Individuals who lost more than £50,000 in the Landsbanki collapse certainly let greed get in the way of good sense, and certainly don't deserve the generous bail-out terms that the government has given them. However, that pales into insignificance compared to the 20+ local councils who've lost tens of millions between them in Landsbanki deposits. … Continue reading Anything the global financial system can do, local government can do worse
Category: Northern Rock
So, when I said "don't bother switching banks," what I actually meant was "don't bother switching banks unless your bank, instead of falling under the UK compensation scheme, falls under the compensation scheme of a small, rainy, historically very poor island which crazily overexpanded over the last five years and has absolutely no chance of … Continue reading End of the world update: time to buy tins and shotguns?
Justin is looking for constructive suggestions on what Labour could possibly do to get over their steamrollering. Mine include: 1) keep the 21% basic tax rate; abolish tax credits; and use the money saved by abolishing the 10p band to raise the personal allowance; 2) abolish NI and raise the basic and higher tax rates … Continue reading 100% hindsight, 100% of the time
If the Northern Rock debacle has done nothing else, it's certainly given a lot of people a great opportunity to rant about things they don't understand. The latest example is Granite, the name used for a collection of Special Purpose Vehicles [*] and associated companies [**] used by Northern Rock. According to hard-left MP John … Continue reading Northern Rock again: why Granite isn’t that hard
A surprisingly large number of commentators seem to believe that Northern Rock's shareholders should be eligible for some kind of compensation, following the bank's nationalisation. To me, this seems utterly bizarre. According to the Merril/Citi/Blackstone plan to sell Northern Rock in October 2007 (which was leaked by Bad People, and which certainly can't be found … Continue reading Am I missing something here?