Here we go...who's next..?

[alanbeeb]

You’re in the too big to fail camp then. All banks have interdependencies. The failure of any bank is nothing which shouldn’t be able to be handled effectively by regulators. They could be insolvent but still be operational until sold. As happens with companies in administration.

Northern Rock, Lehmans etc went pop, so should have RBS. Nothing to do with the origins of certain key politicians at the time, I’m sure.

Northern Rock and Lehmans were orders of magnitude tiny compared to Lloyds and RBS. It has been clearly explained why the failure of RBS & lloyds would have been a structural disaster for the entire world financial system.

But you'd rather believe the Daily Fail/Torygraph little-englander blame-everyone-else b*LLO*CKS.... and this mindset is exactly why the UK is now TOTALLY F**K*D. thanks.

 

[stevec67]

If Thames Water fails, who is going to provide clean safe drinking water for the South East?

That's part of what the receivers have to do. If say a factory fails and slates are falling off it into the street with a risk of killing people, the receivers have to organise someone to do the necessary maintenance as part of the wrapping up process.

 

[Ponty]

Northern Rock and Lehmans were orders of magnitude tiny compared to Lloyds and RBS. It has been clearly explained why the failure of RBS would have been a structural disaster for the entire world financial system.

But you'd rather believe the Daily Fail/Torygraph little-englander blame-everyone-else b*LLO*CKS.... and this mindset is exactly why the UK is now TOTALLY F**K*D. thanks.

No company should be too big to fail. It went bust through board arrogance and negligence. Shareholders should have gone to zero and operated by regulators / administrators until elements worth having, such as payment systems, were sold off, no doubt to other banks. There was nothing wrong with Lloyds by the way, they were / are a solid bank. Their problem was having that other crock of 5#1te which was HBOS forced upon them. Spotting the theme here?

 

[alanbeeb]

No company should be too big to fail. It went bust through board arrogance and negligence. Shareholders should have gone to zero and operated by regulators / administrators until elements worth having, such as payment systems, were sold off, no doubt to other banks. There was nothing wrong with Lloyds by the way, they were / are a solid bank. Their problem was having that other crock of 5#1te which was HBOS forced upon them. Spotting the theme here?

yes I think we can all see the thinly veiled anti-Scottish tone of your comments.

 

[Ponty]

yes I think we can all see the thinly veiled anti-Scottish tone of your comments.

It strikes me as an extraordinary coincidence. Blair / Brown were very pally with Fred.

 

[Jubal]

Chances are, it was your pension fund.

Yep. Or a mate’s I see. I don’t have to like it though.

 

[Nick_G]

Legal fraud. You’re right. That’s alright then.

 

[paulfromcamden]

Link to the previous thread on this from earlier in the year.

Thames Water

The imminent collapse of Thames water is yet another example of the failure of Privatisation. Not just Thames How many more examples of a failed policy will be needed before we get a different policy?

pinkfishmedia.net

 

[paulfromcamden]

‘They also warned that if it was nationalised, taxpayers would face a hefty bill.’

No we wouldn’t. Let them fail, rather than bailed out.

Astonishing really that less than six months ago shareholders stumped up £1.25bn in additional funds.

It's bad enough holding Thames Water. Imagine knowing what a basket case the firm is but pumping in a load more cash regardless.

Thames Water secures extra £750m from shareholders to help stave off nationalisation

Money follows £500m injection in March but troubled utility warns much more future funding needed

www.theguardian.com

 

[Ponty]

Astonishing really that less than six months ago shareholders stumped up £1.25bn in additional funds.

It's bad enough holding Thames Water. Imagine knowing what a basket case the firm is but pumping in a load more cash regardless.

Thames Water secures extra £750m from shareholders to help stave off nationalisation

Money follows £500m injection in March but troubled utility warns much more future funding needed

www.theguardian.com

My guess is they only did it because they think taxpayers / govt will bail them out. An example needs setting, let the shareholders go to zero.

 

[gez]

Absolutely. Should have done that with RBS and sold the rotten carcass to the highest bidder.

