‘Taxpayer saved UK economy’
January 23, 2009 at 1:31 pm
World War II – and the years of rationing that followed the conflict – is widely regarded as one of the most tumultuous periods in British history. The government fought for years to reunite the fraying threads of civilisation whilst a whole generation of people struggled to adjust to life outside the trenches.
In 2009, almost sixty-five years after Hitler blew his head off in a small Berlin bunker, media outlets all over the world began predicting a period of protracted recession that could rival the bitter aftermath of the Second World War.
The financial crisis of 2008 is set to go down in history as one of the most preventable crises of the twenty-first century, but despite months of investigation and the injection of billions of pounds into failing banks, the financial sector was saved from meltdown by the lowly taxpayer.
A recent documentary commissioned by the BBC revealed that escalating house prices (evident from as early as 2003) were the first indicators of the maelstrom that threatened to topple HBOS, the Royal Bank of Scotland, and the Bank of America.
Gordon Brown has been accused of exacerbating an already critical matter by failing to understand the severity of the situation. An estimated £37 billion of public money has since been used to rescue Britain’s banks from the brink of insolvency.
Unfortunately, despite now owning a large majority of HBOS and RBS, prudent taxpayers are being forced to entertain a low interest rate in order to ensure the continuing survival of ruined capitalists and feckless bankers.
The Year Britain’s Bubble Burst, a Panorama special on the financial crisis, is available for viewing at the BBC iPlayer website.
