There is no doubt that when politicians get elected they start meeting people outside their circle, outside the bigwigs in the Party and branch and those with real influence, and you can't blame them for listening to what the movers and shakers have to say.
These big business CEO's and others also like the symbiotic relationship they can get by taking a green politician to extravagant dinners, parties and showing them how insignificant their income really is, and how in the scheme of things they really don't matter much because big business controls the economy and the economy controls the mood of the electorate.
Recently, well over the last 12 months we have seen , since the GFC and some real investment fiasco's one thing emerge as a result, and that is the big banks widening their market share over the financial services sector, shoring up their position with cross sell opportunities, buying outright and becoming the major shareholder in other financial services businesses reducing competition and widening the gap between the cash rate and the retail rate and continuing to make record profits.
I have the opinion that the banks should serve the people first and the shareholders second, but since they lobbied governments to implement enforced banking (you must have an account to get you pay, cannot get paid cash,) which then attracted fees and charges and guaranteed the banks a share of our pay every week for doing nothing at all, free money, they have had an arrogant expectation that we are their to fulfil their record book on profit, nothing more.
I am also of the opinion that the regulations across the financial service sectors that are under the control of ASIC are the work of lobbying by the same big banks to reduce competition further , increase their cross sell (worth potentially millions) and force customers to spend longer in the decision making process with independent brokers than they do in the bank. A mortgage broker will have to collect many more pages of data and file notes to satisfy ASIC that the product they recommend is suitable where a bank has about maybe 3 extra questions.
With the commissions from home loans, chattel mortgages, business loans, and personal finance along with superannuation and other insurance products making huge profit for the big banks, unseen profit, the disclosure rules for brokers , financial planners and others who sell any finance products at all has increased so that consumers can see where income is generated for them and how and even how much it is to the cent.
Financial Advisers now have a new pay structure where commissions are a thing of the past and they must charge the client up front for service, making it difficult and posing a hard ship on clients to come up with money out of pocket to purchase financial services products.
So who benefits from all these changes?
Government departments get bigger and the ratio of government workers to private workers gets bigger, and of course the big banks will get a bigger share of the cross sell of all financial services because it will be far less time and effort required for the client.
What is interesting, is that our Labor federal treasurer has refused to make a super profits tax apply to the banks and yet they are the single biggest earner in the country, rich times or poor (they are still getting a cut of your wages for nothing)
You see when a politician is wined and dined with the champagne set , . . they start to think they are the champagne set,. . . until the election hey loose and see how quickly they are dumped from the A list.
6 comments:
I'd say a few local pollies would know about living beyond their means and thinking they are champaigne, tossers.
That pretty much describes how government works, government only does what benefits itself. Short term gain is all it is for them. They try and get what they can for themselves until they get voted out.
The governments have given
banks all the power, and
now the banks are using
that power to take total
control over everybodies
life by controlling the
currency to the point
where we at their mercy.
It hasn`t been theorised
too much in the media to
date, but my belief has
been for some time now
that the big banks are
deliberately blocking
potential mortgagees
from accessing funds
as an intentional ploy
to devalue the currency
and create deflation do
they can then repoccess
devalued properties or
buy others for peanuts
and then make a killing
by selling them at the
standard market price.
The greedy sons of
bitches dont fool me.
Tim, I have a similar theory, except that in mine the banks rort us out by increasing interest until either repossession or fire sale reduces the price enough to allow foreign investors to buy property and turn us all into tenants in our own country.
The actual point of my blog was that the big banks are attempting to reduce subjective, educated choice in the market by making the process of using independent brokers much more cumbersome for both clients and brokers, and putting those on the treadmill who are too apathetic or just to dumb to be bothered knowing what is good for them from looking outside the banks doors for financial services of all kinds.
I agree with comments but until now many borrowers have been inhibited with the excessive exit fees and establishment fees. The thought of paying $330 plus to leave a bank and then fork our $1,000 to set up a new loan seems excessive.
Although there is talk of no more exit fees, I'm told that if it is on your contract then its at the Bank's discretion whether or not to charge that amount. Lets face it those of us who have existing loans would have that clause. Even telco and energy providers now have an exit clause which ultimately costs the customer if they decide to leave.
I'm sorry but I feel the poor consumer has been duped by the big banks once again, exit fees are there for a reason, although in some cases they do profit from them, they are actually for the production of legal documents which close your loan and authorise another lender to take over the terms.
Legal documents do cost a considerable amount to produce, I think $330 is really quite reasonable.
Where the real fees that hold customers into a loan are a problem are fixed loan early termination fees, which can be 20/30 thousand in some cases, I'm not kidding, where people have locked into fixed rates at a reasonable high rate expecting it to continue in its upward trend and i might add quite ofter on the advice of the lender who may tell them they believe that will happen. When rates go down considerably they have to exit that fixed product and it comes at a cost, a very large one.
So you see the banks weren't being very generous offering to dump exit fees, which they will add in somewhere else anyway or simply call a legal fee or something.
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