We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
|
Why would HSBC… indeed any international bank… wish to remain in London? Is this not rather predictable?
HSBC will look into upping sticks and moving its headquarters out of London once the regulatory environment becomes clearer, its chairman said today.
“We are beginning to see the final shape of regulation, the final shape of structural reform and as soon as that mist lifts sufficiently we will once again start to look at where the best place for HSBC is,” Douglas Flint said.
He was speaking at an informal shareholder meeting in Hong Kong. This comes as a recent hike in the special tax levied on banks in the UK makes it increasingly costly to do business, people familiar with the situation told Reuters.
And this under an supposedly ‘conservative’ Prime Minister 😀 The Stupid Party indeed. If Labour wins, I imagine this will become a stampede as businesses bolt for the exit.
|
Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
|
Didn’t HSBC leave Hong Kong with Fat Pang, only to end up under the Blair/Brown Terror and the Coalition’s Continuation War on the Rule of Law? (With apologies to the brave and noble Finns).
http://www.samizdata.net/2012/03/the-rule-of-law/
“Egg” “Golden” “Lays” “Kill” Goose.” Rearrange the words to make well-known phrase, saying or political aim
Greytop, ‘Death and/or good riddance to the exploiting anseriform plutocrats!‘ is the likely response to that sensible question. ‘Pluck ’em!‘.
I reckon it’s more to do with Mr Flint’s uncomfortable time with the Select Committee over the Swiss debacle. Strange how senior executives earning huge salaries because of great responsibilites, go walkabout in large companies when a reckoning is called. “It wasn’t me guv… I was only the Chief Financial Officer at the time. Fred was in charge of that.”
Yeah. The EU’s economy is the biggest bloc in the world.
Why stay in the UK if you’re banned from doing banking in Europe from London?
May as well go back to HK, or Dubai, or Switzerland…
I reckon it has more to do with the raw numbers really.
“banned from doing banking in Europe from London”? What’s this?
Let me paraphrase Adam Smith:
Subsidize What you want more of; tax what you want less of…
I’m not saying subsidize the banks, but don’t penalize them
But, Banking in London is traditional! How can you claim to have ‘made it’ in finance if you don’t have a branch in The City?
If they up sticks and the upshot is less tax revenue to give to bloodsucking welfare parasites, it’s all good.
For myself, as a HSBC customer in Asia, it has always made me a tad nervous that my bank was headquartered in London and therefore subject to the busybodies of HMRC and the UK Government. I would much prefer a bank headquartered in Singapore.
I think Labour and its slow-learning voters will be stunned by the speed at which businesses large and small will head for the doors if by some karmic catastrophe we find ourselves about to be pushed around by Miliband and Sturgeon. Seriously, life is too short to hang around for the inevitable.
Rob Fisher said:
The ECB would like banks doing Euro business to be based in the Eurozone.
See: Britain wins court ruling against ECB on euro banks
Thanks, Gareth.
The EU would love a Labour government in Britain – if you think Mr Cameron is a sell out (and in many ways …..) you have not seen much yet.
Red Ed would hand over powers – without even being asked.
Death-to-the-rich.
Death-to-big-business.
That is the Red message.
Both the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands should formally make clear that they are independent.
As independent as Canada, Australia and New Zealand (who also have the same Queen).
No more British government messing about it their affairs.
I agree Paul, the IoM and the Channel Islands would be well advised to formally declare (or rather re-state) their independence.
Err, the banks have been subsidised….massively.
If they weren’t, they would already have pissed off!