Should he have been given one in the first place?
Should he have considered matters and handed it back 2/3 years ago?
Has the government made a faux pas taking it away?
My opinion his refusal to hand it back says more about him. I feel he should have handed it back and live in the shadows - maybe Charity Work - after all he has a wee pension that is more like a lotto win.
Last edited by: Falkirk Bairn on Wed 1 Feb 12 at 07:23
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Don't think it really matters now, bigger fish to fry.
Last edited by: sooty123 on Wed 1 Feb 12 at 07:27
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BBC News summary on the subject is, roughly
1. He was the worst senior banking man, ever
2. He should never have been given a knighthood in the first place
3. He is so reviled in the banking world that losing his knighthood isn't going to make it worse
4. It is humiliating for him but a £650,000 a year pension eases the pain
5. Taking it off him is wise after the event spite
etc etc
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I am perplexed by the whole thing. 'They' approved of what he was doing until it went wrong. As far as I know he has not been convicted of a crime.
Venal and unappealing he may be, but he was that before the bank went tits up. It's basically what he was employed for.
There are plenty of venal and unappealing titled folk. By the logic of this, you now have either to bin the honours system altogether, or carry on and remove a lot more of them.
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He's had prolonged period of sleepless nights - and now he's going to have a prolonged period of Knightless sleeps!
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"'They' approved of what he was doing until it went wrong"
I suspect this is true in other cases, particularly those "rogue traders" who lost banks millions on supposedly unauthorised dealing. It's unbelievable that the banks didn't have checks and balances to let them know where their millions were at any one time, and who was doing the trading.
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I sense that in the Government there is still a huge amount of ambivalence about the banking industry. As long as it's making money, no-one asks questions about how it's being done. The minute the dubious practices cease to keep the mill turning, everyone gets on their moral high horse.
It seems to me Goodwin made only a couple of small errors of judgement: he over-reached himself and his timing was bad. The hubris he demonstrated before and after his fall is just part and parcel of the mind-set you need to succeed in the banking world anyway.
To me, the whole investment banking thing stinks to high heaven. I recollect that in ages past (and in some cultures still), it was considered a sin even to charge interest. It was just thought unnatural to make money produce more money. Thus in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, Antonio says to Shylock, "...is your gold and silver ewes and rams?" To which Shylock (no doubt with a self-satisfied smile) says, "I cannot tell; I make it breed as fast."
I have nothing but contempt for Goodwin, but I don't think he deserves any more hatred than the rest of them.
Last edited by: FocalPoint on Wed 1 Feb 12 at 11:52
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made only a couple of small errors of judgement: he over-reached himself and his timing was bad.
Possibly small errors but what was the resulting loss to the bank?
Wiki says
On 11 October 2008, Goodwin officially announced his resignation as chief executive and an early retirement, effective from 31 January 2009 – a month before RBS announced that its 2008 loss totalled £24.1bn, the largest annual loss in UK corporate history
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Hardly "small" errors of judgement. If you put your bank in a position where a 2% asset write down equates to a £40bn loss and the extinction of its liquidity, your fate is no longer in your own hands. If the assets include a lot of loans to highly geared corporate predators, for which RBS had more enthusiam than most, their risk is the banks risk and the likelihood of disaster is increased.
The bit I agree with is that Fred was essentially doing the same as his peers, albeit more energetically, and therefore shouldn't be alone in receiving disapprobation. What banks were doing went well beyond the classic and desirable functions of a bank, which are to take deposits and recycle money responsibly into productive use.
There are still plenty of toxic assets around that haven't been marked to market, to which can now be added some sovereign debt, particularly in the French banks which came through the banking crisis reasonably well.
There are still some chickens to come home to roost, unfortunately.
Last edited by: Manatee on Wed 1 Feb 12 at 13:43
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The takeover of ABN was approved by a shareholder meeting of RBS in August 2007. By 95% in favour. Most of the votes cast by institutional shareholders - pension funds etc. He wasn't acting in a vacuum.
