! This post hasn't been updated in over a year. A lot can change in a year including my opinion and the amount of naughty words I use. There's a good chance that there's something in what's written below that someone will find objectionable. That's fine, if I tried to please everybody all of the time then I'd be a Lib Dem (remember them?) and I'm certainly not one of those. The point is, I'm not the kind of person to try and alter history in case I said something in the past that someone can use against me in the future but just remember that the person I was then isn't the person I am now nor the person I'll be in a year's time.
It’s been confirmed this morning that Bradford & Bingley is to be nationalised and its savings business sold to the Spanish bank, Santander.
Bradford & Bingley has £50bn of debts, including £41bn of outstanding mortgages, which the taxpayer will take on whilst the profitable £20bn savings business is to be sold to Santander.
Someone’s got a bargain and it certainly isn’t the taxpayer.
Update:
Somebody definitely got a bargains and it definitiely isn’t the bloody taxpayer. Santander is buying the £20bn savings business and B&B’s 172 branches for £612m while B&B’s mortage book has been described as “toxic”.
Technorati Tags: Bradford & Bingley, Santander, Economy, Nationalisation
It wasn’t very long ago that all these ex-building societies were old fashioned mutual companies that were run in a very prudent (hey, remember Gordon Prudence Brown?) manner. Abbey National, National & Provincial etc etc. Then they de-mutualised, promising a very rosy future and loads of money for the new share holders. I believe every single one of them has now gone bust or been bought up by other banks. Their founders must be turning in their graves.
Hey, I’ve got this fantastic idea on how to run a bank- I’ll lend other people’s money to people who haven’t got a Gordo’s chance in a general election of paying it back, and to make sure it works really well I’ll let the borrowers tell me how much they think they earn without any pissing around with stupid things like salary slips and utility bills. Then when it all goes tits up I’ll fuck off with my fat pay packet and huge bonus for fucking up what was once a perfectly good business, and leave the taxpayer with a bucket of shit costing them millions.
Have you been taking tips from Alistair Darling?