Skip Navigation | Sheffield IMC | UK IMC | Editorial Guidelines | Mission Statement | About Us | Contact | Help | Support Us

UK Indymedia UK Indymedia Sheffield Indymedia Sheffield Indymedia

Waking the Dead

Hildy Johnson | 23.02.2009 09:55 | Sheffield | South Coast

According to the FT, the Government has decided to extend more credit to Northern Wreck as a way of propping up the falling housing market. The bank is also to be broken up into a good bank and a bad bank with taxpayers left to cover the losses on the toxic waste, whilst the private sector will no doubt be allowed to pick up the healthy part on the cheap.

House prices are too high- the supply of old and new properties is too great for effective demand. Anyone with a GCSE in economics and a shred of honesty could see that as inequality in the UK grew those house price rises could never be sustainable. The housing bubble, deliberately blown up by diverse financial speculators, was always going to burst- after all it was inflated by imaginary money. Yet the nouvelles riches empowered by Thatcher and then Blair couldn´t contain their delight as they seemed to get richer and richer. As everyone else gave up on the electoral system these forces continued to vote for whichever party which offered policies which would protect the rising prices of their homes most effectively. But now the party´s over and everyone knows it apart from a few estate agents who are desperately attempting to talk up the market. US house prices continue to plummet and their housing market collapse started over 2 years ago. With so many frozen out of the housing market due to the absurd level to which prices have reached there is only one way for prices to go. The trouble is this doesn´t play very well to the Shires as anyone can see from scanning the Daily Mail comments sections.

Given these pressures New Labour have decided to piss against the wind and throw more good money after bad by attempting to use the Wreck as a means to reflate the bubble.
"Northern Rock is to embark on a £14bn mortgage sales drive to resuscitate Britain's sluggish housing market, fuelled by a hefty injection of fresh government funding for the state-owned lender to be announced today.
Alistair Darling, the chancellor, will present the move as an effort by the government to help responsible, hard-working families get mortgages, arguing that even those with a 20 per cent deposit are struggling to get finance."
 http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/22e5636a-0149-11de-8f6e-000077b07658.html

No doubt the announcement is of little substance in real terms given the astronomical figures already thrown at banks by taxpayers. But it demonstrates a refusal to fess up to the monumental fuck up that has been New Labour economic policy. The writing is on the wall and the quicker that we quit funding our own downfall the better.

Moreover, presumably under pressure from the US administration which continues to be dominated by bankers interests despite Obama´s rhetoric, there is an attempt to adhere to "free market capitalism". This is to be achieved by splitting the Wreck up into a good part and a bad part. The intention is that taxpayers will absorb the losses generated by the toxic waste produced by the Wrecks lending activities whilst the new healthy part will at some point in the future be sold to the private sector. This sounds remarkably similar to New Labours adventure with the Commonealth Development Corporation (CDC).

In a nutshell, CDC had been around since the 50s and was one of the governments tools to promote development in countries and sectors where Western capitalists feared to tread. Over the years it had accumulated a large number of healthy assets although there were some bad loans and loss making projects. Of course, when Man of the (Posh?) People Blair came to power he took one look at it and said "Privatize It". But of course with the bad loans the private sector didn´t want to know and so it had to be divided into good and bad. All those losses could of course be covered by the Treasury and the private sector would bite the juicy bait offered to it. As Private Eye and the BBC have documented the healthy part of CDC became an incredibly profitable asset for the private buyers who picked it up on the cheap whilst taxpayers continue to absorb the losses on the bad loans.

Yet this deal was pushed through at the height of optimism around the New Economy. So why, when the concept of the New Economy that only boomed and never bust has been shown to be demonstrably false have New Labour fallen back on an idea that only benefits the few. Is it because they think that we are either too dumb to pick up on it or that they think we are just too apathetic to care? It should be pointed out to them that we own Northern Rock and we aren´t just going to sit back and allow them to continue with business as usual. It´s ours and we want to keep it that way. If when the crisis is over we decide to continue with some form of mortgage system we may need it. Alternatively, we may decide to keep properties repossessed by the bank for redistribution in some cases or just forgive the debts in others. People haven´t quite clicked on The Wreck, Bankrupt and Bingley and RBS belong to us. We should be deciding policy for them- not some more of New Labours crony capitalist friends. This is what The Great Robert Peston says on his blog
"What´s striking is that although he (Brown) has extraordinary and perhaps unprecedented power over the banks, the prime ministers programme of change for the banking system is strikingly conservative"
for example
"we will continue to provide a guarantee to banks, even those engaged in high risk international speculation, that we won´t let them collapse"

Brown still claims that
"Global financial flows and liquid capital markets have brought massive benefits to our economy"
 http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/robertpeston/

in other words we will now be paying for the privilege of having banks fuck us and our communities

Hildy Johnson

Kollektives

Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World

Other UK IMCs
Bristol/South West
London
Northern Indymedia
Scotland

Sheffield Topics

Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista

Sheffield [navigation.actions2016]

Sheffield [navigation.actions2015]

Sheffield [navigation.actions2014]

NATO 2014

Sheffield Actions 2013

G8 2013

Sheffield Actions 2012

Workfare

Sheffield Actions 2011

2011 Census Resistance
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Occupy Everywhere

Sheffield Actions 2010

Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands

Sheffield Actions 2009

COP15 Climate Summit 2009
G20 London Summit
Guantánamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
University Occupations for Gaza

Sheffield Actions 2008

2008 Days Of Action For Autonomous Spaces
Campaign against Carmel-Agrexco
Climate Camp 2008
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Smash EDO
Stop Sequani Animal Testing
Stop the BNP's Red White and Blue festival

Sheffield Actions 2007

Climate Camp 2007
DSEi 2007
G8 Germany 2007
Mayday 2007
No Border Camp 2007

Sheffield Actions 2006

April 2006 No Borders Days of Action
Art and Activism Caravan 2006
Climate Camp 2006
Faslane
French CPE uprising 2006
G8 Russia 2006
Lebanon War 2006
March 18 Anti War Protest
Mayday 2006
Oaxaca Uprising
Refugee Week 2006
Rossport Solidarity
SOCPA
Transnational Day of Action Against Migration Controls
WSF 2006

Sheffield Actions 2005

DSEi 2005
G8 2005
WTO Hong Kong 2005

Sheffield Actions 2004

European Social Forum
FBI Server Seizure
May Day 2004
Venezuela

Sheffield Actions 2003

Bush 2003
DSEi 2003
Evian G8
May Day 2003
No War F15
Saloniki Prisoner Support
Thessaloniki EU
WSIS 2003

Server Appeal Radio Page Video Page Indymedia Cinema Offline Newsheet

secure Encrypted Page

You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.

If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

IMCs


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech