The
FSA - which operates as a Quango with only the slightest amount of democratic oversight and legitimacy - intends to bring the number of paper-pushers to the incredible
total of 3700 by the end of 2010. If one remembers that the City of London worked perfectly smoothly for centuries and well into the 1980s without any monstrous 'oversight' by bureaucrats the scale of this misdirection of taxpayer resources becomes more evident. When
Lord 'Alliswell' clarifies that he considers much of financial market activity as 'economically' not useful he indirectly admits the intellectual bankruptcy of his thinking. To enter the debate about what is or is not 'economically useful' is a debate which only leads to the quicksands of moral do-
goodism where some (usually self-appointed) authority tells other people what is good for them. The good Lord owes much of his status (and income!) to his being in favour with those in power and very little to him supplying 'valuable economic services' to the citizens. The savers in this country are those that really pay for the empire building activities of those behind the ever-expanding army of bureaucrats in the
FSA. That all this spending will lead to the inevitable decline of the City of London as a financial centre is probably of no concern the the authorities. They may well talk the talk in favour of the City but one should watch what they are doing!