For the zillionth time (does this really need repeating??) more regulation is not synonymous with better regulation. It's one of the most bizarre features of people on the Left that they seem to be totally incapable of getting their heads around this simplest of propositions. And I think it's a genuine intellectual failure in them, not just the obvious one of seeking to excuse a Labour Chancellor for the catastrophic dog's breakfast he made of financial regulation.
Semi agreed. The regime put in place was rubbish and failed but there is no way on this earth that the old one, let alone any the Cons (who were fully signed up to 'light touch') would conceivably have implemented, could have headed off the crash of 08 or mitigated its impact on us to any significant degree.
There is "the crash of 08" with its attendant CDS and so forth, and there is the first bank panic in the UK for XX years with people queuing round the block to get their money out. The former of course not; the latter, perhaps.
The business model in question would need to have been prohibited in order to stop that. But the political culture of the time was 'these guys know what they're doing, leave them be, count the tax pounds'. Would this have been different with George Osborne or John McDonnell instead of Gordon Brown as Chancellor? (I now copy your last sentence).
The Bank of England is still in charge of monitoring bank capital ratios and blocks RBS from buying ABN Amro. The Bank of England tells Northern Rock it's business model is built on sand and to hold 8% capital, not 0%. The Bank of England tells HBOS the same and to hold 8% reserve capital.
That alone changes the nature and severity of the banking crisis in 08. You want to rewrite history and pretend it was investment banks that failed in the UK, it wasn't, it was standard old retail banks that shat the bed and needed bailing out.
I still think we should have let all of them go bankrupt and stood behind the depositors. It was a mistake to for the state to step in and socialise losses.
I'm not rewriting history. You're constructing an alternative history whereby under the 'light touch' laissez faire Tories, the City's reckless exuberance (being kind there) would have been tamed to such an extent that when global money markets had their near fatal seizure we here would have been largely protected. I find this fanciful in the extreme. Also the distinction between retail and investment banks' behaviour isn't a clear one. Eg, a large part of RBS's problem was paying a ludicrous amount for the poison pill that was ABN. It was full of junk. Barclays and the much vaunted Bob Diamond avoided that fate by the sheer dumb luck of being outbid by a bigger and more hubristic fool. Investment banks (and bankers) played a full part in the debacle on both sides of the Atlantic.
South Africa reports 4,373 new coronavirus cases, an increase of 404% from last week
OMICRON? Or is this just what happens when Covid starts spreading again.
The new case numbers have been in four figures for a few days now... there were 3,220 on Saturday for example, they then 'fell'* for three days before spiking up again.
I suspect there is an omicron effect, a general covid effect and a day-of-the-week reporting effect.
For the zillionth time (does this really need repeating??) more regulation is not synonymous with better regulation. It's one of the most bizarre features of people on the Left that they seem to be totally incapable of getting their heads around this simplest of propositions. And I think it's a genuine intellectual failure in them, not just the obvious one of seeking to excuse a Labour Chancellor for the catastrophic dog's breakfast he made of financial regulation.
Semi agreed. The regime put in place was rubbish and failed but there is no way on this earth that the old one, let alone any the Cons (who were fully signed up to 'light touch') would conceivably have implemented, could have headed off the crash of 08 or mitigated its impact on us to any significant degree.
There is "the crash of 08" with its attendant CDS and so forth, and there is the first bank panic in the UK for XX years with people queuing round the block to get their money out. The former of course not; the latter, perhaps.
The business model in question would need to have been prohibited in order to stop that. But the political culture of the time was 'these guys know what they're doing, leave them be, count the tax pounds'. Would this have been different with George Osborne or John McDonnell instead of Gordon Brown as Chancellor? (I now copy your last sentence).
The Bank of England is still in charge of monitoring bank capital ratios and blocks RBS from buying ABN Amro. The Bank of England tells Northern Rock it's business model is built on sand and to hold 8% capital, not 0%. The Bank of England tells HBOS the same and to hold 8% reserve capital.
That alone changes the nature and severity of the banking crisis in 08. You want to rewrite history and pretend it was investment banks that failed in the UK, it wasn't, it was standard old retail banks that shat the bed and needed bailing out.
I still think we should have let all of them go bankrupt and stood behind the depositors. It was a mistake to for the state to step in and socialise losses.
I'm not rewriting history. You're constructing an alternative history whereby under the 'light touch' laissez faire Tories, the City's reckless exuberance (being kind there) would have been tamed to such an extent that when global money markets had their near fatal seizure we here would have been largely protected. I find this fanciful in the extreme. Also the distinction between retail and investment banks' behaviour isn't a clear one. Eg, a large part of RBS's problem was paying a ludicrous amount for the poison pill that was ABN. It was full of junk. Barclays and the much vaunted Bob Diamond avoided that fate by the sheer dumb luck of being outbid by a bigger and more hubristic fool. Investment banks (and bankers) played a full part in the debacle on both sides of the Atlantic.
Ask yourself this, why after such a long period of it not happening why did so many banks go bust after Gordon Brown changed the rules?
Now I've spent the last decade working in banking and financial services regulation/compliance so I'm obviously an ingénue in these matters, so be gentle.
Our children's school has decided no Nativity this year. 🤬🙄
Good. Keep religion out of schools.
I'm as atheist as it gets, but the Nativity for Primary School kids is fun.
My daughter believes that her Woody, Jessie and Buzz Lightyear dolls can talk to her, talks to Santa every day, has a bunny teddy that gives her "good dreams" if she sleeps with it . . . if she learns about a fairytale about people going to Bethlehem then I'm OK with that.
Its when people try to believe that crap as adults, rather than adults playing along for children's benefit, that its a problem.
In my only acting credit to date, I played one of the Three Kings (this was back in 1982!). The one wot carried myrrh.
About 10 years ago, my grandson was one half of "The Fog" in his nursery school's production of "Santa Claus and The Three Bears".
For the zillionth time (does this really need repeating??) more regulation is not synonymous with better regulation. It's one of the most bizarre features of people on the Left that they seem to be totally incapable of getting their heads around this simplest of propositions. And I think it's a genuine intellectual failure in them, not just the obvious one of seeking to excuse a Labour Chancellor for the catastrophic dog's breakfast he made of financial regulation.
Semi agreed. The regime put in place was rubbish and failed but there is no way on this earth that the old one, let alone any the Cons (who were fully signed up to 'light touch') would conceivably have implemented, could have headed off the crash of 08 or mitigated its impact on us to any significant degree.
There is "the crash of 08" with its attendant CDS and so forth, and there is the first bank panic in the UK for XX years with people queuing round the block to get their money out. The former of course not; the latter, perhaps.
The business model in question would need to have been prohibited in order to stop that. But the political culture of the time was 'these guys know what they're doing, leave them be, count the tax pounds'. Would this have been different with George Osborne or John McDonnell instead of Gordon Brown as Chancellor? (I now copy your last sentence).
The Bank of England is still in charge of monitoring bank capital ratios and blocks RBS from buying ABN Amro. The Bank of England tells Northern Rock it's business model is built on sand and to hold 8% capital, not 0%. The Bank of England tells HBOS the same and to hold 8% reserve capital.
That alone changes the nature and severity of the banking crisis in 08. You want to rewrite history and pretend it was investment banks that failed in the UK, it wasn't, it was standard old retail banks that shat the bed and needed bailing out.
I still think we should have let all of them go bankrupt and stood behind the depositors. It was a mistake to for the state to step in and socialise losses.
The reason that didn't happen is because it would have resulted in the interbank market going to zero, and banks being unable to borrow in the bond markets.
The goal was to avoid solvent - but illiquid - institutions from being unable to fund themselves.
The Bank and Fed already had unlimited liquidity available for solvent banks, letting RBS, Northern Rock and HBOS go bankrupt would have been a national good and the Bank could have kept the emergency liquidity available for viable banks. Instead taxpayer money was pumped into RBS, Lloyds was forced down the aisle and Northern Rock was nationalised. It was the worst possible response to the whole saga and has opened up a whole moral hazard we didn't need to over "well we bailed out the financial sector so we should also bail out this failure of a company".
Well, Northern Rock effectively went bankrupt, in that shareholders and bondholders lost everything, and it was wound down in an orderly manner.
HBoS was bought by a solvent bank, and while you can make a case that Lloyds shouldn't have been 'encouraged' to acquire it, that did happen.
And RBS was a massive counterparty to other banks. Now, you can make (and maybe should make) the case that it should have been treated like National Rock and taken into effective administration. But what I think is inarguable is that a disorderly bankruptcy would have been extremely disruptive. Don't forget that in those circumstances, Barclays (for example) has no idea if - or when - it will be repaid money owed by RBS. And whether or not Barclays is solvent might rather depend on whether RBS pays it back the money it owes.
For the zillionth time (does this really need repeating??) more regulation is not synonymous with better regulation. It's one of the most bizarre features of people on the Left that they seem to be totally incapable of getting their heads around this simplest of propositions. And I think it's a genuine intellectual failure in them, not just the obvious one of seeking to excuse a Labour Chancellor for the catastrophic dog's breakfast he made of financial regulation.
Semi agreed. The regime put in place was rubbish and failed but there is no way on this earth that the old one, let alone any the Cons (who were fully signed up to 'light touch') would conceivably have implemented, could have headed off the crash of 08 or mitigated its impact on us to any significant degree.
There is "the crash of 08" with its attendant CDS and so forth, and there is the first bank panic in the UK for XX years with people queuing round the block to get their money out. The former of course not; the latter, perhaps.
The business model in question would need to have been prohibited in order to stop that. But the political culture of the time was 'these guys know what they're doing, leave them be, count the tax pounds'. Would this have been different with George Osborne or John McDonnell instead of Gordon Brown as Chancellor? (I now copy your last sentence).
The Bank of England is still in charge of monitoring bank capital ratios and blocks RBS from buying ABN Amro. The Bank of England tells Northern Rock it's business model is built on sand and to hold 8% capital, not 0%. The Bank of England tells HBOS the same and to hold 8% reserve capital.
