Look After the Pennies and the Self-Serving Will Look After Themselves (3/4) by The Silver Fox

(1/4), (2/4), (3/4), (4/4).

The question that is worth pondering though, is: should public money be used to help out squaddies and those poor berks we've seen queuing outside Northern Rock branches in the past few weeks? Firstly, the shareholders of Northern Rock: well, for a kick-off, I'm on fairly shaky ground here already, as being poor white trash from way-back, I candidly admit to having a very limited understanding of financial matters - I know that bears enter into things somewhere along the line, and that (for some reason) much is made of the Nescafe Gold Blend Standard, but that's about it - so my command of the facts may not be all it should be; bear with me, though, if you'd be so kind.*

*I tried to research all the facts and figures - honest. Sadly, my mind started wandering and I ended up doing crude erotic doodles of Amy Winehouse, then they went wrong, so I turned them into hippos playing football. Then I scribbled them all out and had a bit of a cry.

Due to something going badly awry - it's tempting for someone unversed in these issues to assume that this was probably caused by either mammoth incompetence or nigh-on insane greed, but as I say, I'm not really qualified - there has been what is known as "a run" on the Northern Rock Bank, whereby people have been crazily withdrawing their life savings, investments, etc, in an attempt to place them somewhere more secure (another bank, or a biscuit tin under the bed). This of course, has left Northern Rock careening down Shit Creek, and almost deafened by the increasingly noisy rumblings of the fast-approaching Shit Falls.

If memory serves, it's rather like that bit in It's A Wonderful Life, except that Lionel Barrymore isn't involved, it's not quite Christmas, and - need I say it, really? - it quite patently isn't. You don't need the fiscal genius of that camp black bloke that used to wear bow ties on BBC2 to realise that for many investors, this unfortunate state of affairs has had many ruinous and far-reaching consequences; many have lost the chance to buy homes, for example, while others' long-term pension plans will have been savagely curtailed.

And it is these unfortunate souls that the government is being called on to help (although not by everyone - see above). While it could be argued that an investment is always a gamble and that nobody has ever suggested that the State should step in to help someone who's taken a nasty tumble following an ill-advised speculation on the 2:40 at Market Rasen, the widely-trumpeted reputation for financial probity of large banking firms - to say nothing of their ability to screw money out of anyone that goes within ten yards of them - makes such a comparison (apparently) inaccurate.

One just does not, as one picks up one's brand new cash card, free pen, and CD vouchers, expect the guardians of one's savings to let things go quite so spectacularly cunt-up as the Northern Rock cats and kittens evidently have, and the investors' shock and dismay at recent events can be seen as quite justifiable. They are not, after all, responsible for whatever executive decisions have led to this crisis; just a bunch of suckers who believed what they were told. Surely then, they're entitled to a helping hand out of the yawning abyss of misery that they have landed in through no fault of their own?

Even the most hardened cynics didn't complain about money being spent on repairing the ravages wrought upon thousands of homes and businesses by this summer's floods, after all (although they did sneeringly suggest that there wasn't enough money, and that it probably wouldn't go to the people who really needed it) (and they were, by all accounts, not a million miles wide of the mark).

Continued ......next page (4/4)

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