UK government takes over £325 bn RBS toxic assets

[Jan Klimkowski]

So, RBS pays £25 billion to dump £300 billion (or a major part thereof) on the taxpayer.

Lib Dem's Vince Cable said the toxic debt deal showed that the Government had 'almost completely lost the plot'.

'This proposal for asset protection is a real disgrace," he said. 'It is a complete betrayal of the taxpayer's interest.

'This is a classic case of privatising profits and socialising loss.'

Mr Cable said the Government would have been much better buying up more shares in the banks and taking them in to full temporary public ownership, rather than dabbling with 'feeble agreements'.

He also said demands from Barclays that they would not deal with the Government unless their bonus arrangements were protected amounted to "blackmail".

Even Alan Greenspan, former chairman of the US Federal Reserve, had urged the Government not to be afraid of nationalisation saying that they could not keep funding 'zombie banks'.

He said it would take 'many months' to establish the scale of toxic assets held by banks, and the scale of problems would change depending on the international economic outlook.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-...andal.html

Cable is speaking the truth.

I left the Greenspan quote in there because his heroine, Ayn Rand, would be disgusted at Big Al's rank hypocrisy.