That alone changes the nature and severity of the banking crisis in 08. You want to rewrite history and pretend it was investment banks that failed in the UK, it wasn't, it was standard old retail banks that shat the bed and needed bailing out.
I still think we should have let all of them go bankrupt and stood behind the depositors. It was a mistake to for the state to step in and socialise losses.
I'm not rewriting history. You're constructing an alternative history whereby under the 'light touch' laissez faire Tories, the City's reckless exuberance (being kind there) would have been tamed to such an extent that when global money markets had their near fatal seizure we here would have been largely protected. I find this fanciful in the extreme. Also the distinction between retail and investment banks' behaviour isn't a clear one. Eg, a large part of RBS's problem was paying a ludicrous amount for the poison pill that was ABN. It was full of junk. Barclays and the much vaunted Bob Diamond avoided that fate by the sheer dumb luck of being outbid by a bigger and more hubristic fool. Investment banks (and bankers) played a full part in the debacle on both sides of the Atlantic.
Useless regulation was the principal failing. Brown was responsible for that in the UK.
The regulator became bigger and entirely pointless.
Money laundering and insider trading became huge, and yet all the money spent achieved nothing. In fact some of the big beasts just did exactly that for fun.
Stability... not a bean spent, nor a thought given.
Our children's school has decided no Nativity this year. 🤬🙄
Good. Keep religion out of schools.
I'm as atheist as it gets, but the Nativity for Primary School kids is fun.
My daughter believes that her Woody, Jessie and Buzz Lightyear dolls can talk to her, talks to Santa every day, has a bunny teddy that gives her "good dreams" if she sleeps with it . . . if she learns about a fairytale about people going to Bethlehem then I'm OK with that.
Its when people try to believe that crap as adults, rather than adults playing along for children's benefit, that its a problem.
Adults believe it generally when they were inculcated as children.
DOn't really understand the objections regarding Burnham not being an MP. If he wants to be leader then a way will be found for him to get back into Parliament, just as it was for Boris.
For the zillionth time (does this really need repeating??) more regulation is not synonymous with better regulation. It's one of the most bizarre features of people on the Left that they seem to be totally incapable of getting their heads around this simplest of propositions. And I think it's a genuine intellectual failure in them, not just the obvious one of seeking to excuse a Labour Chancellor for the catastrophic dog's breakfast he made of financial regulation.
Semi agreed. The regime put in place was rubbish and failed but there is no way on this earth that the old one, let alone any the Cons (who were fully signed up to 'light touch') would conceivably have implemented, could have headed off the crash of 08 or mitigated its impact on us to any significant degree.
There is "the crash of 08" with its attendant CDS and so forth, and there is the first bank panic in the UK for XX years with people queuing round the block to get their money out. The former of course not; the latter, perhaps.
The business model in question would need to have been prohibited in order to stop that. But the political culture of the time was 'these guys know what they're doing, leave them be, count the tax pounds'. Would this have been different with George Osborne or John McDonnell instead of Gordon Brown as Chancellor? (I now copy your last sentence).
The Bank of England is still in charge of monitoring bank capital ratios and blocks RBS from buying ABN Amro. The Bank of England tells Northern Rock it's business model is built on sand and to hold 8% capital, not 0%. The Bank of England tells HBOS the same and to hold 8% reserve capital.
That alone changes the nature and severity of the banking crisis in 08. You want to rewrite history and pretend it was investment banks that failed in the UK, it wasn't, it was standard old retail banks that shat the bed and needed bailing out.
I still think we should have let all of them go bankrupt and stood behind the depositors. It was a mistake to for the state to step in and socialise losses.
I'm not rewriting history. You're constructing an alternative history whereby under the 'light touch' laissez faire Tories, the City's reckless exuberance (being kind there) would have been tamed to such an extent that when global money markets had their near fatal seizure we here would have been largely protected. I find this fanciful in the extreme. Also the distinction between retail and investment banks' behaviour isn't a clear one. Eg, a large part of RBS's problem was paying a ludicrous amount for the poison pill that was ABN. It was full of junk. Barclays and the much vaunted Bob Diamond avoided that fate by the sheer dumb luck of being outbid by a bigger and more hubristic fool. Investment banks (and bankers) played a full part in the debacle on both sides of the Atlantic.
Useless regulation was the principal failing. Brown was responsible for that in the UK.
The regulator became bigger and entirely pointless.
Money laundering and insider trading became huge, and yet all the money spent achieved nothing. In fact some of the big beasts just did exactly that for fun.
Stability... not a bean spent, nor a thought given.
And which was ofcourse entirely to do with prevailing Conservative intellectual currents of 20 years standing. Brown's hollow shell had nothing to do with, and was not of a piece with, any Labour intellectual current, even the recent compromises of New Labour in other policy areas.
Regarding mask wearing, every time I think masks are pointless and decide to not wear one I remember that idiots like Piers Corbyn are anti mask wearing and that pushes me back in the pro mask wearing camp.
Our children's school has decided no Nativity this year. 🤬🙄
Good. Keep religion out of schools.
Absolutely. We have tolerated plays about teenage mums having babies out of wedlock for far too long. Even more so when migrants come unscreened bringing "presents from the east" and as for seeking asylum immediately afterwards...
Not to mention the weird, extremist offshoots of existing religions.....
DOn't really understand the objections regarding Burnham not being an MP. If he wants to be leader then a way will be found for him to get back into Parliament, just as it was for Boris.
Because Boris Johnson could be an MP and Mayor of London concurrently but the law prevents Burnham being an MP and Mayor of Greater Manchester concurrently.
Well, Northern Rock effectively went bankrupt, in that shareholders and bondholders lost everything, and it was wound down in an orderly manner.
HBoS was bought by a solvent bank, and while you can make a case that Lloyds shouldn't have been 'encouraged' to acquire it, that did happen.
And RBS was a massive counterparty to other banks. Now, you can make (and maybe should make) the case that it should have been treated like National Rock and taken into effective administration. But what I think is inarguable is that a disorderly bankruptcy would have been extremely disruptive. Don't forget that in those circumstances, Barclays (for example) has no idea if - or when - it will be repaid money owed by RBS. And whether or not Barclays is solvent might rather depend on whether RBS pays it back the money it owes.
It would have been absolutely unthinkable to let RBS go bust. It would have tipped tens of thousands of companies into insolvency, caused the cash machines to stop working, stopped wages being paid, with knock effects not only for the 30% (or whatever it was) of the economy which banked with RBS, but also all their suppliers and their personal customers' creditors. That's even without thinking about the inter-bank ramifications.
The only thing the government could have done differently was to insist on shareholders being totally wiped out rather than almost totally wiped out.
DOn't really understand the objections regarding Burnham not being an MP. If he wants to be leader then a way will be found for him to get back into Parliament, just as it was for Boris.
There's no objection to him becoming Labour leader without being an MP, however Labour rules say he can't. So he has to become an MP before he becomes leader.
For the zillionth time (does this really need repeating??) more regulation is not synonymous with better regulation. It's one of the most bizarre features of people on the Left that they seem to be totally incapable of getting their heads around this simplest of propositions. And I think it's a genuine intellectual failure in them, not just the obvious one of seeking to excuse a Labour Chancellor for the catastrophic dog's breakfast he made of financial regulation.
Semi agreed. The regime put in place was rubbish and failed but there is no way on this earth that the old one, let alone any the Cons (who were fully signed up to 'light touch') would conceivably have implemented, could have headed off the crash of 08 or mitigated its impact on us to any significant degree.
There is "the crash of 08" with its attendant CDS and so forth, and there is the first bank panic in the UK for XX years with people queuing round the block to get their money out. The former of course not; the latter, perhaps.
The business model in question would need to have been prohibited in order to stop that. But the political culture of the time was 'these guys know what they're doing, leave them be, count the tax pounds'. Would this have been different with George Osborne or John McDonnell instead of Gordon Brown as Chancellor? (I now copy your last sentence).
The Bank of England is still in charge of monitoring bank capital ratios and blocks RBS from buying ABN Amro. The Bank of England tells Northern Rock it's business model is built on sand and to hold 8% capital, not 0%. The Bank of England tells HBOS the same and to hold 8% reserve capital.
That alone changes the nature and severity of the banking crisis in 08. You want to rewrite history and pretend it was investment banks that failed in the UK, it wasn't, it was standard old retail banks that shat the bed and needed bailing out.
I still think we should have let all of them go bankrupt and stood behind the depositors. It was a mistake to for the state to step in and socialise losses.
The reason that didn't happen is because it would have resulted in the interbank market going to zero, and banks being unable to borrow in the bond markets.
The goal was to avoid solvent - but illiquid - institutions from being unable to fund themselves.
The Bank and Fed already had unlimited liquidity available for solvent banks, letting RBS, Northern Rock and HBOS go bankrupt would have been a national good and the Bank could have kept the emergency liquidity available for viable banks. Instead taxpayer money was pumped into RBS, Lloyds was forced down the aisle and Northern Rock was nationalised. It was the worst possible response to the whole saga and has opened up a whole moral hazard we didn't need to over "well we bailed out the financial sector so we should also bail out this failure of a company".
Well, Northern Rock effectively went bankrupt, in that shareholders and bondholders lost everything, and it was wound down in an orderly manner.
HBoS was bought by a solvent bank, and while you can make a case that Lloyds shouldn't have been 'encouraged' to acquire it, that did happen.
And RBS was a massive counterparty to other banks. Now, you can make (and maybe should make) the case that it should have been treated like National Rock and taken into effective administration. But what I think is inarguable is that a disorderly bankruptcy would have been extremely disruptive. Don't forget that in those circumstances, Barclays (for example) has no idea if - or when - it will be repaid money owed by RBS. And whether or not Barclays is solvent might rather depend on whether RBS pays it back the money it owes.
If Barclays had gone under as well, why would that have been a bad thing? Sure, the tax payer has to cough up for deposits up to a certain amount, but I don't think it would have been a bad thing for them to go as well.
Nice to hear a little about the 50k homes without power at the end. Should imagine this would be a bigger story were it anywhere near where journalists live.
The message to anyone living in the rural/semi-rural north is clearly: buy a battery for your home.
