The English people are being sold a whole herd of pigs in a poke, and they don’t even know what it will cost:
The Treasury has formally announced a scheme to allow banks to exchange cash or shares for a Government guarantee on their “toxic” debts, transferring any losses they suffer from the banks to the taxpayer. However, the Chancellor admitted he can’t estimate how much taxpayers’ money will needed in the latest bailout.
It will be interesting to see how many of the self-appointed financial whizzes I pointed out in today’s column, those who backed the first round of bailouts, will line up in favor of this one. Because there’s a pretty good chance that the banks will soon be pushing something like this on the American public.
UPDATE – Even Krugman is now pessimistic about the next round of bailouts:
I hope I’m wrong, but I suspect that taxpayers are about to get another raw deal — and that we’re about to get another financial rescue plan that fails to do the job.