Audio podcast: Charon reports (13) – The People’s banks…
I report today from the steps of The Treasury in London. The British people woke this morning to find that Gordon Brown has finally managed to push forward a socialist plan to control the banks. We, you…..are now shareholders in a number of major banks and the Labour government is calling the shots on pay, bonuses and dividends.
On my way here, wearing a baseball cap I knocked up at a local print shop, I popped into my local RBS branch. I don’t suppose the manager there was that happy when I asked if all his staff had arrived at work that morning on time and if he had enough money in the safe to satisfy his customer shareholders, British taxpayers.
I did let him know that it was unlikely he would be attending the leaving party for CEO Fred Goodwin who was quitting with immediate effect – without a severance payoff – because there would not be a leaving party. I also suggested that he might like to audit the biscuits as tighter controls on expenditure would have to looked at. I thought I might also nip off down the road to see how the local HBOS manager was doing now that HBOS chief executive Andy Hornby and chairman Lord Dennis Stevenson said they would stand down from their posts.But then I thought better of the idea. It seems likely that we, the people of Britain, will be shareholders in these stricken banks for some time to come, perhaps even for ever, so I could fit this in at my leisure.
It is likely that shares of banks who take the Cyclops shilling will find their share price depressed for a while – but the markets do seem to be coping with the news in a vaguely rational manner so far. BBC News 24 autocuties, male and female, seem to be coping without hyperventilating and scratching around for something to say. It could, of course, be a dead cat bounce….. who knows? Even some of the pundits haven’t got a clue and I certainly don’t have a clue.
So…. they’ve sorted the Banks? Insurance companies next, I suspect. Any laws on short selling of shares in the insurance sector? I think I’d quite like to have a barbecue tonight….. or an early bonfire night…. Bonfire of The Vanities… anyone?
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