started in America. The banking crisis actually started right here
with Northern Rock and its totally irresponsible acceptance of dodgy
debts. This was a result of a decade-long general jamboree in our
banks who found that regulation in practice did not exist and they
had no rules to act on. Banks who tried to get guidance from Gordon
Brown’s creation the FSA complained that it was impossible!
After Northern Rock, Brown went into complete shut-down mode and for
nearly a year did absolutely nothing, while the approaching hurricane
gathered force. Consequently he was completely unprepared for the
events of the last month.
Meanwhile in country after country, governments did act in time.
Listed by Osborne and Kavanagh below are some of the most prominent
prudent ones - Spain, Canada, Australia, Sweden. It is Brown’s
Britain that is worst prepared (per IMF).
Osborne finally gets round to saying the right things in a regional
paper. (It’s a pity he was so ineffectual on TV yesterday). Cameron
lurks out of sight giving general support to Brown for his measures
now but forgetting the vital need to pin the responsibility for
allowing the crisis to happen on our unelected prime minister, Gordon
Brown. This is no time to play patsy. A myth is being created.
Instead of an incompetent chancellor dropping us into terrible chaos
and desperately cooking up solution after solution, a picture is
being painted of a resolute defender of our nation.
There’s a letter I read today which quotes a report on an officer
which seems very relevant to Brown - “This officer is very good at
getting himself out of situations he should never have got into in
the first place” .
This is Brown’s crisis - he created it and he along with a bank
director or two should pay the price, not strut the stage pretending
to be a statesman.
Let us hope that Cameron is listening to the growing chorus of
disapproval of his silence and support for the architect of our
troubles.
xxxxxxxxxxxx cs
At 11 am the FTSE is up 4.71% having slipped back from its earlier
high of plus more than 6% , Germany is + 5,76. Hardly a vote of
confidence but better than nothing
=======================
CONSERVATIVE HOME 13.10.08
Brown's Britain behaved less responsibly than Bush's America, says
George Osborne
George Osborne has written for today's London Evening Standard (not
yet online). Here are the key quotes:
This taxpayer-funded bailout became necessary: "Millions of Londoners
earning salaries of £15,000 or £25,000 are using their tax money to
bail out the bankers who were paid ten times or even a hundred times
that. They had to; because if the banking system fails then
everything fails."
Labour are wrong to attempt to profit politically from all of this:
"To regard today as a triumph, as some in government seem to do, is
bizarre. And it misjudges the public mood. For this is no triumph.
It is a necessary but desperate last ditch attempt to prevent
catastrophe."
Other nations' regulatory systems did not fail as badly: "Our banks
could and should have behaved more responsibly and taken fewer
risks. Indeed, those that did, like HSBC, have been rewarded for
their prudence by emerging relatively unscathed. Our regulators
could and should have spotted the risky bets many of the banks were
taking and stopped them. That's what some bank regulators around the
world did, such as in Spain; but not here in Britain."
Brown's Britain is less prepared for these events than other nations:
"Our government could and should have used the good years of global
growth to set aside money for a rain day. That's what many
governments did by building up budget surpluses, such as they did in
Australia and Sweden; but in Britain, Gordon Brown racked up the
biggest budget deficit in the western world."
Brown's Britain is more fragile than Bush's America: "When I hear
Gordon Brown claim that all the problems we face 'came from America'
and the expensive solutions devised around the world were 'made in
Britain', it makes me wonder whether he is prepared to learn anything
from his own mistakes. It was in Britain not America where families
borrowed more than any in the world, and where we became so dependent
on the success of financial services. It was in Britain nor America
that a government based its entire economic policy on the delusional
belief that boom and bust had been abolished."
Taxpayers must benefit before bank executives if the recapitalisation
works: "I want to make sure that everything is being done to keep the
risk to the taxpayer to the minimum possible. That means asking
existing shareholders first to stump up the cash. It means ensuring
that taxpayer benefits if the value of the banks increase as a result
of this deal. And I will want to know that the money we are providing
is not going into the bonus packages of the bankers who helped get us
into this mess, let alone the golden handshakes of those executives
who now quit."
We now need help for the real economy: "Conservative plans to freeze
council tax, abandon the new car tax, keep businesses facing
bankruptcy afloat and help low income families with heating bills
could all be put in place in the coming months."
