tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8446249320809135106.post153705084982392329..comments2012-03-23T04:52:46.474-07:00Comments on Finance News: HBOS board rejects bank duo's bidSadie Rachaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16934514974154597493noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8446249320809135106.post-30200011509443085822009-01-23T02:41:00.000-08:002009-01-23T02:41:00.000-08:00In these hard times, there is a lesson from Hard T...In these hard times, there is a lesson from Hard Times for all involved in the disintegration of Britain's finances. Thomas Gradgrind, Dickens' unlovable utilitarian, insists: "Now, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted… Stick to the Facts, sir!"<BR/><BR/>Who remembers Facts? They are what I used to believe were contained in the annual reports of reputable banks. How gullible. For a start, the juxtaposition of "reputable" and "banks" forms a glaring oxymoron. If the credit crunch has taught us nothing else, we now know that the balance sheets of institutions to which we entrust our savings and investments contain precious few Facts.<BR/><BR/>There is, of course, lots of information – yards of it. It takes the form of historical numbers, comparative statistics and, if we are lucky, some qualifying opinion. But all this, it seems, is not the same as Facts. In the Delusion Years, when money for nothing was a hard currency, there blossomed an industry within an industry. As the financial-services sector boomed, so too did corporate governance. Alongside the growth of impossibly complex derivatives came an explosion of disclosure and compliance.RAJIThttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18354377748046913862noreply@blogger.com