That's the figure reached by a new economic analysis, underlining the low level of entrepreneurial activity in Scotland's biggest city.
The low level of business start-ups runs in parallel with problems with basic skills, particularly numeracy and literacy across much of its population (while it also has a high graduate rate) and what are called "entrenched levels of worklessness".
Reed in Partnership, a private company that contracts with the public sector for training and recruitment, has run a rule over the city, and concluded that closing that start-up gap should be a high priority for the next five to ten years.
The positive news is that Glasgow's hotel business has done well through the recession, with good occupancy rates and room rates holding up. It's also got the Commonwealth Games on its side.
And a small survey found that 43% of the city's businesses reckon it's holding up pretty well compared with the rest of the UK, while 17% think it's being relatively hard hit.
Another analysis of the city economy, carried out by Slims Consulting, highlights Glasgow's strength in financial and business services, representing 27% of employment and 33% of output.
That makes it vulnerable to the problems those sectors have seen through the recession. But on the other hand, the city's financial strength is in insurance, taking on more esure jobs, as well as 1300 Tesco Bank roles.
Glasgow's manufacturing heritage has now been reduced to only 6% of employment and 10% of output.
And how has it fared in unemployment?
Measured by claimants of Jobseekers Allowance (so leaving aside Glasgow's high levels of incapacity benefit), Glasgow has seen numbers rise by 51% between August last year and this, leaving it only slightly worse off than the average of English core cities, with a lower dole count than Birmingham or Liverpool, and slightly more than Nottingham.
The ratio of claimants to job vacancies does not look good, relative to English cities.
But there's an economists' cautious welcome for Glasgow emerging out of this recession in a comparatively strong position to build on its strengths.
]]>When a patrol vessel descended the slipway from the Scotstoun yard on Thursday, bound for Trinidad and Tobago, it was the third last launch planned by the oft-rebranded company we are now to call BAE Systems Surface Ships.
The Scarborough - named after the main township on Tobago rather than the Yorkshire seaside resort - is one of three patrol vessels intended more for intercepting drug smugglers and humanitarian support than force projection through the Caribbean.
It's even designed as the platform for a refrigerated mortuary in case of hurricane relief.
There's one further Trinidadian patrol ship to be finished on the Clyde, and in late summer next year, there will be the sixth and final Type 45 Destroyer to launch at Govan.
For years after that, the only work is likely to be large chunks of the Royal Navy's super-carriers, which will be floated down the Clyde and assembled at Rosyth in Fife.
And then there's the Future Surface Combatant class of ship to follow after that. The intention is not to launch them at all, but to build them either in dry dock or on barges for submersion when the ship is ready.
I hear the excitement, hoopla and drama of seeing a vast ship descending a slipway will soon be outweighed by the risk that it goes horribly wrong and wallops the opposite bank.
Scotland's defence jobs
The downbeat assessment of economic recovery from Fraser of Allander?
Lloyds TSB Scotland on the market? Mediocre growth in retail sales?
Think again, and look to Asia, where President Obama has been on his travels.
His visit to Beijing did not look an easy one, as the world's two superpowers eye each other warily in trying to find their places in the new world order.
Reckless money
Earlier this year, they found common cause in throwing huge fiscal stimuli into the worst of the crisis.
But now, it is the areas of tension that are of more significance.
Three areas to watch:
If they can't find solutions to these twin problems, one solution with potentially more painful consequences is for America to introduce trade barriers. They recently stepped up the pressure, with big tariffs on tyres and steel pipes.
Currency pressures
Whether China is reckless in undervaluing the yuan, or the US is the guilty party for its fiscal and monetary stances, the danger is of a new set of global imbalances. And as the current recession owes much to the Chinese saving too much and the Americans (and British) building up too much debt, new varieties of global imbalance are not welcome.
One of those imbalances comes from low interest rates in the US and other countries, including the UK. The carry trade, in which speculators borrow at low rates (in US dollars, for instance) and invest in assets denominated at higher rates, is causing growing concern.
It is seen as encouraging unwelcome upward currency pressures on countries such as Brazil and South Africa. The BBC's economics editor, Stephanie Flanders, offers evidence that the fear of an asset bubble may be overstated, at least insofar as the debt burden is being reduced.
But the economists at Strathclyde University's Fraser of Allander Institute put a new globalised asset bubble of precisely that type among the most prominent concerns facing the Scottish economy.
Malawi's miracle
While I'm scanning international horizons... many Scots take an interest in the special relationship with Malawi - going back 150 years and recently revived.
It's not a country often associated with things going right. But that may be changing.
So it's worth a read of Nils Blythe's report on the "Malawi maize miracle", which even sees the southern African country exporting food.
