50 Billion Quid

Say it quickly and it don’t seem so much. My knowledge of economics doesn’t stretch much past Mr Micawber but here goes…

This morning the Bank of England announced plans to offer our ailing financial institutions up to 50 billion pounds of government bonds in exchange for some of their more dubious debts.

Apparently, over the weekend, the bosses of HBOS, HSBC and Barclays (Britain’s three largest banks) were crying poverty to Captain Darling.

I wish when I banked with HSBC (who once charged me 30 quid for being a tenner over) I could’ve done the same thing. And I wouldn’t have needed 50 billion Stella tokens either. Just enough for a yacht.

Apparently, according to the BBC’s reflected-sound-as-of-underground-spirits geezer this is to enable the banks to lend each other cash “free and happily” which I rather thought was the cause of this current economic “blip”.

The Bank of England is located on Threadneedle Street. Most streets in the City are named for whatever trade was practised there in the past. HSBCs UK HQ is, for example at Number 4 Poultry and it’s still fowl foul round there. Threadneedle street wasn’t though a street of tailors. No, you had to go to The Wardrobe for that. Threadneedle Street was a street of whores. Think about it. They had bowdelerized the name from the earlier, and slightly more obvious, Grope Cunt Lane.

Somehow I think this appropriate. The full sordid tale is recounted here and I guess everywhere else.

Oh, and honeybees are going extinct so we’re all fucked anyway. So drive your SUV with pride, do it drunk, smoking a cigar, whilst getting bummed by a Thai ladyboy and, if it’s possible, in those circumstances, do it whilst heading to the the dogs. For those of you who can’t afford an SUV going in the direction of hell in a handcart is an acceptable and more carbon-neutral alternative.