Stonewall’s Bus Adverts
It would appear that the hated Wonga adverts seem to have all but disappeared, but another group has replaced them from Stonewall.
Stonewall’s Bus Advert
I have no objection, as being gay is just another facet of our many-faceted society, especially as I think that they are promoting same sex marriage in the adverts. I was lucky enough to have a very good marriage, that lasted nearly forty years, so who am I to deny anybody the same happiness, just because their sexuality is different from mine.
I should say that I was only intending to take a picture of the bus on the right, but when your eyesight is dodgy, pictures don’t turn out how you expect them!
Wonga Moments All Over London
I don’t like Wonga and I don’t think I’m alone judging by the excellent press they are getting.
Now they are advertising on the sides of London buses.
I hope that this advertising has the wrong effect from the company’s point of view. It may put the company’s name in the minds of possible punters, but if they don’t need a loan yet, it will also attract them to articles in the media, which is probably a good thing, as I’ve yet to see one that is the least bit positive towards Wonga!
Slogans I’ve seen so far include :-
THIS IS OUR SMALL PRINT
Pay back early, pay less.
How much? How Long? You decide.
Straight talking money.
Need wonga now? Just add .com
All seem to me to be rather too subtle for their target market.
Milliband To Pledge To End “Fast Buck” Culture
According to this report, Milliband is going to pledge to end the “fast buck” culture.
Ed Miliband will vow to end Britain’s “fast-buck” culture and ensure the “right people” are rewarded, in a speech to Labour’s annual conference.
The Labour leader will say later that the country needs “a new bargain based on a different set of values”.
Unfortunately, the get rich quick ideas have always been with us at all levels of society. As an example, the only shop I can see from my house is a betting shop. If I go down Dalston High Street, it is a sea of similar shops and pay-day loan companies. And look at the success of those legalised loan-sharks, Wonga.
In fact, it will be much easier to curb, the “fast buck” culture in the City, as many responsible people I know, steer well clear of the more dodgy practices that brought us some of the very high risk financial instruments, that took a lot of banks to their knees. It used to be in the city, that when you invested in Lloyds and similar companies, if it all went wrong you lost everything. Consequently, the risk management was a lot better, proving Dr. Johnson totally right about hanging.
Incidentally, I was urged to join Lloyds and didn’t! Why? Because it’s my money and I like to have some slight control over what happens to it.
Thinking after what I have just written about Lloyds, wouldn’t it have been better to have put the various bad banks like HBOS and Bank of Scotland into receivership, rather than use them to poison Lloyds TSB. After all, they were very much a victim of Milliband’s “fast buck” culture. But NuLabor made the mistake of saving them. And who was at the centre of that process?
A Funny Thing To Advertise At Football
I was intrigued by this advert at Bloomfield Road.
What is pata-ab.eu?
What does pata-ab.eu do? It’s nothing dodgy, but a timber company. I wouldn’t get a wonga loan to buy your timber though!
Strange!
King says “Bank Reforms Must Not Fail”
The headline of this post is taken from an article on the BBC web-site.
Meryn King makes a lot of good points, but on the other hand why shouldn’t banks fail? And when they do why should those behind that failure be rewarded with large bonuses?
When Northern Rock failed, we were able to rescue what was left and it is now back in the land of the living. But the managers were really criminally responsible for what they did. Did they know that the government would bail Northern Rock out, so they just didn’t care? It doesn’t matter but those irresponsible managers weren’t prosecuted. And where are they now? I bet they live comfortably in large houses somewhere, when a lot of their unfortunate employers are struggling badly in damp flats.
I should add here, that years ago I part-owned a finance company. I was worried about what would happen if something catastrophic happened to one of the principles. As its lending was basically sound, all we would have needed to do, was just run the company into the ground collecting the debts and cutting expenses to the bone to get all of our money back. I think this is what was done with Northern Rock, so when a bank goes bust, everything is not lost.
If we look at HBOS and RBS, then they should have been treated the same way as Northern Rock. But the failure of two banks in NuLabor heartlands couldn’t be allowed to happen. In the end however, Lloyds was brought into the mess to save NuLabor’s face and a good sound bank was ruined. The only things that are important in my way of thinking about banks, is that the money of innocent customers is safe and companies and individuals that need to borrow have access to funds.
In part, since the banking crisis, things have got better, as customer money is now safe, but obtaining funds for a reputable purpose has got difficult. Unless of course you have no credit rating, so you can go down the pay-day loan route and bankrupt yourself.
I suspect too, that people are now less likely to bank in countries like Iceland. Why incidentally, does the UK government have to bail out the Icelandic banks, so those greedy individuals who put their money offshore get their money back? I prefer to bank with a building society and speculate using Zopa. And with Zopa, I’m getting five or six percent by following a conservative strategy.
So King’s statement that reforms must not fail is correct, but those reforms must not ruin the banks, as NuLabor ruined Lloyds.
And those reforms must not bring companies like Zopa into the grasp of the FSA. But I suspect there will be pressure for this, as the Zopa model is low-cost for borrowers and lenders, and I can see it growing to be very large. Will the major clearing banks allow this? I doubt it and they will have the King’s ear.
A Wonga Moment
I first became aware of Wonga, the on-line lender, a couple of years ago at an on-line awards ceremony. It didn’t win, and I can remember telling a lot of people at the time, that I didn’t think it was very ethical or even legal, as it charged a very high rate of interest for small sums. I think I even asked the guy doing the presentation a question on this basis, but I can’t be sure.
I’d hoped that the businesss had gone to the dogs, as I didn’t like it, but I now know it hasn’t, as it adorns the shirts of Blackpool FC. And then on the train to Norwich this morning, I saw the headline, What ‘pay day’ lender Wonga’s television advertisements fail to dwell on: 2,689% APR , in the Mail on Sunday, being read by the guy next door.
In other words, they charge hundreds of times more than my preferred on-line lender, Zopa.
I have no experience of using them, but the Mail has a fairly worried tone about the company. I would suggest that before you use Wonga, you read their article and discuss it with someone who knows finance better than I do!
I also write this from experience of being a partner in a finance company and the sometime holder of a Consumer Credit Licence. I also once had a business card that amongst the things I did, said. “Loans Sharked”
Wonga though might have a postive side. When there is a general awareness of how much they are being charged by some of the highly-advertised finance companies, people may actually realise that there are other and much better ways of getting their finances in order.
The Anonymous Widower 