Anyone who can't afford one should at least find themselves a camping stove.
Well, Northern Rock effectively went bankrupt, in that shareholders and bondholders lost everything, and it was wound down in an orderly manner.
HBoS was bought by a solvent bank, and while you can make a case that Lloyds shouldn't have been 'encouraged' to acquire it, that did happen.
And RBS was a massive counterparty to other banks. Now, you can make (and maybe should make) the case that it should have been treated like National Rock and taken into effective administration. But what I think is inarguable is that a disorderly bankruptcy would have been extremely disruptive. Don't forget that in those circumstances, Barclays (for example) has no idea if - or when - it will be repaid money owed by RBS. And whether or not Barclays is solvent might rather depend on whether RBS pays it back the money it owes.
It would have been absolutely unthinkable to let RBS go bust. It would have tipped tens of thousands of companies into insolvency, caused the cash machines to stop working, stopped wages being paid, with knock effects not only for the 30% (or whatever it was) of the economy which banked with RBS, but also all their suppliers and their personal customers' creditors. That's even without thinking about the inter-bank ramifications.
The only thing the government could have done differently was to insist on shareholders being totally wiped out rather than almost totally wiped out.
Bondholders should also have been wiped out and the carcass of RBS asset stripped and sold for whatever it was worth. I'm not saying it should have been a disorderly collapse, more that the company should have ceased to exist on the administration process with shareholders and bondholders all taking the full hit.
Nice to hear a little about the 50k homes without power at the end. Should imagine this would be a bigger story were it anywhere near where journalists live.
Our power was out Friday through to Sunday. It got very cold indoors before it was restored. Turns out gas central heating doesn't work when the timer/controller is mains-powered.
Cases now likely to be dropping on a weekly basis by specimen date, if Omicron is already here then it's not such a big deal or we haven't got it in significant numbers. It's probably the latter. If it's the former then it could mean that it doesn't sufficiently evade immunity as to cause an explosion in case numbers or hospitalisations in a mostly free society with few to no NPIs.
Bondholders should also have been wiped out and the carcass of RBS asset stripped and sold for whatever it was worth. I'm not saying it should have been a disorderly collapse, more that the company should have ceased to exist on the administration process with shareholders and bondholders all taking the full hit.
Either the government takes on all liabilities or it doesn't. If it doesn't, immediately, you get the disorderly chaos I described. If it does, bondholders (who are, after all, just creditors like RBS clients were, and who comprised other banks, companies, and pension funds) can't be excluded from the guarantee, and nor would you want them to, because many of them will go bust in turn if they are excluded.
Cases now likely to be dropping on a weekly basis by specimen date, if Omicron is already here then it's not such a big deal or we haven't got it in significant numbers. It's probably the latter. If it's the former then it could mean that it doesn't sufficiently evade immunity as to cause an explosion in case numbers or hospitalisations in a mostly free society with few to no NPIs.
Well, one thing we can be fairly sure of is that Johnson isn't going to go for the Greek or Austrian approach of mandatory vaccinations.
Cases now likely to be dropping on a weekly basis by specimen date, if Omicron is already here then it's not such a big deal or we haven't got it in significant numbers. It's probably the latter. If it's the former then it could mean that it doesn't sufficiently evade immunity as to cause an explosion in case numbers or hospitalisations in a mostly free society with few to no NPIs.
Yes, the official w-o-w figure is showing a wafer-thin rise of 1%... that will probably go negative tomorrow unless we pick up an anomalously large number of positive tests today. Deaths, admissions, continue to fall steadily.
Cases now likely to be dropping on a weekly basis by specimen date, if Omicron is already here then it's not such a big deal or we haven't got it in significant numbers. It's probably the latter. If it's the former then it could mean that it doesn't sufficiently evade immunity as to cause an explosion in case numbers or hospitalisations in a mostly free society with few to no NPIs.
More Omicron = fewer Deltas. Same virus, though some people (and politicians) without evidence to the contrary are behaving as though it is a new scary thing.
Well, Northern Rock effectively went bankrupt, in that shareholders and bondholders lost everything, and it was wound down in an orderly manner.
HBoS was bought by a solvent bank, and while you can make a case that Lloyds shouldn't have been 'encouraged' to acquire it, that did happen.
And RBS was a massive counterparty to other banks. Now, you can make (and maybe should make) the case that it should have been treated like National Rock and taken into effective administration. But what I think is inarguable is that a disorderly bankruptcy would have been extremely disruptive. Don't forget that in those circumstances, Barclays (for example) has no idea if - or when - it will be repaid money owed by RBS. And whether or not Barclays is solvent might rather depend on whether RBS pays it back the money it owes.
It would have been absolutely unthinkable to let RBS go bust. It would have tipped tens of thousands of companies into insolvency, caused the cash machines to stop working, stopped wages being paid, with knock effects not only for the 30% (or whatever it was) of the economy which banked with RBS, but also all their suppliers and their personal customers' creditors. That's even without thinking about the inter-bank ramifications.
The only thing the government could have done differently was to insist on shareholders being totally wiped out rather than almost totally wiped out.
Bondholders should also have been wiped out and the carcass of RBS asset stripped and sold for whatever it was worth. I'm not saying it should have been a disorderly collapse, more that the company should have ceased to exist on the administration process with shareholders and bondholders all taking the full hit.
Except it's a lot more complicated than that.
For a start, most of the debt existed not at the parent company level, but at subsidiaries, many of which were solvent.
We all look at consolidated financial statements, but the reality is that these businesses are a web of limited companies, with their own balance sheets, assets and liabilities.
It's also worth remembering that there are contractual arrangements too. RBS will be a party to lots of contracts. Do they cease providing services immediately.
With normal companies who become insolvent, administrators are appointed, who manage the wind down in an orderly fashion. And that is - in effect - what happened with Northern Rock and with Bradford & Bingley.
Now, could we come up with a better way of doing this? Yes. But the "let 'em go to the wall" misses the extent to which that the banks all have obligations to each other.
Cases now likely to be dropping on a weekly basis by specimen date, if Omicron is already here then it's not such a big deal or we haven't got it in significant numbers. It's probably the latter. If it's the former then it could mean that it doesn't sufficiently evade immunity as to cause an explosion in case numbers or hospitalisations in a mostly free society with few to no NPIs.
The effect of the boosters on the case rate by age statistics is becoming increasingly marked. If Omicron turns out not to be a big deal then completing the booster doses in two months will do a lot to reduce the impact of Covid patients in hospital.
Nice to hear a little about the 50k homes without power at the end. Should imagine this would be a bigger story were it anywhere near where journalists live.
Our power was out Friday through to Sunday. It got very cold indoors before it was restored. Turns out gas central heating doesn't work when the timer/controller is mains-powered.
A while back I worked with a chap who lived out in the sticks. His neighbours used to make jokes about him being a "Prepper" - he had a shed full of batteries, and a generator. That ran on heating oil - it was an area where heating oil fired systems are standard...
When the big storm came and they were without power for days - his was the only house with heat, light etc. Turns out that he had noticed what they'd all failed to - oil heating needs pumps, igniters etc. Which all run on electricity.....
Bondholders should also have been wiped out and the carcass of RBS asset stripped and sold for whatever it was worth. I'm not saying it should have been a disorderly collapse, more that the company should have ceased to exist on the administration process with shareholders and bondholders all taking the full hit.
Either the government takes on all liabilities or it doesn't. If it doesn't, immediately, you get the disorderly chaos I described. If it does, bondholders (who are, after all, just creditors like RBS clients were, and who comprised other banks, companies, and pension funds) can't be excluded from the guarantee, and nor would you want them to, because many of them will go bust in turn if they are excluded.
In the long run, rebuilding after a period of disorderly chaos might have led to a more stable outcome than undermining the legitimacy of the entire system.
For the zillionth time (does this really need repeating??) more regulation is not synonymous with better regulation. It's one of the most bizarre features of people on the Left that they seem to be totally incapable of getting their heads around this simplest of propositions. And I think it's a genuine intellectual failure in them, not just the obvious one of seeking to excuse a Labour Chancellor for the catastrophic dog's breakfast he made of financial regulation.
Semi agreed. The regime put in place was rubbish and failed but there is no way on this earth that the old one, let alone any the Cons (who were fully signed up to 'light touch') would conceivably have implemented, could have headed off the crash of 08 or mitigated its impact on us to any significant degree.
There is "the crash of 08" with its attendant CDS and so forth, and there is the first bank panic in the UK for XX years with people queuing round the block to get their money out. The former of course not; the latter, perhaps.
The business model in question would need to have been prohibited in order to stop that. But the political culture of the time was 'these guys know what they're doing, leave them be, count the tax pounds'. Would this have been different with George Osborne or John McDonnell instead of Gordon Brown as Chancellor? (I now copy your last sentence).
The Bank of England is still in charge of monitoring bank capital ratios and blocks RBS from buying ABN Amro. The Bank of England tells Northern Rock it's business model is built on sand and to hold 8% capital, not 0%. The Bank of England tells HBOS the same and to hold 8% reserve capital.
That alone changes the nature and severity of the banking crisis in 08. You want to rewrite history and pretend it was investment banks that failed in the UK, it wasn't, it was standard old retail banks that shat the bed and needed bailing out.
I still think we should have let all of them go bankrupt and stood behind the depositors. It was a mistake to for the state to step in and socialise losses.
The reason that didn't happen is because it would have resulted in the interbank market going to zero, and banks being unable to borrow in the bond markets.
The goal was to avoid solvent - but illiquid - institutions from being unable to fund themselves.
The Bank and Fed already had unlimited liquidity available for solvent banks, letting RBS, Northern Rock and HBOS go bankrupt would have been a national good and the Bank could have kept the emergency liquidity available for viable banks. Instead taxpayer money was pumped into RBS, Lloyds was forced down the aisle and Northern Rock was nationalised. It was the worst possible response to the whole saga and has opened up a whole moral hazard we didn't need to over "well we bailed out the financial sector so we should also bail out this failure of a company".
Well, Northern Rock effectively went bankrupt, in that shareholders and bondholders lost everything, and it was wound down in an orderly manner.