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The takeover of ABN AMRO was one (of six) major factor in the downfall of RBS.
www.guardian.co.uk/global/2011/dec/12/royal-bank-of-scotland-fsa-report
"• the ABN Amro acquisition took place with "inadequate due diligence"
RBS overpaid and failed to carry out adequate due diligence, in a rush to stop the Barclays bid succeeding.
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Snooty people often turn knighthoods down, not always because they disapprove of the honours system. I have no idea whether Goodwin should have been knighted or not.
However the removal of his K seems to me on the face of it petty and vindictive. He isn't a tyrant or criminal, just a very dull bean-counting person with a high boredom threshold who eventually tripped over his schlong. He's not the only one after all. Perhaps all banking Ks should be withdrawn. The main sufferers anyway must be their wives, suddenly demoted from lady to woman and having to bear the tittering of their friends.
Goodwin seems to dress a bit better these days judging by his photo in today's comic. Innocent-looking chap.
I once addressed a politician (now a lord) as Mr, having forgotten that he had been knighted a few days earlier. An expression of slight dismay passed very fleetingly across his face, but he had understood that my possible insult was inadvertent even before I corrected it in a fumbling way. Politicians are sharp like that.
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Who cares - some old out of date title.
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>> Who cares - some old out of date title.
Quite right Rob. Even 'Mr' seems sexist and old-fashioned, and as for names, they are grossly primitive. What is needed is a rational identification system using codes and numbers. 11 digits or so should do for anyone, without any of these irksome old-fashioned distinctions.
From now on I will think of you as 48799203110/M.
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>>The takeover of ABN AMRO was one (of six) major factor in the downfall of RBS.
At least five of the six appear to be problematic on account of ABN AMRO.
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In effect he was, the poor due diligence was not revealed to the shareholders, and the personality of Ex Sir Fred was such that dissension would not be tolerated.
In the time he was at the helm of RBS he relentlessly drive the bank into shocking overdraft, with massive over expansion. From a position in 2002 where it was fully self funded, to a position some 5 years later where it depended almost entirely on external interbank lending.
RBS city, near Edinburgh Airport is a testament to his over inflated ego.
He was awarded his knighthood specifically for "Services to Banking". As his "services to banking" were disastrous, its only fit that his knighthood is taken away because he was found to be incompetent in that field.
Last edited by: Zero on Wed 1 Feb 12 at 14:56
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>> In the time he was at the helm of RBS he relentlessly drive the bank into shocking overdraft, with massive over expansion.
All alone you mean? Like Hitler with the nazis?
'We were only obeying orders'. Yeah, yeah...
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Head man on a fat salary and resistant to criticism = responsible. See Costa Concordia for a loosely similar problem and outcome.
Last edited by: Meldrew on Wed 1 Feb 12 at 15:04
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There was indeed an element of that involved.
He filled vital posts with cronies, and blindsided, or bullied anyone and everyone who raised objections.
But at the end of the day, as I said, if you get an award for being great in your field, and it turns out you are crap, then i see no reason not to have your badges of rank torn from your uniform
Its better than ending up like Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini
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The behaviour for which he was rewarded (or which produced the results for which he was rewarded) was remarkably similar to the behaviour which led to his downfall.
Last edited by: FocalPoint on Wed 1 Feb 12 at 15:45
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>> The takeover of ABN was approved by a shareholder meeting of RBS in August 2007.
>> By 95% in favour. Most of the votes cast by institutional shareholders - pension funds
>> etc. He wasn't acting in a vacuum.
I agree with that of course. But the shareholders might have voted in expectation of a competent execution with due diligence.
In any case, he was still paid to be responsible. Albeit his board went along with it, a fish always rots from the head - especially when the head is as dominant as Mr Goodwin.
Nevertheless, the banking system was a bubble and it got away from the regulators, very much a part of the establishment that has now disowned him. Hypocrisy abounds.
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I've read in various different places that he was foul to his staff. That's reason enough why he should never have been knighted in the first place.
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Quite. But de-knighting him now is just playing to the tabloid gallery.
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Didn't i hear that the geezer responsible for Big Brother was given a gong in the last set, if so it could have been the day when 'i've heard it all now'.
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Goodwin Knighthood? - sooty123
