... But the draft documents reveal how close the [Northern] Rock was to a virtual wipe-out.
The Daily Mail first learned of the bank's secret plans in January but, after a late night call from Mr Darling, was begged not to publish.
(From this morning's Grumbler.)
Has the Press become an arm of Government?
Showing posts with label Northern Rock. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Northern Rock. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Saturday, January 19, 2008
Punish the perp
Karl Denninger says we should make the people who caused the subprime problems pay for the consequences. Either they should burn up with their own debt (Marc Faber has said some players should be taken out of the game) or pass on the grief to their shareholders, issuing new shares to raise capital and so diluting the existing stockholders' portion.
Unfortunately, we in the UK have chickened out - for party political reasons to do with its power base in the north of England, the Labour government is currently holding the baby in the case of insolvent lender Northern Rock, even though the tax payer is on the hook for nearly $120 billion as a result. (Hey, that's nearly as much as the proposed new tax break to reflate America - and our population is one-fifth the size of yours!)
Hope you have better luck - or better leaders - over there. Buy a Lottery ticket and hope?
Unfortunately, we in the UK have chickened out - for party political reasons to do with its power base in the north of England, the Labour government is currently holding the baby in the case of insolvent lender Northern Rock, even though the tax payer is on the hook for nearly $120 billion as a result. (Hey, that's nearly as much as the proposed new tax break to reflate America - and our population is one-fifth the size of yours!)
Hope you have better luck - or better leaders - over there. Buy a Lottery ticket and hope?
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Time to buy into Northern Rock?
Two hedge funds have punted heavily on the British lender that the government has supported with £55 billion.
The share price has slumped from over £12 last February to 69 pence, assisted by the gleefully gloomy 20/20 hindsight of the news media. We had voxpops today from small "windfall share" demutualisation shareholders ruefully reckoning their notional losses and admitting they can't find the (now-near worthless - ha!) certificates.
One of Sir John Templeton's maxims is "The time of maximum pessimism is the best time to buy and the time of maximum optimism is the best time to sell."
Let me offer two of mine: "Never buy what the fund managers try to sell you at financial adviser seminars", and "Remember the journalists who had their pensions in Equitable Life with-profits, because EL didn't (ugh!) pay commissions".
If I had the spare, I might speculate on NR. Hedge funds may be able to afford losing money, but they certainly don't go out of their way to do it. I wonder what will happen?
The share price has slumped from over £12 last February to 69 pence, assisted by the gleefully gloomy 20/20 hindsight of the news media. We had voxpops today from small "windfall share" demutualisation shareholders ruefully reckoning their notional losses and admitting they can't find the (now-near worthless - ha!) certificates.
One of Sir John Templeton's maxims is "The time of maximum pessimism is the best time to buy and the time of maximum optimism is the best time to sell."
Let me offer two of mine: "Never buy what the fund managers try to sell you at financial adviser seminars", and "Remember the journalists who had their pensions in Equitable Life with-profits, because EL didn't (ugh!) pay commissions".
If I had the spare, I might speculate on NR. Hedge funds may be able to afford losing money, but they certainly don't go out of their way to do it. I wonder what will happen?
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