HBoS was bought by a solvent bank, and while you can make a case that Lloyds shouldn't have been 'encouraged' to acquire it, that did happen.
And RBS was a massive counterparty to other banks. Now, you can make (and maybe should make) the case that it should have been treated like National Rock and taken into effective administration. But what I think is inarguable is that a disorderly bankruptcy would have been extremely disruptive. Don't forget that in those circumstances, Barclays (for example) has no idea if - or when - it will be repaid money owed by RBS. And whether or not Barclays is solvent might rather depend on whether RBS pays it back the money it owes.
If Barclays had gone under as well, why would that have been a bad thing? Sure, the tax payer has to cough up for deposits up to a certain amount, but I don't think it would have been a bad thing for them to go as well.
If every bank (except Hoare's) had gone bust, who would be providing banking services?
Bondholders should also have been wiped out and the carcass of RBS asset stripped and sold for whatever it was worth. I'm not saying it should have been a disorderly collapse, more that the company should have ceased to exist on the administration process with shareholders and bondholders all taking the full hit.
Either the government takes on all liabilities or it doesn't. If it doesn't, immediately, you get the disorderly chaos I described. If it does, bondholders (who are, after all, just creditors like RBS clients were, and who comprised other banks, companies, and pension funds) can't be excluded from the guarantee, and nor would you want them to, because many of them will go bust in turn if they are excluded.
In the long run, rebuilding after a period of disorderly chaos might have led to a more stable outcome than undermining the legitimacy of the entire system.
OT I'm sure there used to be a bank with your name back in the day
"Nationalism is bankrupt and has no answers The ideas of Trump and Farage are irrelevant in a world where crises will only be solved by nations working together William Hague" (£)
For the zillionth time (does this really need repeating??) more regulation is not synonymous with better regulation. It's one of the most bizarre features of people on the Left that they seem to be totally incapable of getting their heads around this simplest of propositions. And I think it's a genuine intellectual failure in them, not just the obvious one of seeking to excuse a Labour Chancellor for the catastrophic dog's breakfast he made of financial regulation.
Semi agreed. The regime put in place was rubbish and failed but there is no way on this earth that the old one, let alone any the Cons (who were fully signed up to 'light touch') would conceivably have implemented, could have headed off the crash of 08 or mitigated its impact on us to any significant degree.
The old system would never have allowed RBS to operate at 70:1 leverage, the purchase of ABN Amro would simply have been blocked by the Bank of England. Northern Rock wouldn't have been able to operate at an almost infinite level of leverage as the Bank of England would have insisted on reserve capital. HBOS likewise.
Once again, it was the retail banks that completely fucked it in this country. The regulatory regime that took capital requirement monitoring away from the Bank of England was a gigantic disaster and that was completely and totally owned by Brown and opposed by the Tories.
I really doubt it. The culture was leave them be. It was a juggernaut. What I will say is that this - City Regulation and things like the PFI scam - is a slightly more respectable line of attack on Brown than the Tory Story, 'spent like a drunken sailor' and 'failed to fix the roof while the sun was shining'.
You doubt what? That the Bank of England would have stepped in or that it wouldn't make any difference? If it's the former then that's bullshit, if it's the latter then you've not properly understood the UK banking crisis which was all about banks not holding any reserve capital and the later poor growth is because banks spent a long time rebuilding those capital buffers which limited overall lending capability.
What you want to be true and what actually happened are two different things and you're simply in denial about the nature of the failure in UK banking.
That's right about capital buffers. Banks were exposed as sorely lacking and they now have to hold more. And the more capital you hold the less business you can do.
But look, here's where we differ on the big picture -
I'm saying the all pervading mainstream political culture (esp UK/US) of the time was 'leave the finance sector alone, they know what they're doing, count the profits and the tax revenue', and this meant that, whether it be a New Labour govt or a Conservative govt, and regardless of the BoE and the exact nature of the Reg Regime, the City was going to get extremely reckless and we were going to be hit for six when the shit hit the fan in the form of the 08 crash and subsequent global credit crunch.
What you are saying is 'No', that under the Cons their CoE and the BoE would have gone against that all pervading culture and they would have reined in the City (and therefore the business and tax flows) to such an extent that even with that 08 crash and subsequent global credit crunch we in the UK would have been substantially protected from it and wouldn't have had to do a massive bailout of the sector.
So, it's my actual history under Brown vs your hypothetical one under a Tory CoE - which, as I say, and for the reasons stated, I doubt very much would have taken place. If only we could run it on a video game or something, see who's right.
Bondholders should also have been wiped out and the carcass of RBS asset stripped and sold for whatever it was worth. I'm not saying it should have been a disorderly collapse, more that the company should have ceased to exist on the administration process with shareholders and bondholders all taking the full hit.
Either the government takes on all liabilities or it doesn't. If it doesn't, immediately, you get the disorderly chaos I described. If it does, bondholders (who are, after all, just creditors like RBS clients were, and who comprised other banks, companies, and pension funds) can't be excluded from the guarantee, and nor would you want them to, because many of them will go bust in turn if they are excluded.
In the long run, rebuilding after a period of disorderly chaos might have led to a more stable outcome than undermining the legitimacy of the entire system.
OT I'm sure there used to be a bank with your name back in the day
Williams & Glyn.
Actually owned by RBS and they tried to bring back the brand for the branches they had to sell off.
Bondholders should also have been wiped out and the carcass of RBS asset stripped and sold for whatever it was worth. I'm not saying it should have been a disorderly collapse, more that the company should have ceased to exist on the administration process with shareholders and bondholders all taking the full hit.
Either the government takes on all liabilities or it doesn't. If it doesn't, immediately, you get the disorderly chaos I described. If it does, bondholders (who are, after all, just creditors like RBS clients were, and who comprised other banks, companies, and pension funds) can't be excluded from the guarantee, and nor would you want them to, because many of them will go bust in turn if they are excluded.
Tbh, that's a consequence of throwing their lot in with a bank that was running at 70:1 leverage 🤷♂️
Cases now likely to be dropping on a weekly basis by specimen date, if Omicron is already here then it's not such a big deal or we haven't got it in significant numbers. It's probably the latter. If it's the former then it could mean that it doesn't sufficiently evade immunity as to cause an explosion in case numbers or hospitalisations in a mostly free society with few to no NPIs.
More Omicron = fewer Deltas. Same virus, though some people (and politicians) without evidence to the contrary are behaving as though it is a new scary thing.
Perhaps this new Omnicron Virus is our government's excuse to push the boosters for all and crush the loony fringe. Not a bad thing actually.
For the zillionth time (does this really need repeating??) more regulation is not synonymous with better regulation. It's one of the most bizarre features of people on the Left that they seem to be totally incapable of getting their heads around this simplest of propositions. And I think it's a genuine intellectual failure in them, not just the obvious one of seeking to excuse a Labour Chancellor for the catastrophic dog's breakfast he made of financial regulation.
Semi agreed. The regime put in place was rubbish and failed but there is no way on this earth that the old one, let alone any the Cons (who were fully signed up to 'light touch') would conceivably have implemented, could have headed off the crash of 08 or mitigated its impact on us to any significant degree.
There is "the crash of 08" with its attendant CDS and so forth, and there is the first bank panic in the UK for XX years with people queuing round the block to get their money out. The former of course not; the latter, perhaps.
The business model in question would need to have been prohibited in order to stop that. But the political culture of the time was 'these guys know what they're doing, leave them be, count the tax pounds'. Would this have been different with George Osborne or John McDonnell instead of Gordon Brown as Chancellor? (I now copy your last sentence).
The Bank of England is still in charge of monitoring bank capital ratios and blocks RBS from buying ABN Amro. The Bank of England tells Northern Rock it's business model is built on sand and to hold 8% capital, not 0%. The Bank of England tells HBOS the same and to hold 8% reserve capital.
That alone changes the nature and severity of the banking crisis in 08. You want to rewrite history and pretend it was investment banks that failed in the UK, it wasn't, it was standard old retail banks that shat the bed and needed bailing out.
I still think we should have let all of them go bankrupt and stood behind the depositors. It was a mistake to for the state to step in and socialise losses.
The reason that didn't happen is because it would have resulted in the interbank market going to zero, and banks being unable to borrow in the bond markets.
The goal was to avoid solvent - but illiquid - institutions from being unable to fund themselves.
The Bank and Fed already had unlimited liquidity available for solvent banks, letting RBS, Northern Rock and HBOS go bankrupt would have been a national good and the Bank could have kept the emergency liquidity available for viable banks. Instead taxpayer money was pumped into RBS, Lloyds was forced down the aisle and Northern Rock was nationalised. It was the worst possible response to the whole saga and has opened up a whole moral hazard we didn't need to over "well we bailed out the financial sector so we should also bail out this failure of a company".
Well, Northern Rock effectively went bankrupt, in that shareholders and bondholders lost everything, and it was wound down in an orderly manner.
HBoS was bought by a solvent bank, and while you can make a case that Lloyds shouldn't have been 'encouraged' to acquire it, that did happen.
And RBS was a massive counterparty to other banks. Now, you can make (and maybe should make) the case that it should have been treated like National Rock and taken into effective administration. But what I think is inarguable is that a disorderly bankruptcy would have been extremely disruptive. Don't forget that in those circumstances, Barclays (for example) has no idea if - or when - it will be repaid money owed by RBS. And whether or not Barclays is solvent might rather depend on whether RBS pays it back the money it owes.
If Barclays had gone under as well, why would that have been a bad thing? Sure, the tax payer has to cough up for deposits up to a certain amount, but I don't think it would have been a bad thing for them to go as well.
If every bank (except Hoare's) had gone bust, who would be providing banking services?
Bondholders should also have been wiped out and the carcass of RBS asset stripped and sold for whatever it was worth. I'm not saying it should have been a disorderly collapse, more that the company should have ceased to exist on the administration process with shareholders and bondholders all taking the full hit.
Either the government takes on all liabilities or it doesn't. If it doesn't, immediately, you get the disorderly chaos I described. If it does, bondholders (who are, after all, just creditors like RBS clients were, and who comprised other banks, companies, and pension funds) can't be excluded from the guarantee, and nor would you want them to, because many of them will go bust in turn if they are excluded.
