"As we've said before, nationalisation without compensation is the only realistic option left."
No! Guarantee the depositors (not the interbank stuff etc) and let the others struggle in the market: the assets - mortgages etc - can also be securitised and sold for the benefit of secured lenders and the taxpayer (although I doubt we'll get much of a look-in). This should and can be handled by a competent professional liquidator NOT by anyone connected with the shower at the Treasury.
My head is truly spinning now, isn't that roughly 10% of the entire government revenue base? Are Darling, Brown etc completely barking mad? Wat, what is your guess as to how much this is eventually going to cost us? I was guessing that we might lose about 10% of the £30bill, now I just don't know.
It would be a lot cheaper to pay substantial redundancy to all the staff (excluding the directors who should be prosecuted for serious breaches of the Companies Act like trading while insolvent and false accounting), pay of the remaining retail depositors, and the let a professional liquidator run off the rest of the book. Commercial depositors and shareholders should not be protected. They are "professionals" who should be penalised for their errors.
There is no other way to get the taxpayer out for less that the cost running the Armed Forces, and also the only way to make reckless banks and fund managers feel enough pain that they start learn that they have to take more care with other people's money.
Commenting by HaloScan
