The banking crisis rolls on

The Royal Bank of Scotland is now 70% owned by the government. The second stage of the bailout begins. Gordon ‘I saved the world’ Brown jhas failed to get the banks lending. So today he has added more powers, along with the extra billions of the public’s money.
The clamour will rise over the next year for nationalisation – what we have now is a blank cheque and a plea to banks, to ready them for privatisation when the credit markets are unblocked.
The political agenda will shift to a choice:
bailout/handout or complete nationalisation.
I believe we should support nationalisation and direct the banks’ lending to where it’s needed, rather than what Labour seems to want – another wasteful debt binge, as implied by Margaret Beckett yesterday.

Farid Bakht