Brown and the Banks

[Monkeytrousers]

www.thisismoney.co.uk/news/article.html?in_article_id=453203&in_page_id=2

I know there wil be a chorus of cynical voices echoing Tory grumbles (I have been told by an insider that the Tories are despeeratley praying for disaster in the economy - our economy - their economy - just so they can play the 'I told you so' card) of unfair use of taxpayer money, which completley ignores the payoff at the end if this works. This move will radicalise the banking system, and for the better.

I think this plan is a stroke of genius. I am in awe of GB's balls. I really hope it works and am almost sorry it's taken a global recession to do this, as it needed doing anyway.

Oh no bunny, lending them money to be paid back with interest would be so much more effective in saving the small to medium business' wouldn't it
What about raising the personal allowances to £10k for everyone, allowing married people to transfer their allowances.
But no it's better to keep the masses dependant on the state for tax credits and everyone else in debt.

Sorry of course I meant sub prime, am dealing with child vomit in between putting the world to rights

Actually I probably was right the first time subliminal messages encouraging MEWing through day time TV ad's featuring the lovely Carol Voderman got us into this mess

Well Bunny, I'm prepared to acknowledge that there must be some people who didn't conspire in creating this mess, of course.

But most of us are complicit in this mess to some extent. For instance, you say you borrowed? Who from? One of the few remaining mutual societies? Or did you shop around for the best rates without wondering how those banks were achieving those rates? See, I've done that, and I figure that makes me involved in all this.

Some people ??? There are 10 savers for every borrower.
As Brown will discover at the next election not everyone in this country is a debt ridden hard working family.

OB, dh has a small business and last week made 2 of his 4 staff redundant. And what does the government do? Increase NI contributions for the employer - that'll help them hang on to staff wont it ?!

It's all blardy mad.

You think the savers are blameless? Ah, see I think they are more guilty than the borrowers - ferreting around for the best rates without worrying about how those rates were achieved. Not even spending their hard earned lucre to help keep the world on its axis ...

Quattro, we were never tempted to put money into banks offering ridiculous interest because we knew it was unsustainable. (Martin Lewis was advising people to put money into the Icelandic bank! Tosser.) Dont people ever question anything? Why do they have so much blind faith in financial institutions. ARGGHH

10 savers to every borrower. I didnt realise the ratio. Blimey. exactly whose votes are they trying to buy?

Sorry Quattro, posts crossed. You see I am truly blameless so will polish my halo and retire.

G'night
x

does 10 savers to every borrower include people with no mortgage but very little savings - ie just running a current account?

Comment I heard on the radio said why should taxpayers be shoring up the banks when it was their arrogance & mismanagement that got us into this?

And yes, as Cloudhopper says, what happens about bank salaries?

I'm not sure about the savers stats, heard it on five live if i'm honest.
However a real life straw poll amongst people I know is that 99% of us do not receive tax credits, most of us have a very small mortgage, cos they are 35-45 (i'm not one of those btw) and all of us have over £30k in savings, so GB's target market of hard working families (which he laments every fecking speech) who have borrowed 4/5 times their salary to put a roof over their heads and have other debt just to get by doesn't apply in this area and yet currently we have a labour MP, personally I don't think he stands a chance next election.
People I speak to, middle class and working class feel utterly shafted under labour.

I think I have reconciled myself with the bank bailouts but..

..something still bugs me:
People in the world of finance have made mistakes. Mistakes happen. Fair enough.

In this case, though, they have earned a fortune in the process -
while we (and our children - and our children's children) pick up the bill.

That's the bit that still rankles. A lot.

Yes, it does. But hopefully what Brown is doing will give us more power to stop banks investing our money in such 'toxic assests' again while also ushering in a era of greater bank accountablity?

But Brown engineered some of these toxic assets himself, in proping up the housing market which should have crashed in 2005 by cutting interest rates, setting up part ownership schemes, anything to stop the bubble popping.Economics have a natural cycle, you cannot fight it, it goes back to the bible days 7 years feast, 7 years famine.
But oh no Gordon Brown will be parting the Red Sea next, stand back Moses watch how it's done.

I probably agree, MT, and I like your rational and mature take on this.

Emotionally, I am not ready to join you.

I feel it would help if the fairness gap was addressed.
As it stands we are bailing out a bunch of self-serving wealthy arseholes
and understandably there is some resistance to that.

If those self-serving wealthy arseholes were made to pay, and in public,
(e.g. return 50% of their personal assets to the government)
there would be greater support for these measures.
I think.

Well yes, DaddyJ, that is certainly an emotive argument.

On the same basis though, all those who benefited from that caused this crisis should also be appropriately penitent.

Certainly if the arseholes at the banks are being forced to hand over their personal assets, then so should the law firms and accountancy firms that advised them on creating and structuring these investments.

The hedge funds, the pension funds, the insurance funds and mutural funds that made huge gains from participating in these investments (and are yet to have these gains even close to eroded) should also give over their ill-gotten gains from the investments that drove this crisis.

Although, arguably in doing so, that should make us wonder what drove all these other agencies to get involved in the first place...

To add to your list, cest, the people who borrowed far more than they could possibly repay, should also lose their home and possessions. It takes 2 hands to clap.

Waswondering they would have taken his money to fund the home anyway, he'd have been no better off.
Brown is actually threatening journalists that dare to question the sceheme, the man has actually gone mad.

MT, what on earth do you mean by your "inside source" that the Tories are praying for diaster in the economy? Whomever wins the next election will be inheriting a bigger economic mess than any other incoming government in British modern history. How much more disastrous can it get?

If the economy takes a turn and shares begin to rise again the Goverment is due to make a huge amount back from this bail out. If the HBOS shares alone went up tp what they wqere this time last year the Goverment would make billions!

At the end of the day something needs to be done to shore up the economy and get the banks lending again which is really the biggest problem we have at the moment.

And Taxpayers money - it was never yours in the first place - once it is paid to the government the best way to look at it is it is theirs.

Does he have to walk up to you and take your children's piggy bank for you to get it ?
The last bailout didn't work.
They are throwing good money after bad.
There is no point in lending people money they cannot repay, lets have a quick recession get it over with and start again, this is prolonging the envitable.

blueshoes, a lot of people who could not afford their mortgages
have lost their houses or are sitting on massive losses.
So that's happening already, no fairness gap there.

It's true, cestlavie, but so far we are not asked to bail out
the fund management industry or the hedge funds or the accountants.
I think it is fair to say that they are all suffering along with the rest of us.

Yes, they enjoyed the good times but they are not directly responsible for this mess.
The banks are.
And it is the banks that we are now bailing out.

So the spotlight is firmly on our erstwhile Masters of the Universe
who are suddenly very keen to point out how unimportant they are in the scheme of things.

Banks are bailed out simply because of their retail customer base. Notice no rush to bail out Lehmans, an investment bank.

Banks are retrenching massively. What pound of flesh do you require?

The ultimate beneficiaries of the fund management industry are the investors and owners of pensions. They could very well be you and me.

No one makes a peep when their investments/pensions are doing well. Everyone so quick to point the finger when things go wrong. If your fund/pension wasn't doing as well as the next one in the good times, you'd complain.

Of course the financial industry is hardly blameless in all this. I am not making excuses for them. I am just not for singling out one industry for scapegoating, when everything is interlinked.