Wednesday 4 August 2010

Outrageous BBC spin

Pure fucking brass neck, this:

In 2009, the bank made an operating loss of £6.3bn, almost unchanged on the £6.7bn it lost in 2008.

Part of these losses were due to the costs of taking over HBOS during the financial crisis. Lloyds has been accused of not undertaking proper due diligence on the takeover, and therefore underestimating the extent of the bad loans on HBOS's books.

This meant the government had to step in to bail out the troubled bank.


This wasn't the fucking deal where Gordon Brown strong-armed Lloyds into hurriedly taking over HBOS, was it? Leaving no time for due diligence on a deal Lloyds didn't want anyway? That saved the government from having to admit that another bank was in trouble thanks to the brilliant regulation of, er, Gordon fucking Brown?

Fucking cunts.

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

4 rants before 8:15! Does your family get to see you or just the back of your head as you sit red-faced in front of the computer.

Obnoxio The Clown said...

They're all still fast asleep.

Anonymous said...

Still got the rest of the day left though to continue your rants. Never know how you bloggers have enough time to work. Do you write a blog as part of therapy?

Obnoxio The Clown said...

I don't need therapy any more, since I discovered blogging. :o)

formertory said...

Shoutred and cursed at Robert Piss-tin on the BBC news last night; Northern Rock "bad bank" making profits because of "all the bad, non-performing mortgages they hold". And in the next breath "expected levels of default haven't come about". So they aren't bad mortgages then, if they're being paid. Instead they're highly profitable, because they're being paid.

Is it possible certain politicians like St Vince and A. Darling (and a number of bloggers and media commentators) had no fecking idea what they were talking about when they were criticising "risky lending"?

JuliaM said...

Hey anon, do you have time to work, or just comment on blogs? Because you're everywhere!

In fact, I'm sure you've commented on several blogs at the same time!

JuliaM said...

"Is it possible certain politicians like St Vince and A. Darling (and a number of bloggers and media commentators) had no fecking idea what they were talking about when they were criticising "risky lending"?"

It's entirely possible they could criticise anything under the sun and still have no idea what they were talking about.

Unless it was expense-fidong, of course. But then, when do they ever criticise that?

Umbongo said...

No not "strong-armed": he phoned his friend and then chairman of Lloyds, Victor Blank (who has form on whitewashing shit-stains - note his sterling work on behalf of Piers Moron at the Mirror) and convinced him (apparently without much difficulty) to take over HBOS sharpish. Blank is a major culprit on this one but so were the rest of the Lloyds TSB board which just stripped, rolled over and permitted Brown to have his way with them. However, as you note, the BBC prefers to forget Brown's role in all this since - according to the BBC narrative (repeated more or less daily on Today - Brown saved the world.

Anonymous said...

Robert Piston, can not stand his voice. He sounds like an old police car siren whining away, up and down he goes, what he says nobody knows. Complete tool.

Steve

Kingbingo said...

Exactamondo.

Although in fairness Eric Daniels paid more than he needed too. He should have clocked the sheer desperation in GB’s eyes and offered him a pound, not 12 billion of them. And perhaps if he had the time he could done his due diligence. But we have to remind ourselves WHY did he agree to do a deal so quickly, WHAT made him risk spending £12bn over a weekend when normally a bank scrutinizes spending a tiny fraction of that amount for value for money.

The answer is GB offered to waive all red-tape, regulatory oversight and bureaucratic meddling. But only for a weekend. It was a once in a economic cycle opportunity to do something without government trying to stop you. That was worth billions to them, and that tells you something.

Umbongo said...

"That was worth billions to them . ."

Perhaps that's what Daniels/Blank perceived but they were wrong: they bought the banking equivalent of Thames Water's annual sewage disposal problem. They also handed 40% of Lloyds over to HMG. Before this fiasco Lloyds was a very boring, relatively conservative, very profitable privately owned bank. Blank handed it over to Brown as a favour on the basis of Brown's compelling argument that "you can have this load of toxic crap for £12 billion, no questions asked!" This was a not only a bet that didn't come off: it was a bet that - given 30 seconds to consider, let alone a weekend - was (to anyone outside the Lloyds boardroom) an obvious crock.

Kingbingo said...

Umbongo, Just on a point of fact Lloyd was not privately owned it had been quoted for decades.

And while I certainly agree the price was steep, I would suggest the verdict is out on whether 'a' deal worth doing.

Now sure knowing what we know now, Lloyds overpaid massively. And I'll admit I'm no longer a financial analyst and I've never been a banking analyst but there are some really significant synergies waiting to be tapped. I can see good arguments in Lloyds favour.

Obnoxio The Clown said...

"I can see good arguments in Lloyds favour."

Like the taxpayer being in the chair, you mean?

Kingbingo said...

Incidentally, regardless of the banks own corporate actions, the whole banking crises worked out very nicely for me personally.

In early 2009 the banks were all getting their ratings hammered. Barclays was trading at 40p, RBS at 10p, Lloyds at whatever. I could see their accounts and I know accounts well enough to see that while there was pressure it was nothing a fresh capital injection wouldn’t fix.

I also knew Gordon, and his considerable talent for spunking money away. The moment he declared that he would ‘not let the banks fail’ I pulled together every penny I had and bought bank shares. Then not only did Gordon give them billions of lovely tax payers money but he forced down interest rates and began QE, all the while there was huge demand for loans which couldn’t be filled because the government was FORCING the banks to buy government debt instead so Gordon could carry on spending like there was no tomorrow. Quite frankly any bank could no fail to make gigantic profits when government is interfering in the capital markets to such a huge extend that spreads where historic highs.

The banks just played the hand served to them, it was Gordon that was ham fisting the economy. And I made a 500% return in a few months, cheers Gordon you clueless fuck.

Steve said...

They could have said no. I bet HSBC said no, the only UK bank with the ability to swallow the HBOS shit.

Kingbingo said...

Come to think of it was like back when Gordon not just sold our entire gold reserve but he actually announced that he was going to do so A WEEK IN ADVANCE.

Payday!

It was fucking comical he much of a moron he was. Surprise surprise, a week later gold traders were happy to take the gold off Gordon, but ‘lo and behold’ the gold price had hit a low over that last week. A low that is now referred to as ‘The Brown Bottom’.

I think he sold our entire reserve at about $230ish an ounce, its now worth $1,200 an ounce.
Every gold trader in the world makes a very tidy profit, British tax payers get shafted by Gordon, the clueless fuck.

Rationalist said...

Pop.