George Osborne's concluding words (CH: emphasis added):
"I can promise you Prime Minister, we'll help you with the emergency
action to save the economy but we will hold you to account for your
failures. You presided over the biggest economic disaster of our
lifetime and we will not let you forget it."
===================
THE SUN 13.10.08
We're all paying for Gordon's inflated ego
By TREVOR KAVANAGH
HAPPY Gordon Brown seems to believe this is the moment he was born for.
The Ditherer has disappeared. In his place, a new “Master of the
Universe” showing the world how to get out of this awful mess.
As “novices” such as Tory leader David Cameron tremble on the
sideline, Gordon is Getting On With The Job.
We must all wish him well. Our jobs, savings, pensions — and possibly
even the food on our plates — depend on his success.
Other world leaders seem impressed, working through the weekend to
turn Britain’s rescue package for stricken banks into a global
operation.
By the time you read this, stock markets will have given their
verdict — rebounding with optimism or plunging in panic.
Whichever way the dead cat bounces nothing can now stop the world
sliding steeply into a recession for years to come.
They say every crisis brings opportunity.
Mr Brown, who only weeks ago was fighting for his political life, is
not alone in seeing a silver lining.
Old Socialists and Labour MPs will have danced a jig at the death of
capitalism — until they realised that, like John Prescott, we are all
middle class now.
Heating
Green campaigners must be jubilant.
They can celebrate as cash-strapped motorists leave cars at home,
turn off the heating, stop flying on holiday and start growing their
own food.
There may also be emission cuts beyond the wildest dreams of Kyoto
campaigners as factories stop belching CO2, giving us the chance to
see for ourselves what impact that has on global warming.
The Islamic world will celebrate the comeuppance of the greedy West —
and especially the American Satan.
China and Russia will be looking for ways to profit at our expense —
even if their own economies take a knock for a while.
Here a silent majority will cheer, silently, as the bloated soccer
bubble bursts.
Few will weep if spoiled soccer brats can no longer line their drives
with Maseratis.
The same goes for the art market, where rich fools wasted millions on
animal corpses.
What price a dead shark at tomorrow’s auctions?
Let’s look more closely at Gordon’s Bubble.
For the moment it floats gently aloft as worried taxpayers will it to
stay up.
But the logic suggests this thing is a momentary phenomenon.
The favourable wind is just “irrational exuberance” — a term coined
by his hero, the once-revered ex-US Federal Reserve chairman Alan
Greenspan, who is himself being blamed for creating this Crunch.
Both men sat on their hands as borrowing and trade deficits ballooned
dangerously.
Gordon is bustling with fresh authority and energy.
Blame
But we cannot forget who has been running Britain’s finances for the
last 11 years.
However much blame our former Chancellor wants to lay on America, the
UK bank crisis was NOT inevitable.
It hasn’t happened in Canada, Australia or Sweden because THEIR banks
were properly regulated.
Sure, they face a slump like the rest of us. But when it’s over their
banks will still be standing. Along with America and most of Europe,
ours will be history.
That is Gordon’s fault. He failed to lock the stable door. Now the
horses are trampling all over the economy.
As voters wake up to the economic landscape, these and other
questions are likely to see the shine come off Number Ten.
Bust ... Icesave
For instance, why were councils encouraged not just to pour £1billion
of our money into dodgy Iceland, but in an act of sheer lunacy to
BORROW millions more for the purpose?
How will Whitehall cope when town halls run out of cash and start
laying off garbage collectors?
How will police cope if ATM machines dry up and shops run out of food
because cash-strapped truckers stop trucking?
If we really face soaring unemployment, what are the social
implications for three million recently-arrived migrants?
In good times these questions raise no more than a murmur.
As times get much, much tougher we must pray the only explosion we
hear is Gordon’s bubble bursting.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
IT is barely a week since Peter Mandelson came back to haunt us.
We have since learned he poured “poison” about the Prime Minister
into the cupped ear of Tory George Osborne.
He has been perhaps too cosy with a Russian tycoon who may have
benefited from his rulings as EU trade czar.
And now we learn his lordship is grabbing a £750K pay-off and pension
package few can even dream of after only four years