]]>That's if we were in the 1980s, when the recession was accompanied by a long, painful restructuring of the economy, from which some are yet to recover.
But there's plenty pain in the data out so far this month.
The Fraser of Allander Institute at Strathclyde University reckons on a peak to the numbers seeking work, at some point next year, around 243,000 - two-thirds of them on Jobseeker's Allowance. That's 40,000 up on the most recent (July-September survey) figures.
Its respected commentary, published three times a year, is backed by PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Oddly enough, that management consultancy produced its own figures earlier this month and they look even worse. They see a further rise of 58,000.
No region of the UK is immune, but the PwC figures suggest Scotland's position looks worse than most.
It's on track for a rise similar to Yorkshire and north-east England. Only the West Midlands have a gloomier outlook, and the harsh times for manufacturing mean it already has 10% unemployment.
Stretched elastic
This recession is like no other, in many ways. The Fraser of Allander analysis published today has had to concede that its forecast published last June undershot the 2009 decline, suggesting it would be 2.9% whereas it now looks like 5%.
But apart from the figures, look in more depth at the Fraser of Allander analysis.
Among the significant issues arising is that employers' capacity for stretching their current workforce across diminished amounts of workload has to run out of elastic at some point.
The 8% peak to trough decline leaves a lot of spare capacity not being met by depleted demand.
"The 'flexible workforce' has been cited as one reason for unemployment rates to be lower than had been feared, but the limits to flexibility may be approaching," writes the Institute's Cliff Lockyer.
His work highlights comparisons with past recessions, which are a sobering reminder of the way unemployment tends to lag recovery in the broader economy.
Double dips
In the recession of 1974-75, unemployment continued to rise to 1977, eased a bit in 1978 and then peaked in December 1978. There were then 147,300 on unemployment benefit - not much above the 134,000 level we've already reached in this downturn.
In the 1980-81 recession, the claimant count started rising again in September 1979, and remained on an upward trend to a peak in January 1987. Yes, that's more than seven years of increases.
In 1990-91, Scotland had a softer landing than much of the UK. Technically, it didn't even go into recession, but unemployment rose to a peak in December 1992, at 248,000. It took until May 1995 to get back below 200,000.
Fraser of Allander cites work by another think tank, the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, showing that past UK recessions have never taken less than 40 months (three and a third years) to reach pre-recession levels of output.
In the 1980s and 1930s, it took more than 50 months.
And with the exception of the early 1990s, recessions had "double dips", with the second downturn occurring 18, 28 and 30 months after the most recent pre-recession peaks.
Today's analysis suggests Scotland can expect at least one quarter of decline next year - most likely in the third or fourth quarters. Its more pessimistic projection sees two quarters, which technically means another bout of recession.
And another significant point worth highlighting from Cliff Lockyer's work is the role of unions. The private sector has been able to shed staff and restructure without sparking a widespread employee revolt.
Workplace conflict
But recent postal workers' strikes hint at a different prospect for the public or nationalised sector, as a severe squeeze looms on government spending.
A key factor will be the level of trade unionisation. In 1979, at the time of the Winter of Discontent, 55% of the workforce was unionised, meaning 13 million workers.
By last year, membership was not much above half that, at 6.9 million, and union membership had fallen to 27% of the workforce.
The difference between unionisation of the public and private sectors is, well, striking. In Scotland, union membership ran to 33% of workers. In the private sector, that was 17%, while the public sector stood at 66%.
That's a huge gap.
The questions now: how militant and organised will those unions be in response to cuts: how much of a chilling effect will high unemployment have on those who respond with industrial action: and how well can public sector managers handle the squeeze and avoid workplace conflict?
]]>Big ticket budgets in the public sector have a nasty habit of slipping, and by a long way.
The question for Glasgow, as for the London Olympics, is what the legacy will be after the athletes have gone home.
The plan is for a regenerated area of each city's east end, just as Manchester benefited.
That's why the athletes' village in Glasgow is being planned with a view to transforming it into permanent use as a new housing estate.
The designer specification is for flats and houses that can suit both purposes. And I'm told that the main difference between an athlete's needs and those of the average Glaswegian is their bathing requirements.
According to one of those at the heart of the plan, the village will have an unusually high number of showers in each new home.
Further comment, from me at least, is probably unwise.
]]>The chief economist at Lloyds TSB Scotland is a cautious Black Isler, so he's not saying if it's going to last.
That's probably wise. But at least the most recent Lloyds TSB Scotland price monitor, published this morning, provides some respite from tough times in the property market.
It's showing a rise of 0.7% in the quarter to the end of October. Over the past year, the bank's reckoning shows prices have fallen by 7.5%.
