Sunday 17 February 2008

Temporary Nationalisation

Might as well talk of temporary death.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Very succinct, and very true.

Anonymous said...

Has anyone seen any analysis of the legality of the process? I'm thinking about, (i) Human Rights Act 1998 and the shareholders; (ii) Competion rules and other banks, while politics comes into play when Charity Donations from a government entity are considered.

hatfield girl said...

It is hard to understand why the Northern Rock Foundation should continue to hang limpet-like onto 'at least £15 million a year until 2012'.
(Darling's statement at the Treasury on Sunday).

The bank is bankrupt without our money, so presumably the Labour regime is just doling out client regime support from central funds. . Apart from being such notably unworthy recipients and projects, its objectives are solely concerned with people living in north east England.
Whether that's legal is doubtful too.

Anonymous said...

The only conceivable meaning of "temporary nationalisation" of an asset is the acquisition of a state leasehold while the freehold is retained by the original private owner.

Except that

- a lease is for a pre-determined period, while here the length of the "temporary" arrangement is not specified, not even in terms of conditions to be satisfied;

- a lease is suitable to a building or a plot of land, whose use and maintenance can be easily specified and routinised, so that the asset is preserved until the time when the lease falls due. It is not suitable to an enterprise, and even less suitable to a bank, whose own assets in turn can be sold, wasted, or depleted.

- there maybe nothing at all to be returned to the original shareholders at the end of the allegedly temporary arrangement. This is the most likely occurrance, unless the government finds some surreptitious way of transferring to the shareholders funds they are not entitled to, over and above the resources already sunk in this bottomless pit.

Thus your one-liner, HG, is indeed "very succint, and very true" (as john says).