Well, the Dutch have joined the rank of bank owners. So now nearly all of us partly own a bank. After years of selling off national treasures (where does that money go..), all of a sudden we find ourselves reposessing banks.
What do you make of it?

I'm seriously confused. I think the bank we purchased has enough assets to warrent the price we paid for it, I think it's a bargain actually. You think we can reposses the railway too? Energy companies? Come on!

Sounds good to me

Me too.

Eccept how long will it remain in State (your) ownership if and when the corner is turned and it begins to make profits?

A nano-second?

'Fraid so, and where DOES that money go?

Financial analyst are now worrying that stateownership will make the bank too strong for i't's competitors.
This gets better every second

I can't wait to partly own a bank or building society as it's bound to help me secure a mortgage, yes?

I think Gordon Brown is putting the nails into the coffin of Thatcherism. Along time coming but it was worth the wait now we just need Thatcher herself to...

Since the US now essentially owns AIG as well, I am wondering when the US flag will replace the AIG logo on the ManU kit.

i don't think it was ever there in the first place

the only money that is real is what i have left to spend at waitroses which gets less by the minute



the bizzarest bit of banking for me is that we started off being with the post office, for which we both worked. We have never changed out bank account but now our overdraft is with santander who are spanish.

You are taking the piss. Aren't you?

Firstly. None has nationalised any banks with this deal. In the UK it is about the government buying shares to provide capital to the banks. The grand idea is that by recapitalising the banks they will be better placed to withstand losses (and there are a lot more to come) from loan defaults (and more importantly from the rapidly imploding derivatives market).

Hmmmm.

As part of the deal Brown wants the banks to start lending again - back to 2007 levels I heard one Labour minister say. Ok. This is insane. What most people (including most people in the media) have failed to grasp is that this is NOT a credit crisis.

It is a debt crisis. The UK and US economies recent growth has all been as a result of ever increasing debt. That debt was ostensibly backed up by rising asset prices (namely houses). The bubble burst - house prices became so out of reach that it was not possible to sustain the growth - in order to get on the housing ladder people were taking out loans 7-8 times their annual income - frequently by lying about their income - although aided and abetted by the banks and the shylocks they employed.

But the irony is that it was the very practice of shylock lending that was fueling the growth in house prices. y providing ever more desperate people with the funds to buy outrageously priced houses it pushed the market up ever further. All banks knew this was unsustainable - that's why they participated in the Ponzi derivatives schemes which repacked unsound loans as top quality debt and sold these dodgy investment vehicles on.

And Gordon Brown KNEW exactly what was happening - he aided and abetted the city fraudsters all along by refusing to even look at regulation.

And now it's all come crashing down we are supposed to believe the Brown is some kind of saviour come to save the world after a Damascene conversion to regulation.

The reality is GB was always a Thatcherite. Always. His PFI and PPP deals are little better than the shit-smelling derivatives market. Frankly it may not be long before UK Plc goes the way of Iceland. Brown indebted this nation to the hilt - he actively embarked on shoddy privatisations and he totally mismanaged the UK economy.

All he's currently doing is firefighting - The £37bn going into the banks might well be lost within weeks - what happens if the Lloyds-HBOS deal goes sour and Brown is forced to nationalise HBOS - a real possibility? RBS looks decidedly ropey as well. And Barclays is by no means out of this yet.

And why don't you take a look at the value of the pound. It's been dropping rapidly - for an economy like ours that's reliant on imports we could be importing inflation. Indeed all the new debt that Brown is creating (he sure as hell doesn't have £37bn hanging around in the BoE) runs the risk of massively increasing the money supply - just because the price of oil is falling, doesn't mean that we're out of the woods yet on inflation.

The Blair/Brown administrations will go down as one of the most inept, incompetent, spendthrift (with little to show for it) administrations in the history of British politics.

The death of Thatcherism. No. The death of Britain as a world player - entirely possible. Thanks Gordon.