By its figures, there was a wobble in 2007, but the peak was reached in the second quarter of last year, and fell for four consecutive quarters since then.
This adds to evidence recently out from Halifax Bank of Scotland showing Scottish prices down 6.3% between the third quarter of 2008 and the three months to the end of September this year.
HBOS goes on to claim the drop from the UK market peak in the third quarter of 2007 is a 12% drop for Scotland, compared with a UK average of 18%.
It's worth noting there that Scotland has by far the least drop of any region from peak to trough.
Greater London was down 24% and Northern Ireland by 32%, though the most recent year sees HBOS's reckoning on Scotland picking up pace relative to others.
Price wobble
The crucial question is whether we've actually seen the trough, or if there's another one to come after the current steadying of prices.
Another survey for the UK, carried out for FindaProperty.com, last week raised fears that we could be seeing the wobble that could herald the second part of a double dip.
It measures asking prices. In the past, that has been a better indicator of the English conveyancing system than the Scottish one, though there's less difference through this recession.
It found the average Scottish asking prices this month stands 12.5% below last November, at 149,749, while the UK figure is down only 0.6%.
Waiting in limbo
Across Britain, it found a dip for the first time after seven months of rising prices, with £1,000 knocked off the asking price in only a month.
The survey separates out home owners making a move and first-time buyers, and finds the home-movers are worse affected, with a £3,000 dip.
It's worth noting that asking prices may register optimism more than realism, in that the HBOS survey is a long way out of kilter with the online company's survey evidence.
It's also worth noting the concerns I'm getting from the property sector, expressed privately of course: that they're still stuck in limbo and awaiting a further drop.
The feeling is that a combination of factors are holding off a further dip in prices; monetary and fiscal stimuli, the avoidance of repossession even where it's eventually inevitable, and the concern that rising unemployment is going to knock confidence into next year.
First-time buyers
Economic theory would suggest there are three elements that have yet to settle down until the market can come back into equilibrium; how much of a deposit is required, how much lenders are willing to offer as a multiple of household earnings, and how much people expect interest rates to be over the medium-term.
The part of the market that needs watching most closely is the first-time buyers, because they drive transactions further up the price chain, and because they typically start from a simple standpoint of deposit and mortgage, rather than another asset to offload.
So how do these elements stack up? The interest rates are low and showing signs of staying there for a while yet, but not indefinitely.
The lenders' earnings-property price ratio, at least for first-time buyers, fell sharply after the credit crunch crunched last year.
According to FindaProperty.com, it stood at 5.6 times income at the start of last year, and fell sharply from last December, to hit a plateau of around 4.8 times income from April.
The size of deposit is the element that has changed most.
It's not just the disappearance of those notorious 125% Northern Rock mortgages. All the lenders are looking to higher deposits, by proportion of price, than the pre-crunch days.
The average British first-time buyer's deposit at the end of last year was above £70,000, and the most recent figures suggest it's at £58,000.
Affordability gap
In Scotland, that November 09 figure was £28,590, so it's looking relatively very affordable north of the border. The average first-time buyer's deposit across Britain stands this month at 1.8 times income.
In Scotland, it's 1.1 times income, and in London it's 3.5 times.
Across Britain however, that still leaves an affordability gap.
By taking the average first-time buyer, with the average first-time buyer's home price, income and mortgage conditions, FindaProperty.com's number-crunchers have come up with their own "affordability gap".
At the end of last year, the price of becoming a first-time buyer was, on average 2.4 times income across Britain.
The drop to 1.8 times income, according to the November figures, is a big step in the right direction for those who want to get on the property ladder.
But that calculation suggests the market, Britain-wide, is less than half way downwards to an equilibrium price
Utilities are easy targets for squeezed customers and tabloid headline writers. But Ian Marchant, chief executive of Scottish and Southern Energy, is unapologetic.
Profit expectations are strongly up, yes - but that's after they took a dive.
He's talking about the forward price for gas on the rise over the next two winters, and it's not looking pretty.
Engagingly bluff, he's also talking about looking for gas assets in the North Sea to secure supply for his nine million customers.
But the most striking message from Ian Marchant, when I spoke to him earlier today, is that he's unhappy about his customers' misuse of the product he sells them.
"I'm fed up with people wasting so much of the stuff I sell them," he says.
Most CEOs would be delighted at customers wasting their output and coming back for more.
Colman's Mustard is famous for building a family fortune on the condiment politely left on the side of plates.
But this is the topsy-turvy world of utilities; largely recession-proofed, on a renewables investment roll, and where companies are under tough regulatory requirements to cajole and incentivise their customers into cutting down on energy use.
Amid the big numbers from SSE today, I reckon the most striking is that the drive to cut gas usage is saving customers an average of £120 per year, or 15% on bills.
