Toxic Assets
I wish that people would stop using that phrase, it makes it sound as if they were unfortunate to catch something that was not their fault. How about some more truthful phrases:
Dodgy Loans
Foolish Lending
Royal Bank of Scotland has recorded the largest loss in UK corporate history and is being bailed out again by the Treasury, while small and medium businesses are still struggling to get hold of credit. RBS lost £40bn before tax in 2008, despite two government bailouts, on a total income of £25.8bn - after excluding parts of …
What a monumental fucking disaster. Let this be an example to all companies that think they can become global players by acquisition rather than being decent companies. Utterly useless tossers, especially the CEO who decided that intercontinental dick-swinging in the face of oblivion was the best policy when hunting ABN AMRO.
Too late now, but
Wait for each bank to fail, the Bank of England then buys them up cheaply.
Then the government (is that still the right word?) can control bonuses, lending etc. whilst protecting jobs, not rewarding failure and keeping money circulating.
The big change would be allowing the bank of England to take deposits and make loans.
So much of our money wasted, and we'll spend decades paying it back.
I'm sad...
ttfn
Apparently Fred 'the Shred' has been asked to consider giving up some or all of his £650,000 a year pension "on a voluntary basis". It certainly seems obvious that those responsible for one of the biggest cock-ups in financial history should not be allowed to benefit from it in so egregious a fashion.
No doubt we will soon be hearing from Messrs Brown and Campbell that they too will be giving up their taxpayer funded pensions "on a voluntary basis". I'm not holding my breath, though.
Wouldn't it have been cheaper to let RBS fail and protect the depositors to 100%. Then some one could have bought the useful bits as a going concern and left the crap behind.
Instead of which we seam to have bought a bank with so much crap it's about to post the biggest loss in UK Corporate history. And we are also left insuring the banks against further losses.
Go Icon because no one can stop this madness.
How can someone who has presided over the biggest banking disaster the UK has seen be asked voluntarily to give up £650,000 a year ?. This is my idea of 'voluntary recovery'.The government (you know, the one WE are underwriting with OUR hard earned taxes) should be despatching our SAS round to his mansion to recover OUR money and then assist him in having an accident involving a high window. Oh, and not before he has had a size ten SAS style hobnail boot up his !@*# !!!
What a joke. Private Enterprise (or crookery known by its true name) has taken no risk and the taxpayer has picked up the bill. In a few years time HMG will flog it off cheaply and the whole lot will be picked up and a killing made by the same criminals who got us into this mess.
The government - essentially - took over Northern Rock (all the while failing, spectacularly, to see the portent therein) and, after many tries and many foolish statements now owns RBS.
Would it not have been cheaper, less painful and more effective for the government to simply have allowed RBS to close and simultaneously reopen as a government bank - backed the the government's ability (and the citizens' apparent willingness thereto) to tax everyone in the UK until they drop? Instantly you have control over lending, assurance on so-called 'toxic assets' and - and this is petty and irrelevant but I like the idea - an immediate end to the disgusting payment of bonuses to abject failures.
Yes, it's 20/20 hindsight but then, I'm not a power-junkie who claims to know what's best for the country.
"an immediate end to the disgusting payment of bonuses to abject failures."
Not if you see the bonuses and large salaries paid to some civil servants. All that would happen is that there would be more red tape to ensure "targets" are met. Also, the people who would be put in charge would be in the boys club not people who actually have experience. Part of the problem with this sorry mess is that the people at the top didn't know how to run a bank - a shop yes, a bank no.