It’s a funny old world where Tesco (LON:TSCO) is the answer to a monopolies problem.
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If land is valuable because they aren’t making it any more, the value of equities ought to be about to plunge. The markets are set to be flooded with shares in coming years.
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Borrowing is finally getting easier, according to a CBI survey, but don’t bank on it. To shore up their own balance sheets the big banks are planning to severely reduce their lending.
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The UK government has spent a fortune of our money rescuing the banking sector. Doesn’t it seem reasonable to recover the money from the sector itself. Is it time for a new windfall tax on banks?
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Capitalists might not like to hear this. But it looks like the biggest ever experiment in Keynesian economics might just have worked.
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If 164 Lloyds TSB bank branches were being closed it would hardly be headline news. Axing the whole Cheltenham & Gloucester chain has attracted undue attention, but there would be no point in the HBoS merger if there is not rationalisation. (See LON:LLOY).
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Nevermind whether the government wanted Sir Victor Blank to chair Lloyds Banking Group; why would he want to head a nationalised industry?
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Finally the chancellor is to admit what this blog has long been warning. Rather than result in a profit for taxpayers, the bank rescues will leave us with a large loss. The point now is who pays?
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Future years will be dictated by the cost of paying for rescuing the financial system. They will also be dominated by governments’ attempts to sell its stakes in two enormous banks. Perhaps the two are connected.
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ABNAmro and HBoS have both brought down the banks that bought them but they are completely different. Royal Bank of Scotland’s mistake was to overpay for a good bank; Lloyds’ error was to buy a lousy bank.
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