In a plea to sort out the mess once and for all, Gordon Brown asked the UK banks to fez up and tell him exactly what toxic assets they have on their books yesterday. In an interview with the Financial Times, the prime minister said that he had been urging the
banks for almost a year to write down their bad assets.
“One of the
necessary elements for the next stage is for people to have a clear
understanding that bad assets have been written off,” he said. “We have got to be clear that where we have got clearly bad assets, I expect them to be dealt with.”
This is all part of the build up to an announcement expected this week where the government takes over all of those toxic assets, in order to allow the banks to move on and start lending again.
As Robert Peston at the BBC refers to it, we shall create the First Septic Bank.
Maybe it would be nicer if Gordon Brown could be more like Hu Jintao in China, who just tells the banks to lend, or do what Zimbabwe is doing, where you just print money.
Mind you, isn't that what we're doing anyway?
Copyright: Banx, 2009
Chris M Skinner
Chris Skinner is best known as an independent commentator on the financial markets through his blog, TheFinanser.com, as author of the bestselling book Digital Bank, and Chair of the European networking forum the Financial Services Club. He has been voted one of the most influential people in banking by The Financial Brand (as well as one of the best blogs), a FinTech Titan (Next Bank), one of the Fintech Leaders you need to follow (City AM, Deluxe and Jax Finance), as well as one of the Top 40 most influential people in financial technology by the Wall Street Journal's Financial News. To learn more click here...