"The Blair/Brown administrations will go down as one of the most inept, incompetent, spendthrift (with little to show for it) administrations in the history of British politics"

Nothing the Labour Party could do would please some people I could produce a long list of achievements but it would be ignored.

Spendthrift?! Stopped reading the Guardian and started getting the Daily Mail have we? We are going to get more and better regulation because of this crisis as the banks have proved they can't regulate themselves.

The Tories have no alternative and yes house prices would need to recover or people wouldn't be able to ever move.

As ever we need to base any counter measures so we realistically deal with the crisis not how we would have liked society to be if Thatcher hadn't come along and upturned Butskellism.

PFI etc is a sad reality, to re-establish the direct labour structures that hospitals and councils once had would be even more expensive than PFI and I don't believe that every aspect of capitalism is bad (just some)

Imagine a nationalised Hollywood the films would be pants mate.

I believe we have returned to the post 1945 consensus and rejected Keith Joseph style economics.

Our choice remains the same Labour or Tory, investment or cuts

No, no. Please enlighten us?

I could do with a laugh.




It's a bit late now to talk about regulation isn't it. It's already happened - the world's financial system has all but collapsed. Governments are busy creating new money to try and prop it up - but this in itself could have disastrous consequences.

House prices need to rise again. Are you insane or just stupid! That's part of the problem in the first place. House prices need to drop and, more to the point, government regulation is required to stop them becoming investment vehicles agin - houses are somewhere to live. Not cash-shitting machines.

But what we need is a policy of an end to repossession. Properties could be bought by the government when owners are unable to pay - they can then rent them back.




It's a bit late 11 years into an administration for it to suddenly claim that it isn't Thatcherite any more. There's nothing Butskellite about what Brown is doing now. He's sticking plaster over a wound when it's a blood transfusion that's needed.



OK - so on the one hand you are claiming the death of Thatcherism, whilst on the other you are saying Thatcherite policies are a necessary evil. I don't get it. Do you really think PFI offers a better deal for taxpayers than say government bonds?

There's a good anti-PFI campaign run by Unison - http://www.unison.org.uk/pfi/caseagainst.asp

Re the nationalised Hollywood - er - ok whatever, mate. So your basically showing your NuLAb colours and saying all public services are shit?

I forget what a great service we get from the privatised utilities. And MetroNet - PP At Brown's personal insistence. That went well didn't it?



Oh give me a break. I see no evidence that anything has changed - just a huge dose of corporate welfare.

I'm afraid you are going to get cuts in public spending whoever is in power - the public finances are in a terrible, terrible mess. Brown totally fucked us over. We'll be paying for this for a long time.

And trying to pull the Tory bogeyman trick just doesn't wash anymore. Yes they're a bunch of wankers as well, so what?

If you want a list of achievements and how Labour differ from the Tories reread my previous posts.

I don't think renting is going to make a significant comeback, people love owning their own homes, I've been a council tenant for 27 years and a "homeowner" for 14. I know which one I prefer. Home ownership promotes social responsibility and makes you feel like you have a stake in society. Yes it meens that that old radicalism dissapears and you are "bought off" by the system or to put it another way you have to grow up.

It's clear from my posts I believe that since socially we had clearly broken from Thatcherism, just look at the progressive nature of the gay rights legislation put in place.

Economically I'd say record investment was something Tories were never going to try and now we have state intervention in banks and the clear prospect of further regulation all clearly unlike Reagan and Thatcher.

In terms of Foreign policy despite Iraq which I was always against (but understood the realpolitic reasons why) Third world debt and the general pro Africa sentiment (which so annoys Mail readers) are all unlike the tories attitude to the third world.

I agree with much you say actually, the sticking plaster nature of the measures is true but it clearly shows the limits a national goverment can do the global markets are too strong.

Labour is pro the public sector that is why it is larger than it has ever been and the Mail/Express/Telegraph hate Labour so.

I don't want the Tories back the 1980's were hell for my family I don't forgive or forget you see.

