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Listed below are comments made by labantall between Sunday, 28th September 2008 and Saturday, 7th February 2009.

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• Should Lloyds pay a bonus? 10:33am on 07 Feb 2009 Gordon Brown really is an economic genius.
  
  With hindsight his abandonment of the competition laws to save HBOS ("too big to fail"), by steering it into the grateful embrace of Lloyds, creating "much much too big to fail", seems more like the advice of a man who comes across someone sinking into a quagmire, and recommends to a naive passer-by that they should reach out and save him.
  
  "There'll be a handsome reward for you, Sir Victor - he's a very rich man !"
  
  Sir Victor thinks of the reward, steps up, stretches out his hand and pulls lustily. But the weight ! The man is too heavy ! He pulls his hardest but with horror he finds his feet slipping inch by inch towards the swamp ... he wants to let go, but the sinking man has his hand clasped in the iron grip of fear, and feels himself being dragged inexorably towards the quicksand ... it's giving way under his feet, and the man, still clinging, pulling, is sinking down ... down ...
  
  The Lloyds 'rescue' is going to be the death of the rescuer.
  
  PS - not a penny of bonus for any bank taking taxpayer cash.
• Should bankers repay bonuses? 10:52pm on 05 Feb 2009 Mr Peston, I'm flattered.
  
  "almost every senior banker trousered bonuses over the previous few years on the basis of profits that turn out to be a chimera, an illusion, unreal.
  
  The point - which is implicit in Adair Turner's analysis - is that banks' wholesale banking and treasury operations booked as profit both capital gain and income from assets that have subsequently turned out to be poisonous.
  
  Much of this capital gain never crystallised, it was not converted into cash. Yet bonuses - in the form of hard cash and shares - were paid out on the basis of this nebulous capital gain."
  
  Your post was today, Turner's speech on the 21st Jan.
  
  I'm flattered because I wrote in my blog on Jan 19 :
  
  "Given that most of the banks would be bust without taxpayer guarantees I don't know why they don't just wind them up in a controlled manner, transferring assets and liabilities to the state, before beginning the process of building a case against their boards, freezing their assets and attempting to claw back their bonuses, property and pension funds - on the basis of the effectively fraudulent accounts, based on flawed asset evaluations, which have showed such huge profits over the last ten years."
  
  While the solutions proffered by yourself and Mr Turner ("give the banks lots of taxpayer money") differ from mine ("nationalise without compensation and arrest the executives"), I'm chuffed that we seem to agree on what the problem was - and that I said it first !
  
  
  
• We've lent £185bn to banks 00:52am on 04 Feb 2009 I think it was the American writer Steve Sailer who neatly summed up his country's foreign policy (Iraq, Afghanistan), domestic policy (mass immigration) and economic policy (borrow the money you spend) in one phrase :
  
  "INVADE THE WORLD, INVITE THE WORLD, IN HOCK TO THE WORLD"
  
  Doesn't sit too badly on the UK, either.
• Bank of England: wrong and powerless 4:41pm on 22 Dec 2008 It is remarkable to see people like Varley and Gieve queueing up to tell the telly cameras what went wrong. They've got more front than Birmingham Town Hall.
  
  What ever happened to shame ? I suppose it died around 1968, along with Christianity and marrying the mother of one's children.
  
  Shouldn't the BoE's monetary policy committee be growing beards and hiding away in small seaside villages, moving location frequently in case anyone finds out who they are ?
  
  
• Bank of England: wrong and powerless 1:00pm on 22 Dec 2008 "If we'd used interest rates to try and address this asset-price credit growth, we would have been holding down the level of activity elsewhere in the economy, in manufacturing, in other services, holding down the level of employment at a time when consumer price inflation and earnings were stable and reasonably low. And people would have said, you know, 'this is a wilful reduction in the prosperity of the country'."
  
  In other words, they feared the political reaction to what they knew was the right thing to do, so they didn't do it.
  
  So much for the political independence of the BoE, for which Chancellor Brown was given so much credit, and which seems to have left him with the power while passing the responsibility to the BoE.
  
  And the kindest expression for the BoE personnel involved would be that they "fell below the level of events".
  
  It's not "that the Bank of England does not possess the proper tools for dealing with incipient booms in assets and lending". It's that it doesn't possess the proper bankers.
  
  To be fair to Gieve and his colleagues, doing the right thing would probably have cost them their jobs. Instead it'll cost ours.
  
• Taxpayers to subsidise wage costs? 04:08am on 12 Dec 2008 Haven't seen this on BBC news - from the Independent
  
  Steffen Kampeter, the budget spokesman for Ms Merkel's Christian Democrats, said: "Peer Steinbrück's comments have nothing whatsoever to do with internal German politics as Prime Minister Brown has suggested. In questioning the British Government's approach, Peer Steinbrück is exactly expressing the views of the German Grand Coalition.
  
  "After years of lecturing us on how we need to share in the gains of uncontrolled financial markets, the Labour politicians can't now expect us to share in its losses. The tremendous amount of debt being offered by Britain shows a complete failure of Labour policy."
  
  A couple of comments on the Biased BBC blog also struck me :
  
  "if weakness in a currency were such a good thing (for exports), Zimbabwe would be going through an economic miracle"
  
  "Exports are yet another of Brown's non-existent divisions being moved around the map in the Downing Street bunker"
  
  
• Massive mortgage squeeze 08:32am on 25 Nov 2008 I don’t know why Brown didn’t reverse a Tory tax rise (introduced at a time when they were scrabbling for revenue themselves) and remove VAT from building work (it’s levied on all improvements - everything except new build).
  
  It would help the builders - and people usually have to buy things to go in the extension/loft conversion.
  
