Cras wrote:
And your analogy is flawed. It's basically as if every car manufacturer worked together to do what VW did and cheat emissions tests, and we only found out after the climate was destroyed.
That's not a failing of regulators, it's absolutely not a failing of the UK regulator, it's a failing of the law in not knowing that they should modify their tests to catch something they had no idea the manufacturers were doing. Which is what happened in 2008.
The reason why VW were even found out in the first place (albeit belatedly) was because some Regulator in the US was sufficiently motivated, competent and knowledgeable to get off their arse to do research and testing, have the first clue about how emissions software and hardware worked, how the tests (regulations) could be circumnavigated by unscrupulous manufacturers. It's called "doing your job" and "being competent to do the very important job you're being handsomely paid to do". The multi-billion mega-corp that is VW (encompassing multiple brands) was forced into admitting what it had done - and more importantly, the practice was arrested, reparations/remedial actions set in motion
and the rot stopped. That's what happens when you know enough about the industry you're supposed to be regulating and its latest practices and its cutting edge: it gets regulated, bad shit gets stopped in its tracks, compensation is paid and the President doesn't need to apologise for the sorry ass failure of the bodies that he and his party set up to do said regulation upon which we all depend. Good eh?
You say the 2008 crash isn't a failure of regulators, which is so utterly absurd, I cannot really formulate a response. (I'm still reeling from the "Gordon Brown didn't really mean anything he said in his apology" last gem).
You have read that Labour wholly admit they did not have the first clue what was going on at the time, yes? I'm sorry, but that's not a 20/20 hindsight issue; my 6 year old grandson could've predicted that such total, negligent, willful ignorance would end catastrophically. Still, I forget; you're now saying Gordon Brown only apologised to make himself look good to his electorate (which, even if this wasn't absurd enough, especially given that he never apologised for *anything* pretty much for the preceding 11+ years, he'd actually stepped down from Parliament and politics so had nothing to "gain" even according to your own hypothesis? Besides, "I fucked up the entire UK economy, soz everyone!" isn't exactly a vote-winner
).
You say it's a failing of the law that they did not know what to test for/how to modify their tests - but how could they do that, when they were totally ignorant about what was going on, by their own admission, and also ignored the inter-connectivity of the banking system and were, again as expressly admitted, looking at one bank at a time (despite talking about it as if they *did* know, again by their own express admission). You're in management, aren't you? With respect, these are hardly difficult concepts to grasp.
So then: ignorance, hubris and incompetence - all admitted and apologised for. Sadly, a potent, heady mix, there, and utterly damning.
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