Barclays and the ‘integrity’ of the market

TonyOX3

I don’t normally do rants, but just this once —

As the story of Barclays’ attempts to rig the LIBOR rate broke, the FSA’s Director of Enforcement Tracey McDermott was reported by the BBC as saying such behaviour was “completely unacceptable … the market needs to have confidence that those who are involved in submitting numbers to set Libor are thinking about the integrity of the market, and confidence in the market, and not their own interests”.

It’s about time this myth about the ‘integrity of the market’ was exposed as nonsense and news media stopped reporting as if it were true. ‘The market’ is not some neutral impersonal force that in some mysterious way decides the financial destiny of homeowners, small businesses, banks and governments. It’s people and institutions around the globe whose sole interest is to make money (not real money, just electronic profits). It’s sovereign wealth funds moving billions of dollars at the click of a mouse. It’s hedge fund managers gambling millions of theirs and other people’s money in the hope of making a killing at someone else’s expense. It’s derivative traders worried about their exposed positions. These people are not neutral. They will happily screw one another if they can make profit for themselves, but they will equally collaborate to fix and rig if that’s profitable too – as we see with Barclays. Do we really think that a country like China isn’t aware of the impact its financial transactions have on other countries? If a country acts in a way that upsets China, or Russia, or whoever, do we think they won’t use their financial clout to put pressure on the offender’s economy? Of course they will. It used to be called ‘economic warfare’.

So when ‘the market’ decides that Spain, say, has to pay 7% to borrow over 10 years it’s not some oracle that decides, it’s people who have vested interests of their own to promote and protect. Some of them will have taken bets that Spain goes down the tubes and they’ll do what they can to make that happen – or get someone else to pay if it doesn’t. Integrity? What integrity?

Headington Headlines #66

TonyOX3

Here’s my weekly round-up of local news for 18 – 24 June —

The Sikh community’s application to establish a Temple on the London Road was approved by the City’s Planning Officers despite local residents’ concerns over parking congestion.

Headington Co-op has submitted an application (12/02373/PREM) to extend its licensing hours for the sale of alcohol on Sundays from 0600 to 2300, starting Sunday 22 July. This is in line with the government’s decision to relax Sunday trading restrictions for 8 weeks from that date so traders can cash in on the Olympics and Paralympics.

The @ACECentre charity based in Windmill Road has been saved from closure by joining forces with a similar operation in Oldham. The charity supports young people and adults who have communication problems. The closure threat was reported in April, attracting interest from Andrew Smith MP and PM David Cameron.

Pickwick’s Guest House sign has been re-erected after being blown down in the recent storm, so we’ll all know where to turn into Sandfield Road again.

There is now a pink bank for recycling small electrical items in the Waitrose car park. Having raised the query I can confirm that although energy-saving bulbs should be recycled because they contain mercury they should NOT be put in the pink bin (because they’ll probably break, apparently). Instead you should take them to Homebase, Robert Dyas (in the city centre) or Sainsbury’s at Heyford Hill who all collect them for recycling. Compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) which are the commonest of the new low-energy bulbs should not be put in domestic waste disposal bins of any colour. More info here and my blog post attempting to clear up the confusion here.

The new road in the development between Manor Hospital and the London Road is to be named Blackburn Close in memory of Barbara Woodhouse’s mother.

Two boys aged 17-yrs and 15-yrs were sentenced to 3 years in a young offenders’ institute, and a six-month youth referral order and a three-month 7am-to-7pm curfew respectively for stabbing a man on his own doorstep in Valentia Road last November.

@TVP_Oxford appeals for information after a burglary at the Jack Russell pub, Salford Road, Marston early on Wednesday morning.

There was a burglary in Dunstan Road sometime during Thursday evening. The Police are appealing for information.

@106jackfm was in Headington on Tuesday and gave away £600 in their “Runaway” promotion.

Friends of Old Headington (and that’s all of us surely) held their Gardens Open day yesterday (Sunday).

Active topics on the Headington & Marston e-democracy forum this week:

  • Begging outside Budgens/Greggs
  • Headington to Wheatley Cycle Path
  • Sikh temple in Cherwell Drive
I try to cover news from the OX3 postcode in Headington and out as far as Barton, Sandhills and Risinghurst (see map). To feed into next week’s summary you can comment on this article, or tweet either with the hashtag #ox3 or @mentioning @TonyOX3.

Recycling low-energy bulbs

TonyOX3
Oh dear! I seem to have set a hare running with this one!

A couple of days ago news broke on twitter that a pink recycling bank (pink bin) specifically for small electrical items had appeared in Headington car park behind Waitrose. @HeadingtonNews posted a picture and I commented that nothing on the bin indicated that the new low-energy light bulbs (or ‘lamps’ as the trade insists on calling them) should be recycled too. The commonest type of new bulb in domestic use is called  a CFL, or compact fluorescent lamp: they’re the ones with thin tubes coiled up and which take a moment to light up when you switch them on. The problem is they contain (toxic) mercury. The amount in a single bulb (lamp) is tiny, but the regulations say they must be recycled and not sent to landfill. I suggested they should be put into the pink bin too.

But this is WRONG! Various people and organisations joined in the twitter conversation, some offering advice that was less than clear. Indefatigable local councillor @RuthWilk took up the case and after some digging it has emerged that for reasons which are still unexplained CFLs should NOT be put in the pink bin.

Although there’s nowhere in Headington where you can recycle these bulbs there are three places not too far away where you can take them for safe – and free – disposal. Homebase on the Horspath Driftway industrial estate is the nearest, The other two are Robert Dyas in the City Centre (off New Inn Hall Street in the street leading into the Clarendon shopping mall) and Sainsbury’s at Heyford Hill. These and other places can be tracked down using the postcode search on the website of an organisation called Recolight (“Making lamp recycling happen”)

So I hope that’s cleared that up! DON’T put your dead or broken energy-saving bulbs in the pink bin. DON’T put them in any of your various colours of domestic waste bins. DO take them to one of the three places above, or somewhere else with a scheme for their proper disposal.