Monday, 19 January 2009

Was That My £137bn Mr Banker?

I look forward to the day when my tax return has a special section on it for specific areas where i went my tax to be spent.
NHS, education, training, policing all ticked. Defence, Royal Family, Trident, handing over to banks, all scribbled out.
I wonder if the British public had this choice how much of the 500bn turnover generated by taxpayers annually would be gift wrapped for the financial institutions that so recklessly got us into this mess in the first place.
I expect that the amount wouldn't even get close to the 37bn that the Government handed out to them last year to get them out of a hole and certainly wouldn't get the okay for the 100bn rescue package that they are pigeon-holing for them this time.
"Today's plan is essential for all of us" said Brown in October when the Banks woke up to find the Chancellor stuffing £35bn worth of tenners into their accounts and which seems to have done nothing at all, so back they come for an even larger slice of our money.
"If we do not do anything, the cost will be far, far greater" warned Chancellor Alistair Darling today as bankers whooped and turned cartwheels behind him. Rather than not do anything there are three options that immediately spring to my financially inept mind.

1. They could let the weaker banks fall as they seemed content to do for other businesses at a rate of 6 a day.
2.
They could give the taxpayer the billions instead and let us decide where too spend it which would save business's from going bust, save jobs, and the money would still end up in the banks greasy claws at the end anyway.
3. If banks won't lend and stimulate the economy, just nationalise the lot, write off the bad debts and start again under strict Government control.

The banks are very fond of charging large sums for sending out threatening letters to customers who dip into their overdraft so as we now shareholders in all of the major banks, we can send them a letter along the lines of:

Dear Sir/Madam, it has come to our notice that your account with me is seriously overdrawn. You owe me £137 billion. Please note that unless you pay this back within seven days we will take further action which may affect your credit rating and may result in criminal proceedings to recoup this amount. You have seven days to answer this letter . You have been charged £750,000 for this letter and further correspondence will not be entered into.

Yours faithfully

The British Public

6 comments:

Nog said...

Haha! A section on where you want your tax money spent, brilliant! I'm all for it; and the more specific the better. Imagine if you could say of my X,000 tax bill, I want y amount to go to health care and z amount to go to roads, and so on.
But then all of the politicians would be ruined. Who would need them?

-Nog

iMuslim said...

"Dear Sir/Madam, it has come to our notice that your account with me is seriously overdrawn. You owe me £137 billion. Please note that unless you pay this back within seven days we will take further action which may affect your credit rating and may result in criminal proceedings to recoup this amount. You have seven days to answer this letter . You have been charged £750,000 for this letter and further correspondence will not be entered into."

Brilliant... hmm, was that a copy and paste job from your last bank letter, Lucy? If only we could!

Falling on a bruise said...

I think it's a great idea nog, would be interesting to see how we would split the money up.

I didn't even have to change the figures iMuslim.

Cheezy said...

Superb! I'd definitely co-sign that letter :)

Nog said...

But I could just imagine every lobbyist in the country over here lining up to prevent any such law from being passed. If they had to go through us instead of a few politicians, they would all be useless!

Falling on a bruise said...

And out of pocket i imagine nog if it was up to us to decide whether we paid them.