Commercial property values are rising again and no-one should be more pleased than the owners of Britain’s banks – ie, us. Balance sheet write-offs could soon be replaced by write-backs.
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Let the banks pay their inflated bonuses – but force them to back each £1bn awarded with another £1bn of new capital. It could be a better brake on bonuses than a windfall tax on the banks or higher income tax for the bankers.
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Nevermind that the Bank of England kept secret for a year its massive loan to HBoS and RBS (LON:RBS), why on earth did it choose to break its silence on the day Lloyds Banking Group (LON:LLOY) announces its record rights issue?
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If banks shouldn’t be “too big to fail” how small must they be before we allow them to collapse? It’s the question the Bank of England’s governor must answer.
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“Is it time for a new windfall tax on banks?” asked this blog back in the summer. It seems so. The Westminster press briefing is that the chancellor is considering a banks tax in his pre-budget statement.
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It’s not only when new economic figures are better than the old that we know we’re past the worst, it’s when the old figures are revised so that they’re not as bad as they were.
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Dare one ask, amid all the comment to mark the year since the collapse of Lehman Brothers, were the financial regulators wrong in refusing to rescue the bank?
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Normally it is illegal to trade while insolvent but pre-pack administrations allow directors to spend weeks plotting their insolvency and then buy the best bits of their company and resume business. The new rules were brought in to help rescue companies but they risk causing the collapse of suppliers who go unpaid while the directors carry on trading.
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Bank directors, regulators, central bankers – even borrowers – have received their share of the blame for the financial crisis but one group that must not be allowed to escape unscathed is the credit-rating agencies.
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Two years on from the run on Northern Rock in September 2007 and Lloyds Banking Group (LON:LLOY) should be cursing the regulators for blocking its bid to rescue the mortgage bank. Lloyds Banking Group would have lost the whole of the £1.7bn bid price and more – but still saved that sum many times over.
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