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Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc, Britain’s biggest government-owned lender, will cut 272 jobs from its U.K. corporate banking unit as slowing growth and rising volatility force Chief Executive Officer Stephen Hesterto shrink the lender.
Employees are being informed of the reductions today, an RBS spokesman said in an interview. The cuts will be made across the U.K. and will include reductions in sales staff, managers and support personnel. RBS’s corporate unit, which lends to businesses, employs about 13,500 people which means the cuts represent about 2 percent of the total.
When the bank reported operating profit down 63 percent to 267 million pounds ($410 million) in the third quarter, Hester, 51, warned of difficult conditions brought on by lower economic growth and continuing market volatility. The bank has cut more than 30,000 jobs since its government bailout in 2008 and 2009. Edinburgh-based RBS will make an announcement about further reductions at the investment banking unit tomorrow, people familiar with the matter said this week, which may result in as many as 5,000 additional reductions.
The bank’s Irish unit, Ulster Bank, is meanwhile preparing its second round of job cuts in four years as part of an effort to save about 50 million euros ($63.9 million), according to two people with knowledge of the plan today.
“Having to cut jobs is a difficult part of our work to rebuild RBS, repay taxpayer support, and challenging market conditions require us to make efficiencies to deliver greater value to customers and shareholders” said spokesman Nigel Owen.
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Here I am jabbering on again with George Carlin. Edited for the sensitive minded.
"The real owners are the big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions. Forget the politicians, they're an irrelevancy. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don't. You have no choice. You have owners. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying, lobbying to get what they want. Well, we know what they want; they want more for themselves and less for everybody else."
"But I'll tell you what they don't want. They don't want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking."
"You know what they want? Obedient workers. People who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork, but just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly crummier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, reduced benefits, the end of overtime and the vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it. And, now, they're coming for your Social Security. They want your retirement money. They want it back, so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street. And you know something? They'll get it. They'll get it all, sooner or later, because they own this place. It's a big club, and you ain't in it. You and I are not in the big club."
"This country is finished."
Ok I am in the H. Seigel auction. CL surprisingly the first two items for bid Monday night are a 2.63 Carat Oval Cut Ruby and a 3.65 Carat Emerald Cut Emerald. The also have Sapphires as well.
I also did some research on Ruby's and Emerald's are not diamonds in price. However diamonds are very expensive.$$$$
Hostess is going broke. Say it ain't so Joe.
Twinkies Maker Hostess Files for Chapter 11 Protection
June will make it four years since George Carlin passed away, and he likely made the above comments years before.
So you can say that he was ahead of his time - as far as the general public's awareness goes. But the public is finally awakening (Hey! put down your iPod and quit texting while I am talking to you!), as can be seen by the Occupy Wall Street ovement.
Perhaps we are not quite finished, then.
"In a statement, Hostess said the current cost structure "is not competitive, primarily due to legacy pension and medical benefit obligations and restrictive work rules." "
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What does Hostess define as 'restrictive work rules?'
- Honoring with minimum wage rules?
- Complying with health, safety and environmental standards?
And as to the legacy pension & medical benefit obligations - thank goodness the government & public sector isn't burdened with these, or the taxpayer would really be in trouble. Sarcasm/off
What do the seasoned chart-watchers here have to say about the recent, steady cains in Silver & Gold?
Does it look as if we are on the way back up, or is this just another sucker's rally?
My crystal ball is all fuzzy and I can not see which way things will go from here.
CL- there is HUGE difference between 'old' rubies and emeralds and those they are selling now. Now you get 'created' stuff passed off. I have several 'old' pieces thanks to 'old' aunts who passed away. I also have a sapphire and diamond platinum bracelet.
Funny story about me and 'jewels.' Went to a party with may parents (while young). The hosts were well off. So I came in to ask if I found something, could I keep it? Everyone said, "sure" thinking what could a kid of 5 or 6 find. This kid found a DIAMOND BRACELET in her drink. Seems it slipped off the hostess as she was pouring and landed in my Shirley Temple.
Needless to say, I wasn't about to con them out of it and had to return my 'goodies'. So much for finders, keepers in the real world ;-)
CL the difference is significant, but an emerald or a ruby can cost 100k. However a much smaller diamond can bring the same price. I am not surprised you did the right thing in regards to the bracelet.
Also when you think about it why don't you have them appraised. Those jewels can sure pay a lot of bills and you can't take it with you. My experience is leaving it as an inheritance will only mean they will take it to the nearest jeweller and cash it in so why not you?
Re: Diamonds as an investment (like GAW brought up yonks ago) -- when I was a newspaper reporter at a small weekly newspaper in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan in the early 1980s, there was an outfit that came to my town pitching "investment grade diamonds." I was always on the lookout for any interesting story material, and I was playing the stock market in those days, so I interviewed one of the product-pitchers for a story.
What bothered me about the concept was 1.) You had to trust that the diamond was worth what they said it was worth, kinda like you had to trust Goldline about what their coins were worth if you bought them via Glenn Beckkk's show, and 2.) How could you be sure anyone would pay you decent value when you tried to sell them? I can walk into a coin dealer/PM shop and get money for metals easy, at prices I can predict. Not so with diamonds and other stones.
Diamonds are also controlled by the deBeers mining cartel (at least they used to be; not sure if that applies now and I don't care enough to Oogle for details.) If the cartel breaks, I heard during the USSR days that there was a massive supply of already-mined diamonds in Russia that were not getting onto the market because of the communist government. I wonder what the true nature of supply vs, demand for diamonds is?
As I type that, I realize what a quaint way of thinking I'm showing. As if "supply" and "demand" mean anything in these days of massive market manipulation...
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