Tbh, that's a consequence of throwing their lot in with a bank that was running at 70:1 leverage 🤷♂️
And then a bank with 40:1 leverage goes because it has a counterparty with 70:1 leverage. And then one with 30:1. And then one with 20:1. And then one with 10:1...
I'm not disagreeing with you that these institutions should probably have been properly shut down. But I do think you grossly underestimate the consequences of a disorderly insolvency process.
Bondholders should also have been wiped out and the carcass of RBS asset stripped and sold for whatever it was worth. I'm not saying it should have been a disorderly collapse, more that the company should have ceased to exist on the administration process with shareholders and bondholders all taking the full hit.
Either the government takes on all liabilities or it doesn't. If it doesn't, immediately, you get the disorderly chaos I described. If it does, bondholders (who are, after all, just creditors like RBS clients were, and who comprised other banks, companies, and pension funds) can't be excluded from the guarantee, and nor would you want them to, because many of them will go bust in turn if they are excluded.
In the long run, rebuilding after a period of disorderly chaos might have led to a more stable outcome than undermining the legitimacy of the entire system.
OT I'm sure there used to be a bank with your name back in the day
I think you're confusing it with Williams and Glyn which was absorbed by NatWest.
Bondholders should also have been wiped out and the carcass of RBS asset stripped and sold for whatever it was worth. I'm not saying it should have been a disorderly collapse, more that the company should have ceased to exist on the administration process with shareholders and bondholders all taking the full hit.
Either the government takes on all liabilities or it doesn't. If it doesn't, immediately, you get the disorderly chaos I described. If it does, bondholders (who are, after all, just creditors like RBS clients were, and who comprised other banks, companies, and pension funds) can't be excluded from the guarantee, and nor would you want them to, because many of them will go bust in turn if they are excluded.
In the long run, rebuilding after a period of disorderly chaos might have led to a more stable outcome than undermining the legitimacy of the entire system.
No, it really wouldn't. You are talking Germany post WW1 levels of chaos.
Very good figures, same day last week comparable are: 42484/165/768
And Starmer just now saying the measures do not go far enough
For all his faults, and he has many, I am pleased Boris is PM at this moment and not Starmer
Although there is a lot of love for Starmer on this site, I have not seen anything to show that he is a decent politician. I have no doubt that he is a good honest person but his political antennae is poor. He has missed so many open goals and had chances to to rise above and look statesmenlike but he doesn't do it. What measures is he suggesting we take? Cases are coming down, hospitals are emptying gradually, the Government have greatly advanced the booster programme and are monitoring the the situation.
I think he looks at Nicola Sturgeon's attempts to be different to the Government at everything and follows that lead.
That's now four days of falls relative to the same day last week (in England). Quite encouraging.
I am very puzzled by this claim I'm hearing that all nine cases in Scotland are linked, but none of them has any link to South Africa. Is there any explanation for that?
If they really don't then this variant must have been kicking around for a while without causing trouble, but it's surprising it wasn't picked up with the amount of sequencing we do.
Well, Northern Rock effectively went bankrupt, in that shareholders and bondholders lost everything, and it was wound down in an orderly manner.
HBoS was bought by a solvent bank, and while you can make a case that Lloyds shouldn't have been 'encouraged' to acquire it, that did happen.
And RBS was a massive counterparty to other banks. Now, you can make (and maybe should make) the case that it should have been treated like National Rock and taken into effective administration. But what I think is inarguable is that a disorderly bankruptcy would have been extremely disruptive. Don't forget that in those circumstances, Barclays (for example) has no idea if - or when - it will be repaid money owed by RBS. And whether or not Barclays is solvent might rather depend on whether RBS pays it back the money it owes.
It would have been absolutely unthinkable to let RBS go bust. It would have tipped tens of thousands of companies into insolvency, caused the cash machines to stop working, stopped wages being paid, with knock effects not only for the 30% (or whatever it was) of the economy which banked with RBS, but also all their suppliers and their personal customers' creditors. That's even without thinking about the inter-bank ramifications.
The only thing the government could have done differently was to insist on shareholders being totally wiped out rather than almost totally wiped out.
Bondholders should also have been wiped out and the carcass of RBS asset stripped and sold for whatever it was worth. I'm not saying it should have been a disorderly collapse, more that the company should have ceased to exist on the administration process with shareholders and bondholders all taking the full hit.
Except it's a lot more complicated than that.
For a start, most of the debt existed not at the parent company level, but at subsidiaries, many of which were solvent.
We all look at consolidated financial statements, but the reality is that these businesses are a web of limited companies, with their own balance sheets, assets and liabilities.
It's also worth remembering that there are contractual arrangements too. RBS will be a party to lots of contracts. Do they cease providing services immediately.
With normal companies who become insolvent, administrators are appointed, who manage the wind down in an orderly fashion. And that is - in effect - what happened with Northern Rock and with Bradford & Bingley.
Now, could we come up with a better way of doing this? Yes. But the "let 'em go to the wall" misses the extent to which that the banks all have obligations to each other.
Again, they did business with a bank that was all smoke and mirrors, what due diligence was done? It just seems as though no one wanted to or wants to face up to the fact that RBS and HBOS were insolvent for years and surviving on the kindness/stupidity of the money markets allowing them to continue operating with basically no actual capital.
That's a failure at every level by the regulator, the money markets and all of their counter parties not actually looking at their balance sheet and having a "wait a minute" moment and withdrawing wholesale funding arrangements. In the end it happened anyway, but not until it was way, way too late in the day.
One of my colleagues was there at the time and said that management were desperate to get the ABN purchase through without having to "go begging to shareholders" for money. Everything the RBS managers touched turned to shit and literally none of them paid for it. It still makes me angry that they got away with fleecing the nation out of billions and walked away with millions in pensions and bonuses.
Nice to hear a little about the 50k homes without power at the end. Should imagine this would be a bigger story were it anywhere near where journalists live.
Our power was out Friday through to Sunday. It got very cold indoors before it was restored. Turns out gas central heating doesn't work when the timer/controller is mains-powered.
A while back I worked with a chap who lived out in the sticks. His neighbours used to make jokes about him being a "Prepper" - he had a shed full of batteries, and a generator. That ran on heating oil - it was an area where heating oil fired systems are standard...
When the big storm came and they were without power for days - his was the only house with heat, light etc. Turns out that he had noticed what they'd all failed to - oil heating needs pumps, igniters etc. Which all run on electricity.....
That is why we have a reconditioned Aga which has a mechanical rather than electric valve regulating the oil supply, as well as gas cylinders supplying a hob and the open fires and woodburning stove for at least some warmth. We realised early on when we moved here in 1987 (just before the Great Storm) that it was essential not to be 100% dependent on electricity (in 1987, we were out of power for four days, but some of our friends had to wait two weeks).
Talking of woodburners, I went to light ours at the weekend, and was rather surprised when I opened the door to find a very alive squirrel inside it. It must have fallen down the flue (although we have a mesh on it), and then found it couldn't climb back up. It was an interesting challenge working out how to get it out - they have a nasty bite and are extremely fast.
- Cases are nationally flat now (case R is entering on 1.0). Cases are still falling steadily, but slowly, in the older groups. - Hospitalisations are down - with the interesting segmentation continuing in England. - Deaths are down
I think there's something that the UK does much, much better than the US (and, I suspect, continental Europe), which doesn't get brought up much:
Lateral flow tests.
In the US, they are extremely rare. I went to my local pharmacy to get one, and they said "Nah, don't have any. We get a couple every few days. Call back tomorrow."
What this means is that people in the UK can check that they are not highly contagious before meeting friends or vulnerable relatives. When we were in the UK, we tested ourselves every day. And, yes, sure, they aren't perfect. But they're pretty good at identifying the most infectious and limiting their likelihood of spreading Covid to others.
That's now four days of falls relative to the same day last week (in England). Quite encouraging.
I am very puzzled by this claim I'm hearing that all nine cases in Scotland are linked, but none of them has any link to South Africa. Is there any explanation for that?
If they really don't then this variant must have been kicking around for a while without causing trouble, but it's surprising it wasn't picked up with the amount of sequencing we do.
That's now four days of falls relative to the same day last week (in England). Quite encouraging.
I am very puzzled by this claim I'm hearing that all nine cases in Scotland are linked, but none of them has any link to South Africa. Is there any explanation for that?
If they really don't then this variant must have been kicking around for a while without causing trouble, but it's surprising it wasn't picked up with the amount of sequencing we do.
Bondholders should also have been wiped out and the carcass of RBS asset stripped and sold for whatever it was worth. I'm not saying it should have been a disorderly collapse, more that the company should have ceased to exist on the administration process with shareholders and bondholders all taking the full hit.
Either the government takes on all liabilities or it doesn't. If it doesn't, immediately, you get the disorderly chaos I described. If it does, bondholders (who are, after all, just creditors like RBS clients were, and who comprised other banks, companies, and pension funds) can't be excluded from the guarantee, and nor would you want them to, because many of them will go bust in turn if they are excluded.
Tbh, that's a consequence of throwing their lot in with a bank that was running at 70:1 leverage 🤷♂️
And then a bank with 40:1 leverage goes because it has a counterparty with 70:1 leverage. And then one with 30:1. And then one with 20:1. And then one with 10:1...
I'm not disagreeing with you that these institutions should probably have been properly shut down. But I do think you grossly underestimate the consequences of a disorderly insolvency process.
I'm not sure that having the whole sector come crashing down wouldn't have been an overall good. I also wonder whether the likes of Barclays, Lloyds (had it not been forced down the aisle) and others would have been able to go to their shareholders and raise the cash to avoid that fate once the government made it clear that any bank that ends up insolvent will be shut down with only the depositors protected at 100%.
Both RBS and HBOS should have been put out of the nation's misery. That they still exist is a national failure.
That's now four days of falls relative to the same day last week (in England). Quite encouraging.
I am very puzzled by this claim I'm hearing that all nine cases in Scotland are linked, but none of them has any link to South Africa. Is there any explanation for that?