This is such utter, utter bollocks and spoken like a true Thatcherite...

Tell the Scandinavians or Germans that "home ownership promotes social responsibility".

Not sure I follow you, SL?

ehm...
OVer here it's 50/50 I guess, and it's obvious over here that the homes that are owned are better maintained. This has nothing to do with the people that rent, but everything with bastard rental corperations that see bigger profits in selling off the land to real estate developers so they point blank refuse to maintain their properties.

My understanding Fred E was that the culture of house buying isn't so huge in Scandinavia.

Isn't heart warming to know that Northern Rock are so grateful to have been saved, that in their efforts to win our hearts, minds and money - they're setting out plans to help more first time home buyers....


... by repossessing 50% more homes than their nearest rival.

But as the cost renting has increased people have been forced to buy. In the good old days renters were much better protected than they are now, where the law on what landlords can charge is one big grey area, thanks to the neo-liberal government that we have. In Denmark, or course. If you want to live in the this city (and the nature of my job means that there's most work for me here) it's impossible to find cheap rented accomodation. So we had to buy and this has been a widespread phenomenon over the last 8 or so years. The other alternative to is to move to the west of Jutland and and buy a big house with a big garden for what we paid for our pokey two-bedroom flat. But I wouldn't be able to find much work there.

Where Scandinavia differs most significantly to the UK is that most people live in flats. Of course, owning (or rather, living in) a house is an aim for most families it far from the norm.

Edited for clarification.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/oc...alaries-banking


Jump you bastards

Sadly, it didn't surpise me the way the bosses of 4 of the worst banks decided to 'quit' so eagerly - that's one of the joys of being a cynic - you rarely get disappointed

You wouldn't expect these fuckers to gracefully fall on their swords, would you - watch out for appointments to Brown sponsored think tanks in the coming weeks


eta - like the tosser from EDF - not content with hiking up fuel bills, he sits on the 'Reduce Fuel Bills' commitee, FFS!

That explains a few things.

Indeed!

You have until wednesday evening to listen to The Moral Maze on BBC Radio 4.
This week was about: ''The morality of money''

Some of the people who spoke were quite misanthropic I thought.
The first ''witness'' was a christian Abbot who thought human greed had got out of hand. We should be just concerned with our needs (he thought), not our wants.
He reminded me of barmyrob.
Claire Fox sorted him out.

Quite.

If there is a credit crisis why am I getting offered a new credit card from a different bank almost every day of the week? I'm not exaggerating. With the world going belly up they still want to lend me money so I'll go into debt and have to pay them 26.9 apr.

CRETINS!

where does the government borrow money from

Banks!!!!!

They issue bonds to be paid back with interest at a later date. They can print money as well (although if you print too much you'll cause inflation.)

i have never given it much thought before but what banks have enough money to lend gordon what he needs to bail out the other banks

all i know is, us and our children will be the ones who end up paying it all back

the people who lost out to farepack must feel sick.

Banks in the oil rich states, funnily enough.

This describes the bailout quite well - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/randi-rhodes...e_b_143945.html

This was a good blog on the housing bubble (and asset bubbles in general) - well worth reading....



And China

a good description of how it has all been funded here http://people.hofstra.edu/Jean-paul_Rodrig....html#Perpetual


Click to view attachment

good link

This is the bit that has from the very beginning made me seethe with rage.

They knew. They've known it was coming. They always knew and they fucked around and cheated and lied and schemed and did goodness knows what else all the while pretending everything was fine and then when it eventually turned to absolute shit they lied some more and said that they could never have predicted this would happen.

And we pay.

Over and over again.