For those already watching their smart meters, that's 670 therms down to 550 over a sustained reduction of usage over three years.
That's not just the effect of sharply raised prices over the past 18 months, claims Marchant.
"That's the condensing boiler, loft insulation, cavity wall insulation, people looking at the thermostat and their timer.
"When last did you check your thermostat and time clock?" he asks.
No time to answer before getting a glimpse of life in the Marchant household, where Mrs M last week demanded a review of its heating arrangements, with the clock duly adjusted and gas use reduced.
"That's not price-driven," says the CEO of Scotland's second biggest company. "I'd say it was wife-driven."
Forecasts for the rising price of gas are based on the forward wholesale price.
Now, you can buy a therm for 30 pence. Next summer, it is selling for around 35 pence, even though summer demand is much lower than November.
Next winter, it's at 50 pence, and the winter after that at 57 pence.
SSE's long term supply contracts run out between 2011 and 2013, which is why he wants to lock in security of supply beyond that.
He's been looking at gas assets in the North Sea, just as Centrica was doing when it bought Venture Production.
He's less likely to buy a company than to buy gas fields from an offshore operator wanting to release asset capital for further exploration.
But he hasn't found the right one yet.
Even more contrary is a utility boss asking for toughened regulation than the government now plans.
This has to do with carbon capture and storage (CCS) of emissions from coal-burning power plants.
SSE is planning a £21m trial of new CCS technology in Ferrybridge, Yorkshire, to add to its work with Babcock Dooson in Renfrewshire, on burning coal for pure carbon dioxide capture.
It agrees with the government announcement this week that that new coal-burning plants must be built with all their emissions subject to CCS.
But it says the government doesn't go far enough. SSE wants all coal-burners, including existing ones, to have all their emissions captured and stored after 2030.
The attraction is a level playing field, but it's also explained by SSE (as with Scottish Power/Iberdrola) investing in CCS technology.
The chief executive of the Royal Bank of Scotland has announced 3,700 job losses from branches and the need for at least £25bn more in government capital injection, taking the taxpayers' share of economic value (though not voting power) up to 84%.
He was told by the European competition commissioner Neelie Kroes to sell large parts of RBS, which he points out this morning cost the UK taxpayer £9bn this week alone in the reduced stock market valuation of our stake.
And now there's a third quarter pre-tax loss of more than £2.1bn, or (as RBS prefers to emphasise) an operating loss of £1.5bn, sharply reduced from the second quarter. Impairments, or losses on loans, seem to be at a plateau, but it's a high one, at £3.3bn for the third quarter.
No huge surprises to any of this. But there's an interesting new message from the RBS chief executive, as he admits the bank is struggling to hit the government's demands for ensuring lending is available to homebuyers and businesses.
He's now pointing out that companies - his customers - are choosing to repair their balance sheets, and that means reducing the level of debt they're carrying. And he points out that's the way it should be.
The USA is out of recession, while companies are paying off debt faster than they're doing in Britain and savings are up. So pushing more credit into the economy may not be the way back to growth, and probably isn't good for us anyway.
There's a new figure from the bank that helps explain what's going on, suggesting the problem in reaching the lending targets is not the lack of willingness from banks, but the lack of demand from customers.
RBS has identified £27bn of credit available to its small, medium and "mid-corporate" customers through arranged overdrafts, which is available, easily accessed, but not being drawn down.
This looks like a big hint to Chancellor Alistair Darling, RBS's majority shareholder: time to re-think those lending targets.
Alex Salmond today sought to draw a distinction between cuts from either Labour or Conservative governments after the next election, and on the other hand... well, that's less clear.
But expect to hear lots more about the cost of renewing Britain's nuclear deterrent, and what could be done with that money instead.
This was brought on by the report by auditor general on Scotland's spending choices. Robert Black wasn't telling us anything startlingly new - not, at least, to readers of The Ledger.
But his advice carries rather more weight than this or any blog. And you could sense from First Minister's questions at Holyrood that its publication crystallised a definite shift of tone and direction for Scottish politics.
It makes it more difficult for efficiency savings to be used as an avoidance mechanism for difficult political decisions. Robert Black noted that the efficiency savings are being achieved, but they don't go far enough.
And he pointed out that there's still much we don't know about productivity in the public sector - the link between spending, activities, performance and outcomes - without which it's hard to see where and how to improve it.
So the new battleground is in answer to the question of what government should and should not - what it can and cannot - continue to fund for everyone. What should it abandon completely, and where should it means test or target?
Pensions challenge
How, asks Robert Black, will decisions be made between competing priorities, and what will success look like in public service delivery?
