Thursday, October 29, 2009

Dr Jekyll and Northern Rock

Admittedly I've never thought of global money markets on any terms other than Upton Sinclair's - "Fascism is capitalism plus murder" - but I'm still struggling to fathom how the Northern Rock good bank / bad bank is actually supposed to work. Does one half smile encouragingly, build up rapport by offering you cigarettes and keep bringing cups of over-sweetened tea while the other sits backwards on a chair, beats you up in a cell and then has you stand in a pool of your own piss for sixteen hours straight? Or perhaps, as a friend put it, the tea comes before you get a mortgage, the piss after.

In essence, I suppose, the deal is this: the state gives £27 billion in aid to Bad Bank, which then, through a magician's sleight of hand, turns broken-down Good Bank into a profitable concern. Good Bank must now be sold because it's wrong for governments to interfere in the free market. Bad Bank, and its £27 billion debt to Good Bank the taxpayer, must now be dumped on the state, because it's wrong for governments to interfere in the free...

When done without government consent, this is more usually known as money laundering.

2 comments:

Robert Campbell said...

When done without government consent, this is more usually known as money laundering. or Fraud or Extortion.

Michael said...

Or embezzlement.