No. 1

[DimPrawn]

BBC News - Aid pledged to Europe's banks hits 4.5 trillion euros

European Union states have underwritten their financial sectors with 4.5 trillion euros ($5.9tn; £3.8bn) of aid since the banking crisis hit.

Top of the league is the UK, which pledged 850.3bn euros of support between October 2008 and October 2010.
The figures come from the European Commission, which must approve state aid to the EU member countries.



We're obviously rich!

[AtW]

Top of the league is the UK, which pledged 850.3bn euros of support between October 2008 and October 2010.

Given £42 bln tax take from the City in good times it would only take around 20 years to get the money back, assuming they'll keep their value during this time...

[Freamon]

BBC News - Aid pledged to Europe's banks hits 4.5 trillion euros

European Union states have underwritten their financial sectors with 4.5 trillion euros ($5.9tn; £3.8bn) of aid since the banking crisis hit.

Top of the league is the UK, which pledged 850.3bn euros of support between October 2008 and October 2010.
The figures come from the European Commission, which must approve state aid to the EU member countries.



We're obviously rich!

Not as a percentage of GDP we're not.

[Mich the Tester]

Does anyone know what the world total is for aid to banks?

[Freamon]

Does anyone know what the world total is for aid to banks?

Sorry sir, that's classified.

[Ignis Fatuus]

As US President Andrew Jackson said of bankers in 1834:

I have had men watching you for a long time, and am convinced that you have used the funds of the bank to speculate in the breadstuffs of the country. When you won, you divided the profits amongst you, and when you lost, you charged it to the Bank. You tell me that if I take the deposits from the Bank and annul its charter I shall ruin ten thousand families. That may be true, gentlemen, but that is your sin! Should I let you go on, you will ruin fifty thousand families, and that would be my sin! You are a den of vipers and thieves.

[Mich the Tester]

Sorry sir, that's classified.

Yep, but it might be quite helpful if we can work out how much extra tax every single taxpayer on earth is going to have to pay for how long to fund this bail out. Or would it perhaps be unwise to make about 4 billion working people angry?

[Freamon]

Yep, but it might be quite helpful if we can work out how much extra tax every single taxpayer on earth is going to have to pay for how long to fund this bail out. Or would it perhaps be unwise to make about 4 billion working people angry?

It's impossible to work it out, because nobody knows how big the problem is.

[doodab]

Yep, but it might be quite helpful if we can work out how much extra tax every single taxpayer on earth is going to have to pay for how long to fund this bail out. Or would it perhaps be unwise to make about 4 billion working people angry?

To work that out would require you to know what proportion of the promised bail out funds will get drawn down and what proportion of that will get paid back, which depends on how many of the bad loans will actually go bad, and if anyone knew the answer to that the problem wouldn't have happened in the first place.