WHO IS LAUGHING ALL THE WAY TO THE BANK?

Economists tell us that The City or UK Financial Services, "Lost" £1,200,000,000,000 or £1.2 Trillion in 2008/09. Money can't be "lost" - it is paid out or transferred by authorised cashiers, against invoices, money-orders, brokers-notes etc. Every DEBIT has a CREDIT. The UK's losses are others' gains. The sensible assumption is that the departments making up the losses - HM Treasury and The Bank of England - have audited and tracked the bulk of these gigantic amounts and know who made money as we lost it. The UK households paying £58,000 each to make up The City losses need to know which institutions and individuals around the world have made vast "Free Market" profits. We need to know these "losses" are not back-to-backs by cunning UK traders with branches in tax-havens (lose it in London, get tax relief - make it in Cayman, pay no taxes).  Which firms lost it - and who made it?

In the meantime, the UK media is desperately pumping out the message that UK Financial Services make a major contribution to our economy; and their "vital work" must continue. Note to the BBC.
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Dear BBC Editors et al,

PLEASE CHECK THE FACTOIDS YOU GET FROM THE FINANCIAL-SERVICES P.R. MACHINE.

Anita Anand on BBC Radio 4 Any Answers on 7 July 2012, vis-à-vis Bob Diamond, incorrectly said UK financial services contribute £63 billion a year to our economy. If ALL the wages and bonuses paid each year to 1.3 million employees were considered as “contributions”; they amount to only £45 billion a year, not £63 billion. Most of these wages are in fact paid by the public in credit card and loan charges and can be considered as a drain on the community. Does she claim that the UK earns £63 billion profit from overseas?

Financial Services lost £1.2 trillion in 2008/09 which is £52,258 per UK household. Even IF all the wages are treated as an annual benefit to the UK, it would take 25 years for those wages to compensate UK households for the losses.  That is probably why people are angry. The City has lost or siphoned away ALL the claimed gains of the past 30 years – and thus all their bonuses were paid under false pretences; and should be clawed back.

Also – you seem to have taken the PR bait in having ALL your presenters repeat of highly complex offshore etc tax-dodges “Of course they are completely legal”. This is legal nonsense, inaccurate and misleading. Neither you nor your presenters can possibly know if schemes are legal or illegal. The professional rule-of-thumb is that if commercially unnecessary steps are inserted in transactions – it is false accounting and tax-evasion (fines & prison). Most of the schemes you report fall into that category. All such tax-haven funds (about £2 trillion) should be subjected to Back-Duty tax law and repatriated to the UK.