2012-05-28

£110bn a year from taxpayers to borrowers

Two Bank of England academics calculate that UK banks benefited from implicit taxpayer guarantees to the tune of £200bn or so in 2009 and 2010:

The authors said that while it was difficult to quantify the implicit subsidy received by Britain's banks during the crisis, the Bank had estimated it at £100bn in 2009. For 2010 it said estimates varied from £30bn to £120bn, depending on the methodology used.
"All measures point to significant transfers of resources from the government to the banking system," they added.

Government funds the evil bankers! Except - wait - UK banks didn't make anything like that much profit: best guess for 2010 was about £25bn. Instead, those borrowing from the banks could take advantage of the lower rates for funding that the banks could achieve. Additionally, the Government doesn't actually have any money of its own; it all comes from various forms of tax and business rates, so the transfer of wealth came from the source of those taxes.

Let's rewrite that conclusion:

The authors said that while it was difficult to quantify the implicit subsidy received by Britain's mortgage and credit card debtors, the Bank had estimated it at £100bn in 2009. For 2010 it said estimates varied from £30bn to £120bn, depending on the methodology used.
"All measures point to significant transfers of resources from the taxpayer and businesses to the homeowners and irresponsible spenders," they added.

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