That represented a liability of £5,530 for every one of the 21.1 million families in Britain.
We\’ve not had to pay out £5,500, each and every family of us.
We\’ve had to put at risk that amount for each and every family of us.
As to whether the risk is worth it, well, if you were to look at the standard of living you get in a society without a functional banking system you might assume that it\’s cheap at twice the rpice.
But we could still have a functional banking system without a taxpayer-guaranteed RBS. One could argue that the banking system would be better without intervantion because of the moral hazard implications of the bailout.
Are you saying there have been no losses?
Tim adds: No, certainly not. Just that that is the gross figure for what has been put at risk, not the nett losses. Which, of course, we won’t know for some years yet. What will be the losses on the bad bank? What price will we get for RBS and Lloyd’s shares in the future? I dunno and nor does anyone else…..
“Are you saying there have been no losses?”
That’s the nub of it: the £5500 “spent” figure implies it’s all gone. But any losses will likely be far less.
Compare this to the deficit, which is £100/week for every working adult. And that really is gone for good, pissed up the wall on Gordon’s public ‘services’.
Well I think that’s a misunderstanding of a what a deficit is. It’s actually spent on things, you realise? What you say is true, but only in so far as about 80% of our national income each year is ‘gone for good’.
We could say the same thing about the food industry, the computing industry or the telecoms industry.
The banks should have been left to fail.
Kay Tie,
Remember it is the Government now running these banks; we can therefore safely assume the eventual losses will be much, much, higher.