Morgan Kelly - Bank guarantee likely to deal a crippling blow to the economy

haha! yep, cowboys and injuns! Yes, there is a legal obligation, but it is also possible people may sue other governments anyway, for lax regulation. It will be interesting to see how it turns out, but I suspect letting large banks fail (HBOS, RBS, Citi) could deal such a fatal blow to economies and governments that there may very well be little practical difference between the guaranteed and unguaranteed. Governments would end up defaulting on all sorts of legal obligations anyway....the guarantee is only one extra layer. And what happens with banks where the government is a 70% shareholder or total owner (Quanglo, Northern Rock), if they implode. Presumably legal responsibilities pertain if the government owns the bank. RBS has a balance sheet in the trillions

Well... yes of course there will be legal responsibilities if the banks in Britain (as here) fail given that the Government will have a load of obligations tied up in them as well as the fact that there are also deposit guarantee schemes in place in Britain. The ownership thing isn't the biggest issue here. Owning a bank does not mean you are necessarily exposed to its losses. The banks, insofar as I am aware, are remaining separate companies just wholly owned by the Government and thus governed by the Companies Acts rather than becoming State Bodies. I don't know that for sure though. Assuming they remain companies the liabilities of the shareholders (the State) are prima facie fairly limited owing to the separate legal personality of the company, namely the bank.

Problem we have here is that the protection of separate legal personality, whilst de jure existing, has been all but eroded by the fact that we (the State) are guarantor to all of the bank's debts anyway.

But yes you are correct, major bank failures can make any Government go belly up, if not because of direct obligations then indirect ones.

expat girl wrote:

haha! yep, cowboys and injuns! Yes, there is a legal obligation, but it is also possible people may sue other governments anyway, for lax regulation. It will be interesting to see how it turns out, but I suspect letting large banks fail (HBOS, RBS, Citi) could deal such a fatal blow to economies and governments that there may very well be little practical difference between the guaranteed and unguaranteed. Governments would end up defaulting on all sorts of legal obligations anyway....the guarantee is only one extra layer. And what happens with banks where the government is a 70% shareholder or total owner (Quanglo, Northern Rock), if they implode. Presumably legal responsibilities pertain if the government owns the bank. RBS has a balance sheet in the trillions

You understand the ins and outs of this much better than I do. Have you looked at what is actually covered by the Irish Guarantee, and compared it with the liabilities taken on by the UK government?

I think you are dead right that this is not just an Irish problem: the whole system is endemically corrupting. Its understandable if we are somewhat focused on Ireland, as those of us living and voting here have the most responsibility for what happens here.

Cactus

Part of the defination of Chinese Wall from Wikipedia

In general, all firms are required to develop, implement and enforce reasonable policies and procedures to safeguard insider information, and to ensure no improper trading occurs. Although specific procedures are not mandated, adopted practices must be formalized in writing and must be appropriate and sufficient. Procedures should address the following areas: education of employees, containment of inside information, restriction of transactions, and trading surveillance.

Does anyone really think that this happens effectively? It is unreal. Basically it is an excuse for trading in a manner that would normally be considered as placing yourself in an invidious position.

Anyway meeting to attend.