If they really don't then this variant must have been kicking around for a while without causing trouble, but it's surprising it wasn't picked up with the amount of sequencing we do.
Nice to hear a little about the 50k homes without power at the end. Should imagine this would be a bigger story were it anywhere near where journalists live.
Our power was out Friday through to Sunday. It got very cold indoors before it was restored. Turns out gas central heating doesn't work when the timer/controller is mains-powered.
A while back I worked with a chap who lived out in the sticks. His neighbours used to make jokes about him being a "Prepper" - he had a shed full of batteries, and a generator. That ran on heating oil - it was an area where heating oil fired systems are standard...
When the big storm came and they were without power for days - his was the only house with heat, light etc. Turns out that he had noticed what they'd all failed to - oil heating needs pumps, igniters etc. Which all run on electricity.....
That is why we have a reconditioned Aga which has a mechanical rather than electric valve regulating the oil supply, as well as gas cylinders supplying a hob and the open fires and woodburning stove for at least some warmth. We realised early on when we moved here in 1987 (just before the Great Storm) that it was essential not to be 100% dependent on electricity (in 1987, we were out of power for four days, but some of our friends had to wait two weeks).
Talking of woodburners, I went to light ours at the weekend, and was rather surprised when I opened the door to find a very alive squirrel inside it. It must have fallen down the flue (although we have a mesh on it), and then found it couldn't climb back up. It was an interesting challenge working out how to get it out - they have a nasty bite and are extremely fast.
Why get it out? Roast squirrel tastes lovely.
Saw another black squirrel whilst on a bike ride this morning. There's increasing numbers of then around here - I wonder if they'll supplant the greys, or if they greys and blacks can coexist?
Nice to hear a little about the 50k homes without power at the end. Should imagine this would be a bigger story were it anywhere near where journalists live.
Our power was out Friday through to Sunday. It got very cold indoors before it was restored. Turns out gas central heating doesn't work when the timer/controller is mains-powered.
A while back I worked with a chap who lived out in the sticks. His neighbours used to make jokes about him being a "Prepper" - he had a shed full of batteries, and a generator. That ran on heating oil - it was an area where heating oil fired systems are standard...
When the big storm came and they were without power for days - his was the only house with heat, light etc. Turns out that he had noticed what they'd all failed to - oil heating needs pumps, igniters etc. Which all run on electricity.....
That is why we have a reconditioned Aga which has a mechanical rather than electric valve regulating the oil supply, as well as gas cylinders supplying a hob and the open fires and woodburning stove for at least some warmth. We realised early on when we moved here in 1987 (just before the Great Storm) that it was essential not to be 100% dependent on electricity (in 1987, we were out of power for four days, but some of our friends had to wait two weeks).
Talking of woodburners, I went to light ours at the weekend, and was rather surprised when I opened the door to find a very alive squirrel inside it. It must have fallen down the flue (although we have a mesh on it), and then found it couldn't climb back up. It was an interesting challenge working out how to get it out - they have a nasty bite and are extremely fast.
Why get it out? Roast squirrel tastes lovely.
Saw another black squirrel whilst on a bike ride this morning. There's increasing numbers of then around here - I wonder if they'll supplant the greys, or if they greys and blacks can coexist?
Very good figures, same day last week comparable are: 42484/165/768
And Starmer just now saying the measures do not go far enough
For all his faults, and he has many, I am pleased Boris is PM at this moment and not Starmer
Although there is a lot of love for Starmer on this site, I have not seen anything to show that he is a decent politician. I have no doubt that he is a good honest person but his political antennae is poor. He has missed so many open goals and had chances to to rise above and look statesmenlike but he doesn't do it. What measures is he suggesting we take? Cases are coming down, hospitals are emptying gradually, the Government have greatly advanced the booster programme and are monitoring the the situation.
I think he looks at Nicola Sturgeon's attempts to be different to the Government at everything and follows that lead.
He has one huge quality - he is making Labour an electable proposition again, by incrementally edging towards the centre.
That's now four days of falls relative to the same day last week (in England). Quite encouraging.
I am very puzzled by this claim I'm hearing that all nine cases in Scotland are linked, but none of them has any link to South Africa. Is there any explanation for that?
If they really don't then this variant must have been kicking around for a while without causing trouble, but it's surprising it wasn't picked up with the amount of sequencing we do.
Community transmission - which seems to be the case in other European countries, too. The best guess (from genetic analysis) is that this variant first arose some time in October (not necessarily in SA itself). If that's the case, then it will have been seeded worldwide before anyone noticed. It's not all that surprising it wasn't picked up, since you're talking about very low numbers initially.
Nice to hear a little about the 50k homes without power at the end. Should imagine this would be a bigger story were it anywhere near where journalists live.
Our power was out Friday through to Sunday. It got very cold indoors before it was restored. Turns out gas central heating doesn't work when the timer/controller is mains-powered.
A while back I worked with a chap who lived out in the sticks. His neighbours used to make jokes about him being a "Prepper" - he had a shed full of batteries, and a generator. That ran on heating oil - it was an area where heating oil fired systems are standard...
When the big storm came and they were without power for days - his was the only house with heat, light etc. Turns out that he had noticed what they'd all failed to - oil heating needs pumps, igniters etc. Which all run on electricity.....
That is why we have a reconditioned Aga which has a mechanical rather than electric valve regulating the oil supply, as well as gas cylinders supplying a hob and the open fires and woodburning stove for at least some warmth. We realised early on when we moved here in 1987 (just before the Great Storm) that it was essential not to be 100% dependent on electricity (in 1987, we were out of power for four days, but some of our friends had to wait two weeks).
Talking of woodburners, I went to light ours at the weekend, and was rather surprised when I opened the door to find a very alive squirrel inside it. It must have fallen down the flue (although we have a mesh on it), and then found it couldn't climb back up. It was an interesting challenge working out how to get it out - they have a nasty bite and are extremely fast.
Why get it out? Roast squirrel tastes lovely.
Saw another black squirrel whilst on a bike ride this morning. There's increasing numbers of then around here - I wonder if they'll supplant the greys, or if they greys and blacks can coexist?
It seems they are just melanistic sports of grey squirrels, so should coexist.
Bondholders should also have been wiped out and the carcass of RBS asset stripped and sold for whatever it was worth. I'm not saying it should have been a disorderly collapse, more that the company should have ceased to exist on the administration process with shareholders and bondholders all taking the full hit.
Either the government takes on all liabilities or it doesn't. If it doesn't, immediately, you get the disorderly chaos I described. If it does, bondholders (who are, after all, just creditors like RBS clients were, and who comprised other banks, companies, and pension funds) can't be excluded from the guarantee, and nor would you want them to, because many of them will go bust in turn if they are excluded.
Tbh, that's a consequence of throwing their lot in with a bank that was running at 70:1 leverage 🤷♂️
Absolutely!
Next time, due your due diligence.
Guarantees exist for small deposits that should be honoured but pension funds etc should be doing due diligence.
I think there's something that the UK does much, much better than the US (and, I suspect, continental Europe), which doesn't get brought up much:
Lateral flow tests.
In the US, they are extremely rare. I went to my local pharmacy to get one, and they said "Nah, don't have any. We get a couple every few days. Call back tomorrow."
What this means is that people in the UK can check that they are not highly contagious before meeting friends or vulnerable relatives. When we were in the UK, we tested ourselves every day. And, yes, sure, they aren't perfect. But they're pretty good at identifying the most infectious and limiting their likelihood of spreading Covid to others.
I've been rabbiting on about that for a year or so. LFTs work.
Bondholders should also have been wiped out and the carcass of RBS asset stripped and sold for whatever it was worth. I'm not saying it should have been a disorderly collapse, more that the company should have ceased to exist on the administration process with shareholders and bondholders all taking the full hit.
Either the government takes on all liabilities or it doesn't. If it doesn't, immediately, you get the disorderly chaos I described. If it does, bondholders (who are, after all, just creditors like RBS clients were, and who comprised other banks, companies, and pension funds) can't be excluded from the guarantee, and nor would you want them to, because many of them will go bust in turn if they are excluded.
Tbh, that's a consequence of throwing their lot in with a bank that was running at 70:1 leverage 🤷♂️
And then a bank with 40:1 leverage goes because it has a counterparty with 70:1 leverage. And then one with 30:1. And then one with 20:1. And then one with 10:1...
I'm not disagreeing with you that these institutions should probably have been properly shut down. But I do think you grossly underestimate the consequences of a disorderly insolvency process.
I'm not sure that having the whole sector come crashing down wouldn't have been an overall good. I also wonder whether the likes of Barclays, Lloyds (had it not been forced down the aisle) and others would have been able to go to their shareholders and raise the cash to avoid that fate once the government made it clear that any bank that ends up insolvent will be shut down with only the depositors protected at 100%.
Both RBS and HBOS should have been put out of the nation's misery. That they still exist is a national failure.
A national failure maybe but a personal godsend for me (as an HBOS pensioner).
Very good figures, same day last week comparable are: 42484/165/768
And Starmer just now saying the measures do not go far enough
For all his faults, and he has many, I am pleased Boris is PM at this moment and not Starmer
Although there is a lot of love for Starmer on this site, I have not seen anything to show that he is a decent politician. I have no doubt that he is a good honest person but his political antennae is poor. He has missed so many open goals and had chances to to rise above and look statesmenlike but he doesn't do it. What measures is he suggesting we take? Cases are coming down, hospitals are emptying gradually, the Government have greatly advanced the booster programme and are monitoring the the situation.
I think he looks at Nicola Sturgeon's attempts to be different to the Government at everything and follows that lead.
He has one huge quality - he is making Labour an electable proposition again, by incrementally edging towards the centre.
Possibly, but you still need to be a good politician to win elections and he is not.
Regarding mask wearing, every time I think masks are pointless and decide to not wear one I remember that idiots like Piers Corbyn are anti mask wearing and that pushes me back in the pro mask wearing camp.
A look at all the heroes who voted against the Government today does it for me.
