Douglas Carswell's Blog

Beware of "experts" demanding our money

"If you don't hand over your money" threaten bandits and highway men down the ages "the consequences will be terrible".

There has been no shortage of "city experts" issuing dire warning of what will happen if EU governments do not take action to deal with the crisis in Euroland.

But invariably these demands for "action" boil down to spending public money to save the banks from the consequences of their own stupidity in lending Greece and co all that money in the first place.

No one bailed out my constituents who bought shares in badly run companies that lost value. So why is public money being used to bail out bankers who bought bonds from badly run Euro governments? Responsibility for those bank losses lies with the banks overpaid "fixed income" investment teams, who bought things they did not understand. Not such a "fixed income" afterall, is it? Responsibility does not rest with the Essex taxpayers I represent.

Too often the spokesmen of various banking interests have been interviewed as if they were disinterested experts in this crisis. There was another one on Newsnight recently talking of "civil war".

However dire things are, demands by bankers that we should throw good money after bad, should come with a health warning. Many of those pushing the more-government-action-with-your-money line are up to their eye balls in bad debt. They need the taxpayer to save them.

They are little different from the head of a nationalised industry demanding subsidy .... Or else.

City "experts" are often highly partial players in the Eurozone disaster, not disinterested experts.

Before being stampeded into another round of bailout-and-borrow economics, we should ask how does lending more reduce a problem caused by too much debt?

And if governments do need to act, why not act to breakup the Eurozone, rather than lend ever greater sums of money?

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