LONDON (AFP) - Britain rushed out a package worth up to 875 billion dollars Wednesday to head off a banking collapse as markets went into freefall over fears the worst financial crisis in decades has still not hit a peak. Panic selling set hit key European and Asian stock exchanges and a drop of nearly 10 percent in Tokyo prompted Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso to voice "huge fears" for the future of the world's second biggest economy. Central bank moves to increase the amount of available credit did little to calm the frenzy. Unveiling a package which will see Britain's eight main banks part-nationalised, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said "extraordinary times call for... bold and far-reaching solutions."
Panic selling set hit key European and Asian stock exchanges and a drop of nearly 10 percent in Tokyo prompted Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso to voice "huge fears" for the future of the world's second biggest economy.
Central bank moves to increase the amount of available credit did little to calm the frenzy.
Unveiling a package which will see Britain's eight main banks part-nationalised, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said "extraordinary times call for... bold and far-reaching solutions."
But if you count the full £500 bn, you need to count the full range of interventions by the Fed up to now, as it has taken increasingly shitty collateral and is now accepting commercial paper.
Some have priced the total commitments of public money at $2.6 trillion already (see my link to Ian Welsh in my nationlaisation diary). In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
Though Chris Cook has argued convincingly the BofE is actually making money out of NR... A vivid image of what should exist acts as a surrogate for reality. Pursuit of the image then prevents pursuit of the reality -- John K. Galbraith
we'll send in €5 a month each monthly and you play with it on your laptop while we're slaving away and take yer cut, ya lazy number-crunching capitalist sod!
:)
help us off the hamster-wheel into the vaunted realms of the elite 1%!
beat the crunch with ((*Mig's Asset Protection IncTM))
why doesn't the macro thingy work, did i blunder? The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it. Chinese Proverb.
Not that ET would qualify.
Would it.
Would it? [long pause for thought...]
Gordon, you're still being timid.
Just let them fail, take them over, guarantee the deposits, wipe out shareholders and creditors, dismiss the management, reorganise the operations and resell them if and when there's an appetite for private ownership of banks.
£25+25bn is not bold or far-reaching. A vivid image of what should exist acts as a surrogate for reality. Pursuit of the image then prevents pursuit of the reality -- John K. Galbraith
¨Mine was $700bn.¨
¨But mine was 800% of GDP.¨
A brave try by the UK, but Ireland's epic opening move is going to be tough to beat.
