[dorlomin]

Small beer compaired to whats going on in the US but anotherones bites the dust.

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/b ... 835129.ece


Edited to add, sorry the title should read Bradford and Bingly to be Nationalised. It has not happened yet.

[section451]

It's been in a periolous state for a while now - according to the BBC it's either liekly to be nationalised or bought out by a bank like Santander.

.... meanwhile, it's make or break time for MFI (furniture retail chain in UK) - it might go bust on Monday.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... rvive.html

Monday should be interesting whatever happens with this bailout.

[dorlomin]

It's been in a periolous state for a while now - according to the BBC it's either liekly to be nationalised or bought out by a bank like Santander.

.... meanwhile, it's make or break time for MFI (furniture retail chain in UK) - it might go bust on Monday.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... rvive.html

Monday should be interesting whatever happens with this bailout.

Rescessions traditionaly culled weak bussiness models. Many were spared by the excess credit and the shallow 2001 rescession. There are many failing bussiness models like MFI to die.

[section451]

BBC now saying Bradford & Bingley will be nationalised - announcement likely tomorrow night - article says there significant withdrawal of savers money on Saturday.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7640143.stm

[section451]

Quite a good article here explaining why B&B and the likes of MFI were/are doomed to failure.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main ... do2801.xml

Personally, I hope something good comes out of all this. I have no wish for hard working decent people trying to put a roof over their heads losing their homes, but as the article suggests, UK house prices were driven higher and higher by the buy-to-let speculators, and they deserve to lose the shirts on their backs. Endless speculation with borrowed money people simply didn't have created a false market and pushed prices even higher.

Sound familiar ?, well from what I've read about the 1929 crash, people were doing exactly the same thing using borrowed money that they didn't have to invest in things such as 'new technologies' like RCA.

The UK media reinforced this myth. Most news items before the crunch were coached in terms of 'house price rises are good, falls bad' (since when has price inflation been good in one market but bad in another ?). There were a glut of 'property porn' shows, showing speculators how to buy a house (using borrowed money hapily lent by the likes of B&B) and turn into more virtual money. To furnish the house out, you could always pop down to MFI of course !

The US bailout won't work, it may free up the credit markets, but it's dependent on people going out to spend, spend, spend like before. That's not going to happen in the UK or the US - people are up to their necks in debt - the last thing they need is more debt.