  Plus, bricks, plasterboard and mortar are some of the few things we still produce in the UK. Companies like Baggeridge Brick have been mothballing their plants as demand collapses.
  
  The 2.5% VAT cut will have about as much effect as the stamp duty cut did ...
• Births outside marriage - a real cause for concern 6:59pm on 28 Sep 2008 Apologies for repeating myself. I expected my first post to be thrown out, as I'd posted a link which is against the rules.
  
  I'll get the hang of this BBC stuff in the end ... but the bottom line of this debate is that Joni Mitchells famous lines :
  
  "We don't need no piece of paperfrom the City Hall,
  Keeping us tied and true"
  
  Turn out to be, sadly, nonsense.
• Births outside marriage - a real cause for concern 4:53pm on 28 Sep 2008 There seems to be a lot of confusion on these comments re the statistics.
  
  The stats say, overwhelmingly, that being brought up by only one parent is ON AVERAGE bad for children.
  
  What they do not say is that ALL the children of single parents suffer, or that single parents are bad people as individuals. There will be cases of good single parents and bad married ones. The stats talk about averages over large numbers.
  
  The difference between the two is the difference between social science and anecdote. (I'm the son of a single mother myself btw ...)
  
  The stats also say, overwhelmingly, that a child born to cohabiting parents is far less likely to spend the whole of its childhood with both parents than the child born to married parents.
  
  What they do not say is that ALL the children of cohabitees suffer parental separation, or that cohabitees are bad people.
  
  The effects ? We can't post links, try looking for a paper entitled "Experiments in Living" issued by the think-tank Civitas.
  
  Lone mothers (ON AVERAGE - don't take it personally)
  Are poorer
  Are more likely to suffer from stress, depression, and other emotional and psychological problems
  Have more health problems
  May have more problems interacting with their children
  
  Non-resident biological fathers
  Are at risk of losing contact with their children
  Are more likely to have health problems and engage in high-risk behaviour
  
  Children living without their biological fathers
  Are more likely to live in poverty and deprivation
  Have more trouble in school
  Tend to have more trouble getting along with others
  Have higher risk of health problems
  Are at greater risk of suffering physical, emotional, or sexual abuse.
  Are more likely to run away from home
  
  Teenagers living without their biological fathers
  Are more likely to experience problems with sexual health
  Are more likely to become teenage parents
  Are more likely to offend
  Are more likely to smoke
  Are more likely to drink alcohol
  Are more likely to take drugs
  Are more likely to play truant from school
  Are more likely to be excluded from school
  Are more likely to leave school at 16
  Are more likely to have adjustment problems
  
  Young adults who grew up not living with their biological fathers
  Are less likely to attain qualifications
  Are more likely to experience unemployment
  Are more likely to have low incomes
  Are more likely be on income support
  Are more likely to experience homelessness
  Are more likely to be caught offending and go to jail
  Are more likely to suffer from long term emotional and psychological problems
  Are more likely to develop health problems
  Tend to enter partnerships earlier and more often as a cohabitation
  Are more likely to divorce or dissolve their cohabiting unions
  Are more likely to have children outside marriage or outside any partnership
  
• Births outside marriage - a real cause for concern 4:37pm on 28 Sep 2008 People are asking about the history. If this link doesn't work :
  
  http://www.iser.essex.ac.uk/pubs/workpaps/pdf/2006-15.pdf
  
  then Google "An Economic History of Bastardy in England and Wales".
  
  "A remarkable feature of English demographic history is the explosion in childbearing outside marriage during the last quarter of the twentieth century, after 400 years of relative stability. Over the period 1845-1960, the percentage of births outside marriage moved within a small range, averaging about 5% ... After 1960, when the contraceptive pill was introduced, childbearing outside marriage began to climb slowly, and it exploded after 1980, reaching 42% in 2004."
  
  There's lots of stuff on the effects of cohabitation and its (statistically significant) consequence, the fatherless family, at Civitas. Google "Civitas experiments in living" (without quotes)
  
  http://www.civitas.org.uk/pubs/experiments.php
  
  The statistics are overwhelming :
  
  * Lone mothers
  o Are poorer
  o Are more likely to suffer from stress, depression, and other emotional and psychological problems
  o Have more health problems
  o May have more problems interacting with their children
  * Non-resident biological fathers
  o Are at risk of losing contact with their children
  o Are more likely to have health problems and engage in high-risk behaviour
  
  * Children living without their biological fathers
  o Are more likely to live in poverty and deprivation
  o Have more trouble in school
  o Tend to have more trouble getting along with others
  o Have higher risk of health problems
  o Are at greater risk of suffering physical, emotional, or sexual abuse.
  o Are more likely to run away from home
  
  * Teenagers living without their biological fathers
  o Are more likely to experience problems with sexual health
  o Are more likely to become teenage parents
  o Are more likely to offend
  o Are more likely to smoke
  o Are more likely to drink alcohol
  o Are more likely to take drugs
  o Are more likely to play truant from school
  o Are more likely to be excluded from school
  o Are more likely to leave school at 16
  o Are more likely to have adjustment problems
  
  * Young adults who grew up not living with their biological fathers
  o Are less likely to attain qualifications
  o Are more likely to experience unemployment
  o Are more likely to have low incomes
  o Are more likely be on income support
  o Are more likely to experience homelessness
  o Are more likely to be caught offending and go to jail
  o Are more likely to suffer from long term emotional and psychological problems
  o Are more likely to develop health problems
  o Tend to enter partnerships earlier and more often as a cohabitation
  o Are more likely to divorce or dissolve their cohabiting unions
  o Are more likely to have children outside marriage or outside any partnership
  

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