This morning I've been listening to the radio about Northern Rock, and the nationalisation thereof, with an increasing sense of incredulity.
For non UK readers, Northern Rock is a large UK mortgage lender that followed - and was allowed to follow by the banking regulator - the strategy of lending money on long term loans (mortgages) while borrowing short term money in the markets. This was fine while there was an inversion in rates, but when they went back to long term averages the inevitable happened, and they would have gone bust. The Banking industry and the bank and its shareholders wailed to the Gov't to bail them out, and it did - with £33bn ($66bn) of taxpayers money, and set out to find a buyer. No decent deal could be done (due in no small part to major shareholders) and so this week HM Gov moved to nationalise the bank...at a cost of c £100bn all in all to the Taxpayer
Well.....
On the radio this morning there has been a steady stream of worthies trying to get snouts in the public trough. The other banks want to sue the Gov't for now creating a subsidised competitor, the shereholders want to sue the Gov't for valuing their shares too lowly (despite the only reason the shares had a value being public backing - this was a bust bank remember), and HM Loyal opposition are basically criticizing everything the government does, no matter what it does. Needless to say no heads have rolled apart from a few sacrificial lambs at the bank
What a bloody carry on....Politics as usual, I hear you say. No wonder no-one bother to vote for these people.
But follow the money - thats £100 BILLION. Where did I get to vote for (lessee, £100 billion / c 15m taxpaying households) = c £7,000 of my money going to bail out all the slaexzeballs who got us into the situation in the first place.
If I had my way I'd withdraw support - with £33bn in it, "We the People" would be the biggest debtholder so we get first dibs on the bust business, the shareholders are wiped out, the Bankesr get to see where the problem really is - ie in their house - and we get the bank at Rock bottom price.
OK, so my proposal may not be sound (sounds better than many though imho) but my point is, I didn't get a choice.
If anything has convinced me that Government 2.0 needs to appear its this (Apart from The War that is) - ie finding ways to get the "wisdom of crowds" participating in major decisions that have to do with Our Money and How It is Spent.
