XPost: uk.politics.misc, aus.politics, alt.politics.republicans   
   XPost: alt.politics.democrats, alt.atheism   
   From: fasgnadh@yahoo.com.au   
      
   Britain prints pounds as recession takes hold   
      
   "This week the British Government will start   
   printing 75 billion pounds. It is seen as an admission   
   that the measures taken so far to tackle the problems   
   in the United Kingdom’s credit starved economy have not worked.   
   Britain is now so mired in recession that the International   
   Monetary Fund says it will not see any growth for at   
   least a year and that it will suffer more than any other   
   industrialised nation."   
       - ABC 10/03/2009   
      
      
      
      "Jayne Maltman is still in shock, weeks after Woolworths   
       closed its doors here in Lansing in West Sussex.   
      
   JAYNE MALTMAN: It's horrible, the last day.   
   It was really sad. We just didn't know what to do.   
   You know, the shop was busy, full of people, and we   
   just thought we've gotta smile, be happy, it's our   
   last day. But some of us were walking around crying.   
   We just couldn't cope with it.   
      
       "Her name is on a list of 30,000 who have lost their   
        jobs in the biggest retail collapse in the UK's history."   
      
   STEVEN MALTMAN, HUDBAND: Watching my wife's world crumble all around her   
   was not an enjoyable image.   
      
      "Steven Maltman put his thoughts on paper. He felt compelled   
       to speak up about the death of a store - not just any store,   
       but a 100-year-old fixture on Britain's high streets."   
      
   STEVEN MALTMAN: Our fat cats and politicians are willing to   
   step in and hold hands with other high street institutions   
   - that would be the banks, for those trying to work it out.   
   So I ask: why are they not willing to help Woolies in their   
   darkest hour?   
      
   They interviewed some of the local shopkeepers just at the time of the   
   closure. And they felt, as it is now appearing to turn out, that it was   
   the beginning of the end of the community.   
      
      "By all appearances, it would seem that world renowned   
       British brands like Woolworths, Wedgwood and Jaguar   
       Land Rover were allowed to fail or be sold overseas   
       because they were no longer considered as important   
       to the economy as the finance sector."   
      
   DAVID BUICK, BGC PARTNERS STOCKBROKERS: In the United Kingdom, we have   
   absolutely trashed industrial production and manufacturing output. So   
   now that we have a pound that has fallen by 25 per cent against the Euro   
   and the dollar, very roughly, we can't benefit from it because we don't   
   have any exports to benefit from. So much credence and importance was   
   put on the financial sector.   
      
      " How big did it get?"   
      
   DAVID BUICK: Basically, the banks, the insurance companies and fund   
   managers - which in the FTSE 100, there aren't too many, numerically,   
   two or three - it constituted at its height, which would be about 2007,   
   about 28 per cent of the FTSE 100. It was enormous.   
      
      "The boom in financial markets fed a boom in the property   
       market. At the height of the credit binge, there were   
       literally hundreds of mortgages on offer, giving   
       British borrowers 100 to 125 per cent of the value of   
       their homes. As recessions kicked in, house prices have   
       tumbled. Last year by 20 per cent, and this year they're   
       likely to fall by about the same. So now, there are   
       countless people who find themselves owing more to the   
       bank than their houses are actually worth."   
      
   DAVID BUICK: It was insanity. And we have all played our   
   role in trashing the UK economy.   
      
       "Over the past week, the Commons Treasury committee inquiry   
       into the banking crisis has been hearing from both of the   
       city's main health inspectors: the boss of the Financial   
       Services Authority and the Governor of the Bank of England.   
       Both admitted that the UK's light touch regulation allowed   
       excessive risk taking by the banks to go on, and on, unchecked."   
      
       What specifically was wrong with regulation in Britain?   
      
   WILLEM BUITER, LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS: It was almost non-existent.   
      
       "Willem Buiter is the chair of the European Political   
        Economy at the London School of Economics. He was a   
        member of the Bank of England's monetary policy   
        committee until 2000. He blames the UK's banking   
        crisis on a lack of oversight by the central bank,   
        the financial watchdog and the Treasury.   
      
   WILLEM BUITER: And then also the tools weren't there. Britain didn't   
   have proper deposit insurance, it didn't have a proper bankruptcy   
   insolvency regime for banks. The things it didn't have are almost   
   unimaginable. It had, if you want, a regulatory and legal infrastructure   
   for the financial sector which was positively Third World, even though   
   it acted as the world's most sophisticated financial sector.   
      
        "In September, 2007, tens of thousands of savers swarmed   
         Northern Rock Bank branches across the UK when they heard   
         it had turned to the Bank of England for emergency funding.   
         It was the first run on a British bank in close to 150 years   
         and was the first bank bailout of the global economic crisis.   
         Exactly one year later came the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy.   
      
   VOX POP: Oh, terrible. Death. It's like a massive earthquake.   
      
       "With the collapse of what was once the world's fourth biggest   
        investment bank, Britain's finance sector started to crumble.   
        The Prime Minister Gordon Brown reacted by pumping billions of   
        dollars into the UK's banks. He couldn't afford another failure."   
      
   GORDON BROWN, UK PRIME MINISTER (archive footage, 10 Dec., 2008): Mr   
   Speaker, the first point of recapitalisation was to save banks that   
   would otherwise have collapsed. And we not only saved the world - eh,   
   saved the banks ... saved the banks.   
      
          (Uproarious laughter from the Opposition benches.)   
      
        "While the Prime Minister was busy trying to save the world,   
         Britain's banks were falling like nine pins. The Government   
         rescued the Royal Bank of Scotland for a second time last   
         month after it reported the biggest loss in UK corporate   
         history. The British taxpayer now owns 85 per cent of the   
         bank and is insuring its bad loans to the tune of £325 billion,   
         or AU$700 billion.   
      
   FRED GOODWIN, FMR CEO, ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND: It's just too simple if   
   you want to blame it all on me. If you want to blame it all on me and   
   close the book, that'll get the job done very quickly, but it does not   
   go anywhere close to the cause of all this.   
      
       "At just 50, and after RBS into the ground, Fred Goodwin walked   
        away from the bank with a lifetime pension worth $1.5 million   
        Australian a year."   
      
   WILLEM BUITER: Well, it's clearly outrageous. But, on the other hand, if   
   you walk around with a sign on your chest saying "Rob me", you shouldn't   
   be surprised that people rob you. The Treasury - the UK Treasury was   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
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