A Million People Can be Wrong
Shares back up and Savers going back home – perhaps calm is returning to a pointless fiasco. Well, at least the shares have gone up a little and most of the savers have gone back home, and that is a start. But it will be replaced by pointless argument, opportunism and back stabbing as the blame culture raises it’s ugly head. Nick Robinson , who occasionally finds the right nail to whack, has made the point that for the government this will be more like the 2000 petrol “crisis” than Black Wednesday, but even that had some painful and pointless fall out.
And now the fight begins. The FSA and the BoE are having a spat over it , though I imagine it is not quite the throwing the toys out of the pram affair that the BBC are suggesting. And of course the opposition are getting in on the act with Kenneth Clarke saying he would have acted earlier and better. Strange, I do not remember him coming up with any useful ideas a few says ago!
This is nothing so clever as a failure of policy, or the government being too slow, or some other problem with regulations. It has just been another fine example of the age old adage:
They always have been and they always will be. If you look at the history of stock market crashes, bank failures, scams, etc, in the end what has done the real damage is people grabbing their money and running – even if it is a really bad thing to do.
Let’s face it, shares in OTHER Building Societies dropped over the last few days, even though they do not even operate under the same model as Northern Rock.
There is absolutely nothing that anyone can do about this situation. People will always panic whether it is right to do so or not. And there is no guarantee that had the BoE stepped in with their underwriting offer sooner that there would have been much difference – I would think that a very large number of people withdrawing their money had less than 3000 in savings and certainly less than 33000.
The rather pointless war of words between the various financial factions is therefore particularly unedifying and a waste of time. And the shameless opportunism by Ken Clerk almost disgusting; I don’t remember him last week suggesting any useful solutions.
At what point do the media and the vocal part of the public get their heads round two indisputable facts of life:
1. You will never manage to plan for everything.
2. A million people in queues CAN be wrong.
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