This seriously pisses me off. £50,000,000,000 of our taxes being splurged on the same people who sickened us with their disgustingly bloated salaries and horrendously excessive lifestyles. Anyone else remember when that group of City folk blew over £10,000 (or something like that) on one meal out?

Where did that £50bn go, anyway? Last year these same banks were raking in huge profits... How do 8 companies lose £50bn?

BBC News reported this morning that HSBC had turned down the offer.

Panorama stated 2 weeks ago that they are the only bank with more in assets than debts. So that makes sense.

Not sure why you've listed HSBC here. Did something change?

welcome myself as the new controlling shareholder in the High Street retail banks. Now, where are those executive's Ts&Cs, time for a re-write!

Has anyone noticed how many people in banking have died recently? Some suicides which these days always make me wonder. The millionaire banking chap on a night out who was knifed to death.

Maybe bankers get their identity from the huge profits they make. When they lose huge profits they loose all their self worth. Or maybe these deaths are part of a cleaning operation to allow the tax payer to be screwed. We already get screwed forwards when we stupidly borrow money, now we get screwed backwards too.

HMG and us, by definition will received preference shares, ordinary shareholders have had a bit of a hair cut, that means that as the banks day to day businesses are not totally out of whack, HMG should eventually make a buck or two, IN ADVANCE of ordinary shareholders once business picks up again.

Which is why they are called preference shares...

Of course if big bank does fold, in all likelihood others will follow, but caused by their interdependencies and any runs on deposit withdrawals/market share price moves, NOT because of a capital deficit directly.

Last couple of years the banks were making record profits and now they need money from us!

And why! Because they wouldnt lend each other money - so basically this is TOTALLY their problem and everything else that has followed is their FAULT.

Yet were suposed to bail them out, Im sure they wont help the thousands if not millions of people who will loose their homes and jobs because of these muppets.

And we're supposed to be getting shares in these banks!

What do you think the chances are that the INCOME from these shares will show up on the national budget!

We're always told that the government has a budget and that they need to tax us more and more, yet nobody has any idea how much the government is pulling in every year but I'm betting its a damn sight more than the tax payers bring in, but yet they continue to screw us over!

*\. Mines the one with "F@#k the banks!" writtern on the back.

"the union is warning employers that they will not accept compulsory redundancies in the banking industry,”

Tough I am afraid. As unappealing as it may be, if a business has to sack half of its work force to survive then it should. What is worse, 50% of people losing their jobs and getting redundancy pay or 100% lose their jobs and get NOTHING.

Perspective is needed here on the part of the unions not just for them to continue with their own self "job justification" crusade

im just so speechless about this its untrue.

wheres my rescue plan, im struggling here too thanks !!

oh wait i forget, i havent paid massive bungs to the government before and i dont rip people off or pay myself multimillion pouind bonuses.

clucking funts the lot of them, let them fail and let us take the bank directors on as our slaves until they work off the debt they owe us for blowing our savings.

i know why we are in economic turmoil...

Check out Darlings eyebrows, then look at the eyebrows on the man who ruled over our last economic disaster Norman Lemont.

O yes... we can say that retarded eyebrows are a sign of trouble.

It will be, with any luck, the end of that perennial piece of mendacious bullshit "The <whatever> industry is better regulating itself on a voluntary basis"

Yet another way to waste the taxpayer's money to benefit the few.

England won't follow Scotland and Wales with free prescriptions etc, yet there seems to be £50billion sloshing around to prop up greedy corporations who have made obscene profits at the cost of the common man.

The banks took on these toxic debts at the hope of making a HUGE profit, but now they have been caught out they come bleating for assistance to prevent them going bust. Any other industry has to operate to market forces or they go bust, with no help from the government.

Perhaps it is time to give communism another look.

.. agree with Xander.

The first part of this rescue package should be to remove all assets from the directors of these companies - force them to cash in their pensions, sell their houses, sell their shares (if they're worth anything), repay their dividends. Don't allow them to leave their jobs - they will work for free until such time as they have resolved the god-almighty mess they have got the countries financial institutions into.

Any that try to leave their posts should be tried for treachery.....

How, they are not listed on the SE.

The galling thing is that the self same Banks and Financiers who are crying out for Government hand-outs are the self same ones who were totally pleased to see whole industries go the wall if they faltered or failed to keep paying out profits. Let them go bust and let these one time "high flyers" have a taste of their own medicine.

So when do i get my city bonus now that i own part of the high street banks?

And god forbib who ever emplyed the chancellor that let all this happened, guess if you employed him now you'd be kicking yourself?