Where would it be better to spend now to deliver recurring savings in the future? Have we got the balance right between long- and short-term changes?
Are public service managers doing enough to break down barriers between them, and working in partnerships? Do we have to reshape the organisations themselves, starting with councils, health boards, police and fire boards?
What, continues the Audit Scotland report, are the implications of an ageing workforce for the staffing of front-line services? That's not talking about the cost of more elderly people with growing health demands, but a question that gets at the difficult issue of public sector pensions.
And here's a tricky question, cannily worded: "Does the public sector have a sufficiently flexible workforce to allow jobs to be changed? Is there a need for skills development and an improved understanding with the unions and staff about the needs and opportunities for re-designing how services are provided?"
Those words represent a can of worms for public sector unions, while carefully avoiding talk of job cuts. It holds out the opportunity for service reform without the provocative challenge of a target for slimming the public sector.
Intensive care
Scotland is not alone in facing this question, of course. The rest of Britain has been slow to reach a consensus around the reality of looming public sector spending cuts, but it is ahead of Scotland in its appreciation of the choice between universal and targeted spending - or at least the consequences of the universal approach which has been Holyrood's default for a decade.
And two neighbours are facing language about cuts that is much more brutal than Robert Black's.
Ireland has just been told by the OECD (rich country's economic club) that its problems are likely to require a return to student fees, bigger class sizes, cuts in civil service jobs as well as in civil service salaries.
On Thursday, the finance minister confirmed the country remains "stable, in intensive care" with credit rating agencies bearing down on Dublin. Ahead of a budget in December, the Prime Minister has said public sector pay cuts are inevitable.
Manx advantage
And the Isle of Man has recently been shocked by the imposition of a sudden shift in its tax position, as the Treasury in London sharply reduces its hand-back of VAT receipts.
The island's government budget is being cut by 10% next year and by 24% within two years, without much sympathy from Chancellor Alistair Darling, who sees it as a tax haven.
There may be lessons for Scotland from the middle of the Irish Sea on how to handle big cuts.
But there's another lesson for those hoping to design a change in Holyrood's tax powers: if the Isle of Man is any guide, don't assume the Treasury will help making the transition a smooth one.
That's particularly for those, like the Manx, who use corporation tax to give themselves competitive advantage - precisely the preference of quite a few people in the debate over Scottish constitutional powers.
]]>In the infamous words of Whitehall spin registrar Jo Moore (where is she now, by the way?), Tuesday was a good day to bury bad news.
RBS took a media hit for its announcement of 3,700 branch jobs getting sawn off, starting next year. But it must have known that releasing the news at 5pm on Monday, the day before the big announcement, it would soon be overshadowed.
In came HSBC on Tuesday afternoon with another 1,700 job losses. And Barclays sneaked in a significant shake-up, though not many casualties, at the top level of its investment bank division.
Lloyds Banking Group, which came out of the European Commission's crackdown rather better than Royal Bank of Scotland, put out an interim trading statement about its third quarter. It didn't get much attention.
The figures on impairments remain astonishingly large. The retail end of the business, which deals with household finances and mortgages, is facing growing problems towards the end of this year and into next, as a result of rising unemployment. That means £2.5bn of losses during this year so far, up from £1.6bn in the same period last year.
The wholesale division, which includes business lending and commercial property, saw £3.2bn of third quarter write-downs, slowing down the rate of flow of red ink from the first half, when there were £9.7bn losses.
While things are getting less bad, look in more detail at insurance, based in Edinburgh and dominated by Scottish Widows, and things look rather uglier. New business on life, pensions and investment sales fell by 27% in the first nine months of the year, when compared with the first nine months of 2008.
Market conditions were "extremely challenging", particularly through independent financial advisers.
Even without counting the £11 bn write down on 'negative goodwill', Lloyds still expects to make a loss this year. This is what chief executive Eric Daniels called a "robust" performance in "challenging" times.
What about jobs? Well, let's quote the Lloyds statement in full, particularly for those who like an inventive euphemism for job losses:
"We have continued to make significant progress in capturing integration related cost savings and £250m of cost synergies and other operational efficiencies have already been realised in the first nine months of the year to support a target for 2009 which has now been increased to £450m. We expect these will represent annual run-rate savings of approximately £750m by the year-end, some £50m higher than our previously announced expected run-rate".
Translated: we're £50m ahead of our very large cost cutting target, with lots of job losses in there.
Friday morning brings the third quarter figures from Royal Bank of Scotland, with chief executive Stephen Hester still bruised by his encounter with first the European competition commissioner and the subsequent stock market reaction.
The other figure that has been overlooked in much of this has been the impact on Britain's public finances. We know that between £30bn and £40bn is being put into RBS and Lloyds to shore up their balances. Even more than that was expected, had there still been a need to insure nearly £600bn of toxic assets.
