Financial Spin

From today's on-line International Herald Tribune referring to UBS making another 5,500 redundant:-

"The Swiss bank wrote down $19 billion in soured U.S. subprime mortgage securities and other investments in the first quarter, bringing its total write-downs since the beginning of the credit crisis to about $38 billion."

"write-down", "soured", "sub-prime" — splendid euphemisms, unless you're one of the 5,500.

Greed

On the screen was a page never seen before when logging into the bank. Wary of phishing I looked carefully, and it seemed to be OK, secure connection, etc. But you never know, and I noticed in the small print the usual rip-off telephone rate should I be unfortunate enough to need to call and listen to the 100 options at 4p a minute. But what really annoyed me was the set-up charge. What on earth do they do — plugs into switchboards?

"Calls from BT landlines will cost a maximum of 4p per minute and a 6p call set-up fee."

I remind myself that this mischief originates, not with some abstraction "the bank", but with an individual. Maybe they brainstorm new ways of ripping-off the customer.

I must be getting old!