Is it only me but I can't help feeling some sympathy for Fred the shred - former chief Exec of RBS. I accept that we all own his bank now, and that the bank crashed and burned spectacularly. And I believe he has admitted as much. However only 2 years ago he was being lionised as the future of British banking. He took a regional bank up to world status not by committing fraud but through rapid and risky decision making. I remember discovering RBS as a student in Edinburgh and trying to figure out how 4 banks I had never heard of were able to issue their own currency. We all know their names now.
Fred Goodwin helped to create the telephone insurance marekt. His audacious raid south of the border snapped up Nat West. RBS will rise again as a world class bank and flourish. As I undersatnd it he just wants to be remunerated for the work he did getting the bank to that position. We don't dock F1 drivers when they crash their cars. We like finance to feel safe and conservative but it would appear that our way of life requires financial risk taking. So why pillory those with go faster stripes? Fred Goodwin can claim to be a buccaneer in the tradition of Drake. Do we have to confiscate all his assets because he took the corner too fast?