But because there is a transfer of risk from down the road until a re-capitalisation this year, the impact on the UK government is that its borrowing target for this financial year has just risen by £13bn.
As the target was already £175bn, who's going to worry about another 13?
Or indeed, another £25bn of quantitative easing/new money creation, as just announced by the Bank of England?
RBS insurance division looks quite a strong prospect for a float.
It was put up for sale earlier this year, but the only offer at that time would have required RBS to finance it.
That didn't seem to make much sense for a company on a crash diet, so chief executive Stephen Hester walked away.
With the financial market a bit less volatile than earlier this year, the big insurers could be more interested than when it was last offered, particularly if they know it has to be sold.
Even if there's to be no rushed fire sale, that probably gives buyers a negotiating advantage.
Names like Allianz, Generali and Zurich are being mentioned.
Peter Woods, who got very rich by setting up Direct Line nearly 25 years ago, is reported saying he prefers to focus on his current interests - esure and Sheilas' Wheels - doubting that the Direct Line model is well placed to match the growth of price comparison insurance websites.
I've heard the same concern from other insurance analysts.
However, one question nags about floating off a successful insurance division: does that have anything to do with increasing competition in retail banking, or is it merely punishment for being big?
The Royal Bank's RBS-branded branches in England and Wales - numbering 312, to be re-named Williams and Glyn and with a bias to north-west England - have a strong business banking profile and are perhaps the most attractive package of all.
A suggestion from one who ought to know the bank market well, is that they could be a good fit with the Clydesdale and Yorkshire banks, which are owned and run from Glasgow and Leeds as a joint unit for National Australia Bank (NAB).
Clydesdale's response? It said with its annual figures last week that it has been rather good at organic growth in the recent past, and that's how it would prefer to continue.
While NAB would look at opportunities to increase deposit strength and capability it doesn't have, it says that would have to measure up against the options for those organic growth options.
Then there's Intelligent Finance, an online division of Bank of Scotland that employs more than 350 people, most in Livingston, some in Rosyth.
It seems likely Lloyds will attach it to Cheltenham and Gloucester, for the simple reason that it lacks its own banking licence, and getting a new one is not an easy process.
Nor is it cheap. Buying a bank requires not only the capital to buy the business, but a whole lot more capital to sink into its balance sheet.
And as for Lloyds TSB Scotland, perhaps renamed the Trustee Savings Bank on the eve of that venerable Scottish mutual's 200th birthday?
Lloyds clearly won't want its name used by a rival.
Barclays and HSBC might like a vehicle for expanding into Scotland, but it now seems the political pressure is on to ensure the current British big four don't cannibalise each other to retain their dominance.
It could be snapped up by a big foreign bank wanting a foothold in the Scottish market.
Bank of China is one of those that has ambitions, and it's already getting active in the UK mortgage market.
It may also be interested in the RBS network south of the border.
But what about a Scottish consortium? The place to look is to that group of people who fought to stop Bank of Scotland being taken over by Lloyds TSB last year, arguing a great Scottish institution should remain Scottish.
They lost that battle, and Bank of Scotland has turned out to be a lot less great than it looked even then, as the losses on its corporate division have unravelled.
Sir Peter Burt, former chairman of Bank of Scotland, was one of those opposing the takeover.
He says he's not now part of a Scottish consortium to get into the market for these assets.
He has his doubts about the ease of disentangling the Scottish Lloyds TSB network from its larger southern sibling.
But he likes the idea and backs the push for more competition.
Ben Thomson, chairman of Noble Group, is seen as the key mover and shaker in this group of financiers.
He denies he's leading a consortium to buy Lloyds TSB Scotland. But he also supports the idea - very strongly.
"There's an opportunity to get the right structures in place," he told me.
"We can be ahead of the curve, in terms of restructuring the financial services industry to be in a good position to compete in the future."
"It's a huge opportunity. And it's far too important an industry not to put a huge amount of effort into getting it right".
p.s. With details now published, the leaks and speculation got it broadly right, but didn' t stretch as far as the Lloyds sell-off plans.
Between 250 and 300 Lloyds TSB branches in England and Wales are on the market, bracketed with 185 Lloyds TSB branches in Scotland and the Cheltenham and Gloucester.
That creates a new unit with stand-alone potential, representing 5% of Lloyds Banking Group's current accoiunt customers and 19% of its mortgage business.
That scale and geographic reach makes a Scottish consortium bid look much less likely.
]]>As chief executive of Scottish Enterprise, she's been around for 20 years in economic development agencies, including two years in the World Bank - memorable for being evacuated out of Mongolia and some alarming times in Central and South America, which has at least left her with fluency in Andean Spanish.
