The Bank of England announcement that they lent this huge sum off-balance-sheet to RBS and HBOS in the autumn and early winter of 2008 is not really surprising: there were doubtless similar mood-calming moves in other countries.
What is remarkable is that it was replaid by the end of January. So it is no wonder that the banks had no cash to support their customers with, during an after the repayment period.
It shows that the banks have been preferred to their users, because the banks are 'too big to fail': so small businesses have been allowed to fail for the lack of cash.
Banks don't innovate: small businesses develop ideas, and the best of them become big businesses.
Economics is fundamentally unscientific. The economic crisis has speeded the shift of power to emergent economies. In Britain and the USA the theory of 'rational markets' removed controls from the finance sector, and things can still get yet worse. Read my book, No Confidence: The Brexit Vote and Economics - http://amzn.eu/ayGznkp
Shocking the extent of the non-disclosure which makes abit of a nonsense of some of Sir David Walker's comments about the role of shareholders. How can you do more to hold boards to account when you are kept in the dark?
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