Right, because the ONLY people who would suffer in such a situation would be the mega rich that we all hate so much.

The stupidity of such beliefs is that it's so full off loathing for those considered unacceptably priviledged it totally ignores the tens of thousands of people who would likely lose their jobs who are on average salaries. But I suppose we don't care about the common worker as long as the rich get what they deserve right?

 

[gez]

Quick Google shows water co chief execs on £2-3 million salaries....

A quick google show's they employ 7,000 people the vast majority of whom will will be earning at best the UK average. But they don't matter.

 

[Sue Pertwee-Tyr]

Right, because the ONLY people who would suffer in such a situation would be the mega rich that we all hate so much.

The stupidity of such beliefs is that it's so full off loathing for those considered unacceptably priviledged it totally ignores the tens of thousands of people who would likely lose their jobs who are on average salaries. But I suppose we don't care about the common worker as long as the rich get what they deserve right?

In the case of Thames Water, I’m with @Ponty here. Let the shareholders take a bath - the service still needs providing, so jobs will be fairly safe, apart from those whose snouts have been in the trough and who can look out for themselves.

 

[davidsrsb]

Right, because the ONLY people who would suffer in such a situation would be the mega rich that we all hate so much.

The stupidity of such beliefs is that it's so full off loathing for those considered unacceptably priviledged it totally ignores the tens of thousands of people who would likely lose their jobs who are on average salaries. But I suppose we don't care about the common worker as long as the rich get what they deserve right?

The function still exists, so the ordinary people would mostly keep their jobs.

 

[paulfromcamden]

A quick google show's they employ 7,000 people the vast majority of whom will will be earning at best the UK average. But they don't matter.

Why would they lose their jobs if the firm is put into Special Administration or nationalised?

 

[gez]

Couldn’t have done that with RBS. They were too heavily leveraged with other banks (including central bank) due to their funding model, and they were responsible for the infrastructure running worldpay and swift at the time. If they had crashed, they would have brought down Barclays, Lloyds, HSBC, BNP, JPM, Citi and more. In short, worldwide banking collapse. No atm’s or online payment systems would have worked, and no authenticated swift messages could be sent to attempt to shore it up. Brown and Darling did the only thing they could and averted total disaster.

To say nothing about the catastrophic levels of job losses it would have caused. But that don't matter because they're all "rich bankers". How dare those counter staff be earning £70k a year.

 

[gez]

The function still exists, so the ordinary people would mostly keep their jobs.

Keep dreaming. That statement shows a complete lack of understanding of what happens when companies get bought out.

Why would they lose their jobs if the firm is put into Special Administration or nationalised?

There's no such thing as "special" administration. Administration has one aim only, to recoup as much value as possible for all debitors. That means selling off assets and making the employees redundant. Nationalisation can't afford them any more than the private sector can, so dreaming that a gov take over is going to save all the jobs, is just that a dream.

 

[paulfromcamden]

There's no such thing as "special" administration. Administration has one aim only, to recoup as much value as possible for all debitors. That means selling off assets and making the employees redundant. Nationalisation can't afford them any more than the private sector can, so dreaming that a gov take over is going to save all the jobs, is just that a dream.

My understanding of the Special Administration being proposed by OFWAT is that it's basically temporary nationalisation. It's not the administrators rocking up to your lock-up with the bailiffs.

People will still be needed to fix leaks, pump poo around and do all the other stuff a water company does. They're not going to just send everyone a P45 and turn the taps off for a quarter of the UK.

 

[gez]

My guess is they only did it because they think taxpayers / govt will bail them out. An example needs setting, let the shareholders go to zero.

The shareholders are, by a very large margin, Pension funds etc. Not individual people. Whenever a companies shares drop to zero it makes some tiny impact to everyones pension pot growh. So just taking that position on all companies negatively impacts an asset that a very large proportion of the working population are reliant on for their future security.

 

[davidsrsb]

Keep dreaming. That statement shows a complete lack of understanding of what happens when companies get bought out.

Water companies are essential natural monopolies, so the normal dog eat dog world doesn't apply - perhaps why they should not have been sold off in the first place