The last decade of scrutiny has made the chief executive's office an uncomfortable place to be as well. Jack Perry has not enjoyed the criticism that has come from Holyrood and the media, and his predecessor, Robert Crawford, quit because of the intrusion of the job's public profile into his family life.
Lena Wilson has risen through the ranks to become chief operating officer of Scottish Enterprise and head of its inward investment and exports division, Scottish Development International.
So she ought to know what to expect in the top job she takes on this Wednesday, and how best to "bite back occasionally". She's up for lots of "legitimate challenge", but hopes for less controversy.
"I'm here to listen, to our angriest customers and biggest critics, because that's the only way we'll develop. We shouldn't be sitting in a darkened room with a towel over our head thinking what business wants."
Under the spotlight
The controversy is under way already, over a salary higher than that of the Prime Minister, and the same level as Jack Perry, despite Scottish Enterprise being much smaller than the agency he took on six years ago: no careers service, a sharply reduced budget, more focussed responsibilities and no local enterprise companies.
That £200,000 salary was not for her, but for the board to set independently, she told me in an interview to be broadcast this weekend.
But don't judge a chief executive by the extent of her remit: "Size of budget is a factor, but for me, it's not the determinant factor. It depends on the weight of the responsibility the chief executive has to carry".
Wilson started life in the Partick area of Glasgow, and grew up in East Kilbride, where her father worked at Rolls-Royce.
In the interview, she talks (and she's one very good talker) about what she brings to the job that might be different from her predecessor: "The fact that I'm me means I'll do it differently, with more focus, more clarity, more pace and more customer engagement". She goes back repeatedly to stress that customer engagement:
Yet having been in public sector agencies for 20 years, does she fulfil the remit of Scottish Enterprise to bring a business focus and ethos into government's role in the economy? It was a question that featured in her job interview as well:
"In the past few years, I've been working exclusively with businesses. I get the opportunity to be in the boardrooms of top companies all over the world, understand where they're going, understand their strategies, have an in-depth understanding of their sectors. I am moving in business circles and have a wider experience than some people in business."
You can hear more about her hopes for the Scottish economy and for Scottish Enterprise's role (though she was less willing to talk about her enthusiasm for rock music) on The Business on Radio Scotland. That's at 1000 GMT on Sunday 1 November, and also available by podcast.
Today we've got confirmation that Lloyds Banking Group has been trying to find a way of avoiding the government's Asset Protection Scheme.
It hasn't yet found that way, but the banking giant is considering a rights issue, and conversion of some assets, so that it increases its core capital balances. And on some scale, reported (though not confirmed) to be £25bn in total.
That could be seen as acting as a safety buffer, or a form of insurance, and the bank today said it could avoid the heavy up-front costs of using the UK government's bespoke insurance scheme.
If it can escape that offer - one which originally looked like it couldn't be refused, given the Government is 43% shareholder - then it will have implicitly had insurance on £260bn of troubled/distressed/toxic assets since the scheme was first announced in March, and at no cost whatsoever.
At the end of this turbulent year, the assets look less risky than they did.
So if anyone knows how to insure a car or home on that retrospective basis, let me know, as it sounds quite attractive to the customer.
A European Commission spokesman has told the BBC today it will rule "within two weeks" on the conditions it will impose on Lloyds in return for approval of state aid. The ruling on the Royal Bank of Scotland may take longer, but it's expected by Christmas.
How significant will it be? There's been lots of speculation, but one sentence in today's Lloyds statement stands out as calming down expectations of the maximal impact: based on the discussions to date with the UK government and European Commission, Lloyds "is confident that the final terms of its restructuring plan, including any required divestments of assets, will not have a material impact on the Group".
The stock market liked the look of that, along with the statement that Lloyds' performance remains "robust" and in line with previous guidance. Lloyds was up 7.5% on the day.
The speculation on the forced sell-offs and break-ups has included most permutations, including Bank of Scotland and/or Halifax being split from Lloyds, or Scottish Widows being put on the market.
Indeed, the only speculation I haven't read is that Lloyds will sell Lloyds - but if that crops up in a headline soon, remember where you saw it first.
A new variation today suggests Lloyds TSB Scotland and Intelligent Finance, an online division of Bank of Scotland, will be put up for sale.
Intelligent Finance was being pared back already, having stopped doing new mortgage and current account business last July.
Just like Cheltenham and Gloucester, it may be revived in order to sell it off, reducing its market share of current accounts and mortgage below the 30% level - the Royal Bank is looking to do the same in England with its RBS branded branches, bringing back the Williams and Glyn name it dropped in 1985.
