British MPs Blast Bankers For 'Astonishing Mess'

Bankers bear the majority of blame for the global economic crisis for having made "an astonishing mess of the financial system," an investigation by the British parliament's finance committee has concluded. The Treasury Select Committee said in a report that bailed-out banks such as HBOS and Royal Bank of Scotland were "the principal authors of their own demise," and put a harsh spotlight on RBS's acquisition of ABN Amro.

RBS succeeded in winning control of the Dutch bank after a brutal months-long battle, but the purchase "only served to prove how reckless RBS's growth had become and how it had overreached itself." The chairman of the committee gave a scathing assessment of banks' behavior in the run-up to the crisis and blamed senior managers for "failing to understand the investments being made in their name."
(More British Parliament stories.)