Taxpayers Pay Bankers For Advising On Failing Bankers

BECAUSE no-one at the Treasury has a clue how the City works, the failures in the grey suits hired the failures in the pinstripe suits to advise them:

Four City investment banks have charged the Treasury at least £9 million in fees for advising the Government on how to stop the financial system from imploding, The Times has learnt.

In addition, UK Financial Investments (UKFI), the body set up to handle the Government’s bailed-out bank shares, spent £1.2 million of taxpayers’ money in the first five months of operation. It is believed that most of the money was spent on salaries for the handful of officials who operate UKFI, which is designed to be at arm’s length from the Government. UKFI is understood to have low costs outside salaries partly because it uses rooms within the Treasury as its headquarters.

The Treasury hired a swath of investment bankers for advice on how to stabilise the financial system and avert the collapse of more lenders. It also sought advice on how to help investment banks purge themselves of billions of pounds worth of bad debt on their balanace sheets.

Come the revolution, Gordon Brown will set up a department and a Revolution Czar…

Anorak

Posted: 8th, June 2009 | In: Money Comment (1) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink