Not every bank branch is so fancy, but considering this is the original branch and headquarters for the Royal Bank of Scotland (one of the 'too big to fail' banks) its hardly surprising that the building is beautiful on the inside. Not long ago they renovated the place to give new life to the dome. At the same time they overhauled the interior too. Mainly all the customer counters were removed and replaced with machines (you can see them on the right). With the advent of online banking and banking apps on our devices the need for human staff in branches is becoming less and less.
Recently RBS announced the closure of over 130 branches across Scotland (they'd already closed over a hundred a few years ago). Imagine the job loss. Times are changing and they are changing fast. More and more jobs are being automated. What happens when all jobs are computer controlled, automated or performed by robots? The sci fi series 'the expanse' shows a rather horrible possibility for Earth's future where there are not enough jobs to go around. People wait decades for their turn to learn and perform a job and live in poverty on government assistance while they wait.. sometimes their entire lives. Of course one could argue that the human mind is resilient and creative and that we will find new ways to earn a living. I think this is very true... the internet is a prime example of this, it has created a hold array of new occupations and ways of making money, of which steemit is but one example.
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That sure is a fancy currency exchange the people of Scotland funded, built and get robbed from daily. Which family holds the deed to the structure, the Rothschild’s or the Rockefeller’s?
Very cool post, thank you!
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The UK government is currently the majority shareholder in RBS, effectively 73%.
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Thanks! As @stevespring states, the RBS is majority shareholder owned by the UK govt now. Its how they bailed out the bank in 2008. By buying most of it at a share price that was much higher than it was valued at when they got in trouble. The idea being that the govt would sell the shares once the price has recovered, but it hasn't and their shares still don't pay out dividends.
Originally however the bank was setup by a group of people called "The Society of the Subscribed Equivalent Debt" which was set up by investors in the failed Company of Scotland to protect the compensation they received as part of the arrangements of the 1707 Acts of Union. The company of scotland was the scottish version of the east india trading company, and the acts of union was the union of scotland and england. Eventually they became the "equivalent company" in 1724 and moved into banking. It was chartered as the Royal bank of Scotland in 1727. Nowadays its a hug global corporate entity encompassing several banks and other entities which is now referred to as the Royal Bank of Scotland Group.
But yeah, that hasn't stopped them from robbing us all daily. The CEO of the bank back in 2008 pissed off so many people with the bank's near collapse his house here had stones thrown through the windows and his family practically got chased out of town. They hurt a lot of people.
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I agree with the idea that human mind will create a new way of earning a living. We have ways of creating value from nothing. I think we are starting to transition from physical assets economy to digital asset economy. And the possibility with digital assets is infinite!!
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I totally agree. Digital assets are already a large market and will only continue to grow. Those who adapt will flourish and those who don't won't.
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This is awesome!
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thank you :)
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I think my niece used to work in that bank in Edinburgh! Sad in a way, that banks are closing, but hey - we have crypto! :-) My job (stock photography) has gone the way of the dinosaur too. Not so long ago I was earning a six figure income from it. Now it supplements my Steemit and other crypto earnings! LOL!
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I tired stock photography a few years ago and the returns were crazy small. It would have been a good passive income but times have changed. Thankfully we do have crypto but it's still at such an early stage that cashing out is very difficult. At least here in the UK where crypto is treated with suspicion by the banks and the govt.
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Yes, unless you have thousands of images out there, it's tough to bring in more than a pittance.I still do OK with my stock I suppose, because I am so diversified now and have over 8,000 images floating around, but will never see a 6 figure income from it again. I still make most from Getty and regular stock, but $100 here and there from all the different micro agencies adds up. What helped me tremendously was that I was a staff photographer for a stock agency in the 90s. It was an easy step for me to take my inside knowledge of what the agencies wanted at the time, and to launch off on my own. That was a giddy time for me before Microstock appeared on the scene. I would license many hundreds of images each month (at regular stock photo prices) , and some images would bring in thousands of dollars for multiple sales each month. I have one image alone that made over $1,000,000 for Getty! My cut was 25% from the total, but still a tidy sum.Never a month passed without multiple sales of that image and that same image still sells just about every month, but for much much lower fees. It was my full time business too, and still is, although most of my attention is on Steemit now. I used to add new images weekly to all the sites, but I have been slipping since Steemit grabbed my attention!
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Wow that is crazy, but stock photography has changed a lot in the past years. It's a shame it's gone that way. I've noticed overall that photography just doesn't earn the way it used to. That's why my focus with photography has become steemit. At least here I can build an income of sorts with it.
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Have you checked your wallet in busy? it's a more accurate account, because Steemit averages the last 7 days values! we may all be laughing all the way to the bank soon if it keeps up!
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I haven't but I will. I certainly hope the price of steem stays on the upward trend. My voting power has never been this good! It's certainly having a great effect on everyone's payouts :) I would enjoy laughing all the way to the bank ;)
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I know! The voting power slider confuses me a bit. I’ve read some things about it, but I’m tending to run out of power by the end of the day. I probably need to pay more attention to what I’m doing. Lol!
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Steemnow is good for that. It tells you your voting power, how long it will take to get to 100% and how much your vote is currently worth and how much its worth at 100%. I try to keep my VP in the 90 - 100% range to maximise my votes. But it does require constant monitoring.
I was just thinking, if I could generate enough income from steemit to cover my mortgage every month I would be very happy. Even happier if it covered all my expenses but one step at a time :)
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it sure is an amazing building, funded of course over the years by robbing the people whose money they should be protecting
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Indeed! Especially in recent years. I remember stories from before the crash about how staff were made to sell financial products to pensioners who didn't understand what they were buying and thus loosing their money. Utterly immoral.
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Ohh yes absolutely disgusting
Banks killed so many small business and then get bailed out by the government
Shows where priorities lie
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Absolutely, I wish the govt had taken the Icelandic approach and let the banks deal with the consequences and held the bankers accountable to the law, but here they all got a pass.
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I agree
The bankers got away with so much itbis shocking
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That was such a neat move there, but with a population of 250,000 it was probably easier to do! They should be made accountable. Banks here have gone back to their old practices. :-(
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Yes, they've basically learned that they can get away with anything so they just carry on as before.
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Certainly looks a lot different from when I used to go in there with my bank book!
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Yeah the refurb changed the place a lot. I think it does look much better now.
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