Northern Rock

So lots of customers form a line outside of their local branches in order to get their money out. The government(1) says that the bank is safe, (2) the bank says that they are safe and also the (3)FSA say that Northern Rock are 100% safe.

Yet still people spend a Saturday morning standing in line to get their money back and none of the so called experts can really understand their concern.

1/ First off people don't trust the government, it makes no difference who is in power us voters are a cynical lot and the attitude of people is "Well its not their money, its my money and I am not taking a chance." - Maybe if they had not lied to us and spun facts on so many occasions then the public might have a bit more faith in them.

Also people remember Barings and BCCI both collapsing(for different reasons), plus the words "A good day to bury bad news."

2. Banks. Oh dear they have not done themselves any favours have they? What with the huge profits and people see a direct connection between that and the huge charges they put on customers for the slightest of reasons.

Besides the banks both here and in the US, have loaned huge amounts of money to people with piss poor credit histories and now they can't pay those loans back the inevitable crisis has happened.

3. A toothless organisation in the pockets of the financial trade, seen to be in favour of banks and not understood or trusted by the public.
Hat tip to The Thunder Dragon for the above pic.
Finally maybe the words of Mr Brown are coming back to haunt him when he said "No more boom and bust..."
In the words of Fraser Nelson, the Chancellor is losing his grip, muddling his figures and rambling on about how a twenty five year-old David Cameron worked for Norman Lamont during the ERM crisis. Stuttering, he covered his ass by passing the buck to the Financial Services Authority.

**Having had my own fun & games with banks: a long long legal fight with the arseholes at Barclays Bank Plc, and yes they paid up eventually but to this day I still have recieved no apology- which mattered to me more than the fact they cock'd the account up in the first place, or even getting the money back off them - and the whole matter left a bad taste in the mouth. I can understand why people are so disbelieving of anything that banks say.

Tags:Northern Rock
FSA
Subprime Market
Banking

.