London Bankers to Have a Holly Jolly

As I (and many others) have predicted, there are already moves afoot to make sure that London-based bankers have a holly jolly Christmas. According to the Financial Times, Deutsche Bank decided to 'share the pain' and spread the UK supertax among staff globally. I can just hear cries of despair coming from Frankfurt, Zurich and Singapore. Apparently some US banks are also considering this, cue howls of outrage from Wall Street. In a separate move, as reported by the Guardian, a group of top UK banks are trying to convince the UK Treasury to take a $2bn payment from them instead. Clearly there is a lot of money floating around as the result of clever traders making the most of low-interest capital supplied by our governments and us taxpayers. Well done boys, take those bonuses and spend them on expensive new cars or kitchens (feel free to support my uncle's upscale custom kitchen business, too: www.kennebeccompany.com!). But make sure you save enough to pay any niggling extras on your health insurance bills. If Obama cannot force through some kind of national insurance company regulation at the very least, then we will all continue to be rogered senseless by the rising costs. A friend just got the best quote possible for health insurance (he is freelance too) - $1,000 per month. I know people who would be thrilled to MAKE $1,000 per month, never mind spend it on lining the pockets of fat cat insurance companies. I have never understood why these companies (which, along with drug companies, make up nearly 40% of GDP in the US) have been regulated on a state-by-state basis. Robber barons, the lot of them. I hope they get a nasty surprise in their Xmas stockings - a big, ugly national regulator.