I hope that your readers are listening to the Today programme this morning in respect of the FSA, and the changes to mortgages.
Now I have said before about self certification which should be banned, for obvious reasons. This seems to have been accepted.
However, there must also be a ban on the BBC giving air time to financial exclusives. They carry official status because of the very well earned reputation of the BBC. You cannot control the internet and media, but the BBC must never enter the world of exclusives which can cause problems.
There must also be a ban on short selling, where operators sell stock which they do not own.
There must also be a ban on all stock lending, where owners of shares lend stock to operators who then sell the shares as part of there short selling. If the stock lending is banned then short sellers cannot deliver to the market.
There must also be a ban on contracts for difference, which enables operators to speculate in the stock market rather than invest. Contracts for difference mean that you can buy and sell a share and only take the profit, or pay the loss, rather than have to stump up the purchase price in full on the settlement day, and then receive your sale proceeds afterwards.
The problem with salary multiples on mortgages. Now that is an interesting one. Consider this. If I used to work for a bank, then employees used to get five times salary for our mortgage, we used to get subsidised interest rates, we used to be able to defer repayment of capital for say the first four years of the mortgage, we used to get subsidised endowment policies.
Now if the FSA bans multiples of five times salary, if they impose earnings limits, then the banks and financial institutions will not be, under law, able to offer benefits to their staff which are not available to the general public. I have said before and I will say again, the banks have taken over the government not the people taking over the banks.
Finally, there must be more use of the ability of the authorities to suspend shares when financial exclusives are broken because there will be a false market.