS has started this process of job losses, but almost certainly the new Lloyds group will be following in their footsteps soon. The only way Lloyds can make money out of their take over of HBOS is by getting rid of lots of staff – the blameless ones again.

What we have here is the worst of all possible worlds. We the taxpayers own the banks, but we do not control the banks. The people who created the mess are still in control and clearly have no conception of running the bank in the long term interest of the taxpayer – increasing unemployment in a recession is not in the interest of taxpayers. And this comes about because the UK government refused to nationalize RBS and HBOS. Nationalization would have enabled the government to demand the resignation of all those culpable of creating the collapse of the banks. RBS and HBOS could then have been stabilised by sorting out the good bits and the bad bits. The good bits could then be sold off as smaller banks under strict regulations.

This would almost certainly save the taxpayer money. And I don't just mean the obscene pay-offs and bonuses. With smaller banks there would be no need for the new directors and managers to be paid such excessive salaries. In addition the creation of smaller banks would avoid the need for large scale redundancies. This means that more tax is paid and there is less expenditure on unemployment benefits. Thus there is a double gain for the government and ultimately for all of us as taxpayers.

This seems like a no brainer to me. In fact it is so obviously a no brainer that even the Tories, God bless them, are thinking along the same lines. Just thinking about it at the moment. They need a bit of sustained pressure from us to make them do it. Just send a simple message to Brown, Darling and your MP: Break up the Big Banks – now!

The website for A New Way Forward can be found here