tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22974616.post5983308463305549341..comments2023-10-02T14:33:18.136+01:00Comments on The Very Fluffy Diary of Millennium Dome, Elephant: Day 2838: Why not just BUY the banks already?Millennium Domehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08430269096817934037noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22974616.post-30877770778422944972008-10-13T10:21:00.000+01:002008-10-13T10:21:00.000+01:00Ms Charlotte,You ask a good and reasonable questio...Ms Charlotte,<BR/><BR/>You ask a good and reasonable question: could this have been avoided?<BR/><BR/>Well, I would look to SPAIN where, even though they too have had a recent housing bubble and crash, their banks remain on a sound and solid footing, largely through the strong regulation imposed by the Bank of Spain (ever since they had their own banking crisis in the Seventies.)<BR/><BR/>In particular, Banco Santander – who own Abbey National, Alliance & Leicester and now Bradford & Bingley, in addition to having a sizable share of Royal Bank of Scotland – have become one of the World's ten biggest banks by AVOIDING risky investment banking and concentrating on local branch savings and loans business. It's not sexy but it's steady.Millennium Domehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08430269096817934037noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22974616.post-84510952069147551492008-10-11T00:38:00.000+01:002008-10-11T00:38:00.000+01:00Another great summary of this great mess.You said:...Another great summary of this great mess.<BR/><BR/>You said: "Now of course, you and I know that ACTUALLY Mr Frown really IS to blame for not controlling the housing boom or the explosion of credit here in Great Britain."<BR/><BR/>I agree with you in general, but wasn't the general principle that we should suck up to the banks in order to keep London a centre of the financial industry? And arguably it worked, times have been pretty good for many over the last decade. So even if it was all built on sand, wouldn't the crisis still have affected us if we'd had regulation but nowhere else did? More people might have had mortgages with foreign banks, for example, UK banks would have moved a lot of operations overseas etc.<BR/><BR/>I'm generally confused by economics, but I do wonder how much of this could have been avoided and how much was inevitable given the way the world has shrunk.<BR/><BR/>The issue of how we failed to take advantage of a decade of prosperity to tackle social issues is a completely different kettle of fish, of course.Charlottehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05992098593585263566noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22974616.post-17598463379507898402008-10-10T12:44:00.000+01:002008-10-10T12:44:00.000+01:00Excellent post! In particular the point on interes...Excellent post! In particular the point on interest repayments which most people seem to be missing out on...Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09472793975958304456noreply@blogger.com