Lloyds TSB Scotland is relevant for its branch network.
Anyone who knows the average Scottish high street could see that Lloyds was never likely to keep so many branches, when Lloyds TSB was often as reliably close to Bank of Scotland as docken leaves to nettles.
The process of rationalising has not begun, leaving many staff waiting anxiously, and that delay may be because the bank was waiting for the European ruling.
So just supposing Lloyds TSB Scotland's branches are up for sale, who might be interested? Obviously a group without much of an existing presence in Scotland.
A branch network doesn't look like a priority for the newcoming innovators in retail banking, such as Virgin Money and Tesco Bank.
But what about Barclays, or HSBC - neither of which has significant Scottish networks, but which have been showing increasing interest north of the border?
And what would happen to the trust that has been taking a share of Lloyds TSB Scotland profits since the Trustee Savings Bank was floated in 1986? It has fallen out with its funder in recent weeks, at considerable risk to Scotland's charity income?
Update 30 October 1715 GMT
The Scottish Power takeover by Iberdrola, and similar Spanish acquisitions of BAA and O2, have been found to have been based on corporate tax breaks which are now being banned.
That comes a bit late for those who fretted nearly three years ago about the loss of one of Scotland's big corporates to raiders from Madrid.
Then there's White Van Man, who is being told that his emissions are being brought into the same tight framework as passenger cars over the next seven years.
You can find a new strategy on advanced use of next-generation internet to control traffic congestion, manage energy demand and improve health care at a distance.
All significant in their own ways. But perhaps most significant is a move afoot by the European Commission to stick its regulatory nose into the food chain.
It has figured that the balance of market power is not properly calibrated.
Or to put it another way, big food processors and supermarkets have disproportionate power over the small producer and farmer.
Most notable among the little guys who have been hard-squeezed are dairy farmers.
They have a separate announcement today that they are being given the green light for governments to offer a one-off emergency 15,000 euro grant.
One solution being targeted for improving the operation of the food market is for EU members to have more transparent price information across retailers.
That's probably not something that will revolutionise food retailing in Britain, which is relatively efficient and competitive.
More relevant in the UK is the power of very few, very large supermarkets, which is more concentrated than you find elsewhere.
Of more relevance still might be the concern about prices going up, with market prices rising, but not coming down at the same pace.
That's a familiar argument to the one used against energy companies, having seen oil and gas prices spike over the past 18 months.
The European Commission wants to force more transparency into food pricing, so that consumers benefit from falling prices.
And that goes for more oversight of the food futures market to curtail speculative bubbles.
The politics has gone out of the economics of food, while food inflation has been relatively subdued.
But there are pressures growing from resurgent Asian economies and poor harvests, and Brussels commissioners are making preparations for the possibility - some might say the probability - that the acute pain of high and fast-rising prices could easily come back.
]]>But if you want it trucked from Lanarkshire to London, it will cost you less. Perhaps £38.
Some hauliers may be willing to offer you less than £30, which is below their costs.
This is just to fill up space on the south-bound trip, because while there's still lots of freight heading up the A1 and M74 to supply Scottish businesses and shops, there's far less Scottish produce now available for the return trip.
Yet it's only by filling trucks on all their trips that the freight industry can make its profits.
Those figures aren't good news for the haulage industry, particularly the Scottish businesses that depend on the England-Scotland routes.
Typically small operators, they are up against much bigger hauliers who can cross-subsidise their more northerly destinations with a wider range of English and continental routes.
More widely than that one industry, this tells you a significant story about the state of the Scottish economy.
It's true that many of the most successful manufacturing businesses - for instance, Weir Group, Clyde Union, Aggreko and BVT - shift a lot of their produce by air, train or ship.
Others, in the service sector, can deliver online.
But the lorry remains a vital link for getting Scottish goods to market - not only to England, but to English ports.
And these freight costs show that Scotland is making a whole lot less than it was.
The biggest gap in recent years has come from electronics.
It's not that Silicon Glen has disappeared. Scotland still shifts around £4bn in export earnings from its electronics sector.
But only ten years ago, it was shipping more than £11bn worth.
And from the point of view of the hauliers, it doesn't help that electronic products have become more compact.
The other lesson worth noting is how important the rest of the UK is to Scottish businesses.
The most recent input-output tables tell us that 42% of Scottish added value is accounted for by Scottish customers.
While 10% is investment, and 17% is government expenditure, 31% is exported from Scotland.
Of that 31%, 21 percentage points are accounted for by England, Wales and Northern Ireland, while 10 percentage points are sent further afield.
The Scottish government has policies to develop its links with its major trading partners - notably the US, Germany and China, with more emphasis being put in recent weeks on India's potential.
So what's the policy on exports to England?