Right now communism looks fine and dandy to me comrades. Fine and dandy indeed.

let me say i told you so! please

me by joe (if you can't see it you aren't logged onto the gallery)

i said i told you so to billy. He reckoned communism and capitalism was a nil nil draw

[/quote]

i said i told you so to billy. He reckoned communism and capitalism was a nil nil draw
[/quote]


It's not full-time yet Beryl.

have i got it right?

i just pre spent my pension supporting the local (chinese) economy.

having worked in the bastard social fund for a while (and was bullied at work) i find this about the most despicable thing i have heard emanate from so called bloddy 'labour'.

the social fund is where they lend people money because they haven't got any and then take it back out of their 'benefit' which they already can't afford to live on which is why they had the soicial fund loan in the first place

Actually, I don't think it's that bad an idea. The point is they are trying to freeze out criminal loansharking and that is no bad thing, and extending it to low income workers. 26% is very steep though......

credit unions are a good idea but not to replace the social fund.. which were previously one off payments. They are for basic items and if you need a social loan you can't afford any bloddy interest. Social fund recipients are generally existing on benefits, unless it is a return to work payment to tide people over 'til they get paid.

"The government has tried to distance itself from the DWP document and said that poor drafting had given a false impression people could be charged interest on social fund loans."

So there you go. What they are actually doing is trying to extend credit unions at the expense of loansharks - good idea (for once).

'snot what is says 'ere





is it like the 10p tax.

gordon didn't understand it

poor drafting my arse!

Come on Beryl you know as well as I do that this is just Sunday paper/talkshow waffle.

This is not a policy, it is a briefing paper which was leaked to the Mail. Hardly a paper that sticks up for the poor - aren't they all feckless according to Dacre and his minions? They are just using it to bash Brown.

This is never going to become policy!!!!!!

I'm not defending NuLAbour - I think they are atrocious - but this is a storm in a teacup orchestrated by the Tories (since when did they care about any but their own?) which will be forgotten in a couple of days.

I hope you are right but like student grants became loans and social fund payments became social fund loans i suspect that the nudge towards making the very poor borrow from other sources than the government is a likely possibility.

Unless it has changed for the better.. and i doubt it.. since i worked there, the social fund works like this:-

The social 'fund' has just so much money which the bitches who work in the system can lend to the very poor if they can 'prove' they need a bed or some such essential item. Of course they mostly don't really need a bed they just need some money.

If the fund runs out of money nobody gets anything.

so i suspect that the 'new improved' system will just mean they turn the very poor away from 'free' loans and send them to a third party, who may hand out some dosh but at a price.

if nobody noticed and they thought they could get away with it the brown money lenders would have done it in a heartbeat, of that i have no doubt.

a word of advice.. if you ever find yourself on the social and in love.. don't take out a loan for your new girlfriend's children's beds because when she pisses off you will be stuck with it... and all her previous loans as well!

http://newsbiscuit.com/article/brown-denie...hree-ghosts-432

Just so's we don't forget that we wuz warned I offer this article from Andrew Leonard (Salon) who could, like a lot of other people "see it coming". He is, you'll see from his piece, no conservative. At least I get that impression. But his was one of the voices that the conservative right insisted was wrong and should belt up before the country was talked into recession.

This column, The Great Depression; The sequel, was written in April 2008.

For me the most revelatory comment was the one about Ben Bernanke...



The people at the very pinnacle of all things financial in the US, possibly the world, knew this was coming and aside from Bernanke's actions mentioned above, did absolutely bugger all to prevent it.

In all likelihood the only action they took was to increase the level of their malfeasance in order to bulk up their own personal accounts before the faeces hit the fan.

The problem is that if you go back a couple of years there were others who didn't expect this to happen and were just as convincing.

I think that the particular combination of events was impossible to predict; there is ultimately an element of chance about economics.

However, overall, I think that blaming the behaviour of the banks misses the point - which is that capitalism has an inevitable cycle with downs as well as ups. You won't get rid of the downs unless you get rid of capitalism itself, however honest or intelligent those administering the system are.

Blimey! We agree on summat!

...and while we're being shafted, the government are trying to hide their expenses.


It might be a non-news story, but it's sending all the wrong signals.

I don't think getting rid of capitalism is an option at this point but we do have an excellent opportunity to try and make it more accountable.