However, instead of taking over these banks entirely as it did with Northern Rock, the Government decided instead to allow these banks’ shareholders to keep their shares, giving them a financial value they wouldn’t otherwise possess. In so doing the Government effectively unnecessarily transferred many £billions of ‘taxpayers’ money directly to the value of the share portfolios of those banks’ current and former investors.
...And if such huge sums of money can be found almost at a drop of a hat to ’sort out the banks’ (the £40 billion injection today just further shores up existing investors, will not create any new jobs, but rather is to be accompanied with staff cuts) why not much smaller amounts for environmentally ‘friendly’, job creation and economically more reflationary measures such as a massively expanded public transport system that is fully integrated, publicly owned and free to everyone at the point of use, such as is being advocated by the Campaign for Free Public Transport? socialistresistance