Very good figures, same day last week comparable are: 42484/165/768
And Starmer just now saying the measures do not go far enough
For all his faults, and he has many, I am pleased Boris is PM at this moment and not Starmer
Although there is a lot of love for Starmer on this site, I have not seen anything to show that he is a decent politician. I have no doubt that he is a good honest person but his political antennae is poor. He has missed so many open goals and had chances to to rise above and look statesmenlike but he doesn't do it. What measures is he suggesting we take? Cases are coming down, hospitals are emptying gradually, the Government have greatly advanced the booster programme and are monitoring the the situation.
I think he looks at Nicola Sturgeon's attempts to be different to the Government at everything and follows that lead.
He has one huge quality - he is making Labour an electable proposition again, by incrementally edging towards the centre.
Possibly, but you still need to be a good politician to win elections and he is not.
No you don't, you just have to stand back while Peppa implodes
Following Scotland having nine cases of Omicron from one event, London is denying reports that they have ten cases all coming from different personalities of the same travel writer.
I think there's something that the UK does much, much better than the US (and, I suspect, continental Europe), which doesn't get brought up much:
Lateral flow tests.
In the US, they are extremely rare. I went to my local pharmacy to get one, and they said "Nah, don't have any. We get a couple every few days. Call back tomorrow."
What this means is that people in the UK can check that they are not highly contagious before meeting friends or vulnerable relatives. When we were in the UK, we tested ourselves every day. And, yes, sure, they aren't perfect. But they're pretty good at identifying the most infectious and limiting their likelihood of spreading Covid to others.
I've been rabbiting on about that for a year or so. LFTs work.
Bondholders should also have been wiped out and the carcass of RBS asset stripped and sold for whatever it was worth. I'm not saying it should have been a disorderly collapse, more that the company should have ceased to exist on the administration process with shareholders and bondholders all taking the full hit.
Either the government takes on all liabilities or it doesn't. If it doesn't, immediately, you get the disorderly chaos I described. If it does, bondholders (who are, after all, just creditors like RBS clients were, and who comprised other banks, companies, and pension funds) can't be excluded from the guarantee, and nor would you want them to, because many of them will go bust in turn if they are excluded.
Tbh, that's a consequence of throwing their lot in with a bank that was running at 70:1 leverage 🤷♂️
And then a bank with 40:1 leverage goes because it has a counterparty with 70:1 leverage. And then one with 30:1. And then one with 20:1. And then one with 10:1...
I'm not disagreeing with you that these institutions should probably have been properly shut down. But I do think you grossly underestimate the consequences of a disorderly insolvency process.
I'm not sure that having the whole sector come crashing down wouldn't have been an overall good. I also wonder whether the likes of Barclays, Lloyds (had it not been forced down the aisle) and others would have been able to go to their shareholders and raise the cash to avoid that fate once the government made it clear that any bank that ends up insolvent will be shut down with only the depositors protected at 100%.
Both RBS and HBOS should have been put out of the nation's misery. That they still exist is a national failure.
The problem is that there lots of edge cases, with real world consequences.
So, depositors are protected.
But do you keep RBS up and running while its customers are moved over to a new bank? How do you manage the fact that Hoare's can't accept a million new customers today?
And let's not forget that handing over depositors is handing over liabilities. Is the government going to step in immediately and hand over a equivalent amount of cash? (And bear in mind that even if the government did, you would still have just hammered the new owner of those deposits with a big increase in capital requirements, because it is now twice as big.)
And what of - for example - a business that is currently overdrawn. Is the new owner of that account required to extend an equivalent overdraft?
And what of the impact of removing 90% of the capacity from the mortgage market?
The point is that you need to decide what will happen with all these in advance. And we hadn't done that.
Very good figures, same day last week comparable are: 42484/165/768
And Starmer just now saying the measures do not go far enough
For all his faults, and he has many, I am pleased Boris is PM at this moment and not Starmer
Although there is a lot of love for Starmer on this site, I have not seen anything to show that he is a decent politician. I have no doubt that he is a good honest person but his political antennae is poor. He has missed so many open goals and had chances to to rise above and look statesmenlike but he doesn't do it. What measures is he suggesting we take? Cases are coming down, hospitals are emptying gradually, the Government have greatly advanced the booster programme and are monitoring the the situation.
I think he looks at Nicola Sturgeon's attempts to be different to the Government at everything and follows that lead.
He has one huge quality - he is making Labour an electable proposition again, by incrementally edging towards the centre.
Possibly, but you still need to be a good politician to win elections and he is not.
His presentation is still a little lacklustre, but after yesterday one can't deny he isn't a ruthless b******. Particularly his running rings around Angela Rayner.
Following Scotland having nine cases of Omicron from one event, London is denying reports that they have ten cases all coming from different personalities of the same travel writer.
I presume Simon Calder is current recommending booking a safari in Southern Africa.
Following Scotland having nine cases of Omicron from one event, London is denying reports that they have ten cases all coming from different personalities of the same travel writer.
He's about due out of bed and on the pop. We'll all be heading to the apocalypse by 8pm.
He had been asked by prosecutors to describe his experience and he listed the famous passengers he'd flown, saying: 'I certainly remember President Trump, but not many people associated with him.'
Others who Visoki said he'd flown included Bill Clinton, the actor Kevin Spacey and Prince Andrew.
Regarding mask wearing, every time I think masks are pointless and decide to not wear one I remember that idiots like Piers Corbyn are anti mask wearing and that pushes me back in the pro mask wearing camp.
A look at all the heroes who voted against the Government today does it for me.
Yes, but this is tribal nonsense.
When Billy Bragg was asked why he wore a mask, he said: "I don't want people to think I'm a Tory."
I admire his honesty, but for crying out loud, what are we doing to ourselves? Why does everything have to be a weapon for pathetic culture warriors?
Very good figures, same day last week comparable are: 42484/165/768
And Starmer just now saying the measures do not go far enough
For all his faults, and he has many, I am pleased Boris is PM at this moment and not Starmer
Although there is a lot of love for Starmer on this site, I have not seen anything to show that he is a decent politician. I have no doubt that he is a good honest person but his political antennae is poor. He has missed so many open goals and had chances to to rise above and look statesmenlike but he doesn't do it. What measures is he suggesting we take? Cases are coming down, hospitals are emptying gradually, the Government have greatly advanced the booster programme and are monitoring the the situation.
I think he looks at Nicola Sturgeon's attempts to be different to the Government at everything and follows that lead.
He has one huge quality - he is making Labour an electable proposition again, by incrementally edging towards the centre.
Possibly, but you still need to be a good politician to win elections and he is not.
No you don't, you just have to stand back while Peppa implodes
Peppa will recover between now and Christmas, unless Christmas is cancelled, which I have it on good authority won't happen.
Two or three point Tory lead into February before it evens out again and Labour edge forward.
When Johnson is ahead again in a few weeks BJO will of course demand Corbyn's immediate restoration to LOTO.
Bondholders should also have been wiped out and the carcass of RBS asset stripped and sold for whatever it was worth. I'm not saying it should have been a disorderly collapse, more that the company should have ceased to exist on the administration process with shareholders and bondholders all taking the full hit.
Either the government takes on all liabilities or it doesn't. If it doesn't, immediately, you get the disorderly chaos I described. If it does, bondholders (who are, after all, just creditors like RBS clients were, and who comprised other banks, companies, and pension funds) can't be excluded from the guarantee, and nor would you want them to, because many of them will go bust in turn if they are excluded.
Tbh, that's a consequence of throwing their lot in with a bank that was running at 70:1 leverage 🤷♂️
And then a bank with 40:1 leverage goes because it has a counterparty with 70:1 leverage. And then one with 30:1. And then one with 20:1. And then one with 10:1...
I'm not disagreeing with you that these institutions should probably have been properly shut down. But I do think you grossly underestimate the consequences of a disorderly insolvency process.
I'm not sure that having the whole sector come crashing down wouldn't have been an overall good. I also wonder whether the likes of Barclays, Lloyds (had it not been forced down the aisle) and others would have been able to go to their shareholders and raise the cash to avoid that fate once the government made it clear that any bank that ends up insolvent will be shut down with only the depositors protected at 100%.
Both RBS and HBOS should have been put out of the nation's misery. That they still exist is a national failure.
The problem is that there lots of edge cases, with real world consequences.
So, depositors are protected.
But do you keep RBS up and running while its customers are moved over to a new bank? How do you manage the fact that Hoare's can't accept a million new customers today?
And let's not forget that handing over depositors is handing over liabilities. Is the government going to step in immediately and hand over a equivalent amount of cash? (And bear in mind that even if the government did, you would still have just hammered the new owner of those deposits with a big increase in capital requirements, because it is now twice as big.)
And what of - for example - a business that is currently overdrawn. Is the new owner of that account required to extend an equivalent overdraft?
And what of the impact of removing 90% of the capacity from the mortgage market?
The point is that you need to decide what will happen with all these in advance. And we hadn't done that.
Don't you have a liability auction? Whoever wants to take on those liabilities at knock down price can do so and the counterparties take the hit for not doing their due diligence properly.
All of this comes down to people not actually doing their homework properly and then dumping that ill behaviour on the doorstep of the taxpayer.
It's created a rubbish moral hazard and opened the door to other bailouts.
You're simply absolving counterparty risk analysts fucking the dog because, yes we think that some banks are too big to fail.
Well, Northern Rock effectively went bankrupt, in that shareholders and bondholders lost everything, and it was wound down in an orderly manner.
HBoS was bought by a solvent bank, and while you can make a case that Lloyds shouldn't have been 'encouraged' to acquire it, that did happen.
And RBS was a massive counterparty to other banks. Now, you can make (and maybe should make) the case that it should have been treated like National Rock and taken into effective administration. But what I think is inarguable is that a disorderly bankruptcy would have been extremely disruptive. Don't forget that in those circumstances, Barclays (for example) has no idea if - or when - it will be repaid money owed by RBS. And whether or not Barclays is solvent might rather depend on whether RBS pays it back the money it owes.
