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With the United States closed-up, celebrating Martin Luther King Day, the big news of the day was clearly the nationalization of the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) by the U.K. government.

To attempt to deflect attention and criticism from himself, Prime Minister Gordon Brown used the occasion as an opportunity to lecture the management of that bank for taking "irresponsible risks". In the process, Brown demonstrated that he is as much of a hypocrite as he is a fool.

Most will recall that it was Brown, himself, who emptied the U.K. vaults of most of their gold, dumping it all onto the market at the rock-bottom, give-away price of $250/oz - while he was in charge of the U.K. treasury. In the process, he also deprived his country of its most important asset in protecting the value of its currency.

Flash forward to today, and the U.K economy is in ruin, and its currency has matched the collapse or our Harper-plagued Loonie. Brown could certainly use the billions he threw away when he gave away the U.K.'s gold. However, as the U.K. economy continues to deteriorate, and the Pound looks as weak and defenseless as the U.S. dollar, I suspect Brown will miss the economic security (and currency-backing) which that gold would have provided even more.

As the one who is orchestrating the bail-out of RBS, Brown has no fears that bank officials will (openly) challenge him on his obvious hypocrisy. However, it is clearly an open question whether the management of this huge, failed bank were any more "irresponsible" in the risks THEY took, then Brown himself - who was (and is) entrusted with the economic security of an entire nation.

Brown fended off the accusation that he was taking (another) "irresponsible risk" himself - in providing a "blank cheque" to the very bankers he was lecturing for their incompetence. Meanwhile, Brown simultaneously announced a £50bn fund to provide government loans to U.K. businesses. In other words, much like the U.S., even after handing out enormous (and obscene) sums to the incompetent management of these bankrupt banks, the U.K. government still sees the need to do for itself what these banks are supposed to be doing with the huge, hand-outs they have received.

Also like the U.S., these banker-aristocrats have flatly refused to account for how they have used any of this money, or even where any of it is currently sitting. For both the U.S. and U.K. government it would be extremely embarrassing if any exact figures were ever uncovered about how many billions of taxpayer hand-outs went directly to pay for bankster "performance bonuses". Many of these banksters are receiving more for destroying their own businesses than we will ever earn in our lifetimes.

Here is a link from the Financial Times on the latest banker-folly:

Brown accuses RBS of taking ‘irresponsible risks’

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7de5d2f8-e601-11dd-8e4f-0000779fd2ac.html

 

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Brown accuses RBS of taking ‘irresponsible risks’

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7de5d2f8-e601-11dd-8e4f-0000779fd2ac.html

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