Lets hope that the old chancellor that went on about boom/bust economys put some of the cash aside from the boom so now we can cover the bust.

If i was to nearly bust the company that i work for i'd get fired not given large bonuses?

Then again if you can p*ss billions of pounds up the wall in so called IT projects, whats wrong with bailing old you city chums?

When I did economics at school I learned that profit was a reward for risk. It would seem that the banks were not taking risks: their losses are covered by general taxation. Since these profits were obtained fraudulently they should be recovered, just like the profits of a drug dealer, and naturally that includes the obscene bonuses that they funded.

Not that I have any savings (In fact negative savings!) but I see on the BBC News site that people that have taken a high risk good rate account in Iceland will now get all their money back due to the 'Exceptional circumstances' as a present from our dear Chancellor. (guess who's paying for it)

Yet people that have kept their money in the UK will only be covered to £50k

I must have missed something, this sounds all wrong.

Our little corner shop is having a bit of a cash flow issue and could possibly close, will there be a cash payout for them as well ? Also my credit card has a 'toxic debt' at the moment, can the government take that off my hands?

The problem is allegedly that the banks are unwilling to lend money TO EACH OTHER.

So if they previously had the money to lend to each other, where has it all gone?

Or were they just lending each other 'virtual money' in the mistaken belief they would never have to produce any real mony to back it up?

Perhaps this is a little like the hedge funds which all bought shares in each other using one pot of money which they passed around and around, giving the impression that there was a lot of money invested?

Was there a pot of money which each bank used at settlement time to pay the next one in line, which then paid the next, and so on while they 'lent' and 'borrowed' more 'money' until the next settlement time?

Perhaps a little like paying off a credit card using another credit card?

Or has all the money (as has allegedly happened in Spain) suddenly disappered from the banking system giving everyone very lumpy matresses?

Perhaps someone would like to explain??

This has been covered elsewhere, and in more detail. If you'd linked it to the jobs that are likely to go in IT departments, it would have been interesting.

Unless it's a troll.

In which case let the comments fly !

wasnt this bunch able to pay billions for another bank recently? halifax?

so now they want a hand out

i tell ya - this makes me fucking sick!

time for another guy fawkes yet?

Don't forget Dennis Healey. Best eyebrows EVER!

As I stood to lose £50k if Icesave went under I've been following this one rather closely, as you would imagine.

It wasn't a "high risk" account, it was a standard fixed term deposit at a rate of 7%, which 6 months ago was about 0.5% above the going rate. Far from being high-risk, Icesave had very high ratio of deposits to lending (Tier 1 capitalization was 10.1% for 2007, compared to 5.1% for Northern Rock or 7.3% for HBOS), had little or no sub-prime debt and so should have been safer than most.

This was a run on the bank, nothing more. People tried to get their money out, which fueled rumours, which drove others to get their money out. Eventually there was no money left. Could happen to any bank, although with hindsight a smaller bank supported by a smaller economy is more vulnerable.

As it happens Alastair has saved the day this morning. Darling by name, darling by nature, Gawd bless 'im and 'is furry caterpillers.

Happy face 'cos I fucking am today.

You can probably thank the fact that a number of local councils kept their money in iclandic bank accounts for that...

They were so smart, they made billions for their companies.

You know they deserved the millions for their hard work and overarching intellects.

Ooh, twas just a bubble!

Unfortunately, you don't get the money back if the banks fail. But you have a good chance to destroy your economy -- hope you put some money away for the bad times!

Face it, you, the populace, were stupid enough not to see the bubble.

Now you have to figure out how to save the system, how to save your jobs, how to save your house.

Only fair that you do it with your (tax) money.

The fat cats don't have to work on it, they have worked enough to last a lifetime.

Fleeced you : ), and don't forget to tip the teller!

I have a massive overdraft and owe loads on my credit cards and the bank goes titsup what happens then?

It is incredible the amount of ignorance displayed whenever you read comments on this subject. For example the majority view seems to be that if all the banks fail this won't affect me - seemingly believing that their biscuit tin of fivers is safe.

A goodly amount of comments obviously come from the public sector workers (or benefit scroungers as I like to call them). Again they seem to think that tax income is as safe as, er well as safe as the Bank of England, seeing no connection between economic activity and taxation.

I find such ignorance almost as depressing as the situation itself

You get to keep it. Seriously. That was my understanding of the FSCS guidelines I was reading today. So all you need to to is find someone to lend you money and you're sweet!

Actually, to clarify my last, you get to keep it until the receivers start call in debts. Likewise if you don't get all your money back from the FSCS fund, as a creditor of the bank you could get your money back at that stage - in that sense it's just like a regular bankruptcy.