It would have been absolutely unthinkable to let RBS go bust. It would have tipped tens of thousands of companies into insolvency, caused the cash machines to stop working, stopped wages being paid, with knock effects not only for the 30% (or whatever it was) of the economy which banked with RBS, but also all their suppliers and their personal customers' creditors. That's even without thinking about the inter-bank ramifications.
The only thing the government could have done differently was to insist on shareholders being totally wiped out rather than almost totally wiped out.
Bondholders should also have been wiped out and the carcass of RBS asset stripped and sold for whatever it was worth. I'm not saying it should have been a disorderly collapse, more that the company should have ceased to exist on the administration process with shareholders and bondholders all taking the full hit.
Except it's a lot more complicated than that.
For a start, most of the debt existed not at the parent company level, but at subsidiaries, many of which were solvent.
We all look at consolidated financial statements, but the reality is that these businesses are a web of limited companies, with their own balance sheets, assets and liabilities.
It's also worth remembering that there are contractual arrangements too. RBS will be a party to lots of contracts. Do they cease providing services immediately.
With normal companies who become insolvent, administrators are appointed, who manage the wind down in an orderly fashion. And that is - in effect - what happened with Northern Rock and with Bradford & Bingley.
Now, could we come up with a better way of doing this? Yes. But the "let 'em go to the wall" misses the extent to which that the banks all have obligations to each other.
Again, they did business with a bank that was all smoke and mirrors, what due diligence was done? It just seems as though no one wanted to or wants to face up to the fact that RBS and HBOS were insolvent for years and surviving on the kindness/stupidity of the money markets allowing them to continue operating with basically no actual capital.
That's a failure at every level by the regulator, the money markets and all of their counter parties not actually looking at their balance sheet and having a "wait a minute" moment and withdrawing wholesale funding arrangements. In the end it happened anyway, but not until it was way, way too late in the day.
One of my colleagues was there at the time and said that management were desperate to get the ABN purchase through without having to "go begging to shareholders" for money. Everything the RBS managers touched turned to shit and literally none of them paid for it. It still makes me angry that they got away with fleecing the nation out of billions and walked away with millions in pensions and bonuses.
I can't speak for RBS but I did work for HBOS (albeit not in a capacity to influence their business models).
Why do you think it was that hardly anybody (and certainly not many investors) spotted that HBOS was as you put it "insolvent for years"?
Comments
I suspect there is an omicron effect, a general covid effect and a day-of-the-week reporting effect.
(*yes, I know, I know)
Now I've spent the last decade working in banking and financial services regulation/compliance so I'm obviously an ingénue in these matters, so be gentle.
In another sense, I also hope and feel that I may be wrong.
HBoS was bought by a solvent bank, and while you can make a case that Lloyds shouldn't have been 'encouraged' to acquire it, that did happen.
And RBS was a massive counterparty to other banks. Now, you can make (and maybe should make) the case that it should have been treated like National Rock and taken into effective administration. But what I think is inarguable is that a disorderly bankruptcy would have been extremely disruptive. Don't forget that in those circumstances, Barclays (for example) has no idea if - or when - it will be repaid money owed by RBS. And whether or not Barclays is solvent might rather depend on whether RBS pays it back the money it owes.
https://twitter.com/ZemmourEric/status/1465636784537280514?s=20
Lot of Beethoven's 7th....
The regulator became bigger and entirely pointless.
Money laundering and insider trading became huge, and yet all the money spent achieved nothing. In fact some of the big beasts just did exactly that for fun.
Stability... not a bean spent, nor a thought given.
The only thing the government could have done differently was to insist on shareholders being totally wiped out rather than almost totally wiped out.
Anyone who can't afford one should at least find themselves a camping stove.
For all his faults, and he has many, I am pleased Boris is PM at this moment and not Starmer
For a start, most of the debt existed not at the parent company level, but at subsidiaries, many of which were solvent.
We all look at consolidated financial statements, but the reality is that these businesses are a web of limited companies, with their own balance sheets, assets and liabilities.
It's also worth remembering that there are contractual arrangements too. RBS will be a party to lots of contracts. Do they cease providing services immediately.
With normal companies who become insolvent, administrators are appointed, who manage the wind down in an orderly fashion. And that is - in effect - what happened with Northern Rock and with Bradford & Bingley.
Now, could we come up with a better way of doing this? Yes. But the "let 'em go to the wall" misses the extent to which that the banks all have obligations to each other.
When the big storm came and they were without power for days - his was the only house with heat, light etc. Turns out that he had noticed what they'd all failed to - oil heating needs pumps, igniters etc. Which all run on electricity.....
I'm sure there used to be a bank with your name back in the day
The ideas of Trump and Farage are irrelevant in a world where crises will only be solved by nations working together
William Hague" (£)
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/nationalism-is-bankrupt-and-has-no-answers-6x3m59spk
But look, here's where we differ on the big picture -
I'm saying the all pervading mainstream political culture (esp UK/US) of the time was 'leave the finance sector alone, they know what they're doing, count the profits and the tax revenue', and this meant that, whether it be a New Labour govt or a Conservative govt, and regardless of the BoE and the exact nature of the Reg Regime, the City was going to get extremely reckless and we were going to be hit for six when the shit hit the fan in the form of the 08 crash and subsequent global credit crunch.
What you are saying is 'No', that under the Cons their CoE and the BoE would have gone against that all pervading culture and they would have reined in the City (and therefore the business and tax flows) to such an extent that even with that 08 crash and subsequent global credit crunch we in the UK would have been substantially protected from it and wouldn't have had to do a massive bailout of the sector.
So, it's my actual history under Brown vs your hypothetical one under a Tory CoE - which, as I say, and for the reasons stated, I doubt very much would have taken place. If only we could run it on a video game or something, see who's right.
Actually owned by RBS and they tried to bring back the brand for the branches they had to sell off.
I'm not disagreeing with you that these institutions should probably have been properly shut down. But I do think you grossly underestimate the consequences of a disorderly insolvency process.
I think he looks at Nicola Sturgeon's attempts to be different to the Government at everything and follows that lead.
If they really don't then this variant must have been kicking around for a while without causing trouble, but it's surprising it wasn't picked up with the amount of sequencing we do.
That's a failure at every level by the regulator, the money markets and all of their counter parties not actually looking at their balance sheet and having a "wait a minute" moment and withdrawing wholesale funding arrangements. In the end it happened anyway, but not until it was way, way too late in the day.
One of my colleagues was there at the time and said that management were desperate to get the ABN purchase through without having to "go begging to shareholders" for money. Everything the RBS managers touched turned to shit and literally none of them paid for it. It still makes me angry that they got away with fleecing the nation out of billions and walked away with millions in pensions and bonuses.
Talking of woodburners, I went to light ours at the weekend, and was rather surprised when I opened the door to find a very alive squirrel inside it. It must have fallen down the flue (although we have a mesh on it), and then found it couldn't climb back up. It was an interesting challenge working out how to get it out - they have a nasty bite and are extremely fast.
- Cases are nationally flat now (case R is entering on 1.0). Cases are still falling steadily, but slowly, in the older groups.
- Hospitalisations are down - with the interesting segmentation continuing in England.
- Deaths are down
I think there's something that the UK does much, much better than the US (and, I suspect, continental Europe), which doesn't get brought up much:
Lateral flow tests.
In the US, they are extremely rare. I went to my local pharmacy to get one, and they said "Nah, don't have any. We get a couple every few days. Call back tomorrow."
What this means is that people in the UK can check that they are not highly contagious before meeting friends or vulnerable relatives. When we were in the UK, we tested ourselves every day. And, yes, sure, they aren't perfect. But they're pretty good at identifying the most infectious and limiting their likelihood of spreading Covid to others.
BBC News - Covid in Scotland: All nine Omicron cases linked to single event
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-59473564
Both RBS and HBOS should have been put out of the nation's misery. That they still exist is a national failure.
Saw another black squirrel whilst on a bike ride this morning. There's increasing numbers of then around here - I wonder if they'll supplant the greys, or if they greys and blacks can coexist?
The best guess (from genetic analysis) is that this variant first arose some time in October (not necessarily in SA itself). If that's the case, then it will have been seeded worldwide before anyone noticed.
It's not all that surprising it wasn't picked up, since you're talking about very low numbers initially.
Next time, due your due diligence.
Guarantees exist for small deposits that should be honoured but pension funds etc should be doing due diligence.
LFTs work.
So, depositors are protected.
But do you keep RBS up and running while its customers are moved over to a new bank? How do you manage the fact that Hoare's can't accept a million new customers today?
And let's not forget that handing over depositors is handing over liabilities. Is the government going to step in immediately and hand over a equivalent amount of cash? (And bear in mind that even if the government did, you would still have just hammered the new owner of those deposits with a big increase in capital requirements, because it is now twice as big.)
And what of - for example - a business that is currently overdrawn. Is the new owner of that account required to extend an equivalent overdraft?
And what of the impact of removing 90% of the capacity from the mortgage market?
The point is that you need to decide what will happen with all these in advance. And we hadn't done that.
casespositive tests.He's about due out of bed and on the pop. We'll all be heading to the apocalypse by 8pm.
Others who Visoki said he'd flown included Bill Clinton, the actor Kevin Spacey and Prince Andrew.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10259509/Donald-Trump-flew-Jeffrey-Epsteins-private-planes-Lolita-Express-pilot-reveals.html
When Billy Bragg was asked why he wore a mask, he said: "I don't want people to think I'm a Tory."
I admire his honesty, but for crying out loud, what are we doing to ourselves? Why does everything have to be a weapon for pathetic culture warriors?
Two or three point Tory lead into February before it evens out again and Labour edge forward.
When Johnson is ahead again in a few weeks BJO will of course demand Corbyn's immediate restoration to LOTO.
And Monty Panesar says he never encountered racism. Played for, and in, Essex, too.
All of this comes down to people not actually doing their homework properly and then dumping that ill behaviour on the doorstep of the taxpayer.
It's created a rubbish moral hazard and opened the door to other bailouts.
You're simply absolving counterparty risk analysts fucking the dog because, yes we think that some banks are too big to fail.
Why do you think it was that hardly anybody (and certainly not many investors) spotted that HBOS was as you put it "insolvent for years"?