Bloomberg News yesterday released data obtained through FOI requests, months of litigation and trawling 29,000 pages of previously secret documents re the lending to banks and other companies USD1.2 trillion of public money [Overview].
The six or seven non-US companies in the top 20 may surprise a few: many on that list are banks that "survived the crisis without government capital injections" (and some that received a lot: mention no names RBS) but were lent money via programmes that promised confidentiality... "You don’t have to be a Hairy Leftie to discern that these people are taking the piss." (hat-tip: The Slog)
[edit 20:04 CET, click on image to see the future]
2 comments:
Everybody panicked. People lost jobs, banks borrwed money, the reserves were used - all because nobody had the balls to wait. The usual wisdom is to let things ride out for a while but what we saw here was panic. Reminds me of the old Bruce Forsyth line about "you know when you're old when you hear the sound of running water and don't realise it's you," those loans were the sound of banks pissing themselves.
As an aside, although connected in one way, I was talking to a farmer today about how easy it is to get hold of finance at nil percent interest, companies (not banks though) are on their knees asking people to borrow money because nobody is buying any equipment. You can have a £60,000 combine harvester for a deposit of £725 - how bizarre is that.
LOL! Good old Bruce.
Think I'll invest in a few combines...not.
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