Reply #32: Northern Rock deal could cost £3,500 [View All]

[DemReadingDU]

How much is that in dollars?


2/20/08 The cost of the Northern Rock crisis has reached the equivalent of £3,500 for every taxpayer as experts warned that the nationalisation rescue of the bank was bound to fail.

Taxpayers' exposure to the beleaguered bank has doubled since the beginning of the year and now stands at about £110 billion - more than the annual budget of the NHS and the equivalent of 27p on the basic rate of income tax.

The newly-installed chairman has been forced to admit that the bank may remain in public hands for "years" - undermining claims by Gordon Brown that the nationalisation was only temporary.

Plans are being drawn up to lay off thousands of bank workers, reduce the savings rates of a million customers and sell branches in an attempt to persuade the European Union to sanction the biggest nationalisation in Britain's history.

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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2008/02/19/nrock119.xml