Mervyn King Fills Bankers Pockets.

The Bank of England announced a further tranch of £75 billion in "quantative easing," making a total since the economic crisis began of £275 billion. That amounts to, more or less, £4,000 for every man, woman and child in the country. We asked our economics correspondent for an explaination as to what this means; "Well, the Bank of England send to the banks the money in the form of an electronic credit. In return the banks send to the Bank of England various financial "assets" - which usually means bad debt. The idea is that the banks will then purchase other goods and services and that this money will then "bleed out" into the wider economy. The problem arises when the banks fail to notice the difference between the wider economy and their own pockets and keep the lot. That's why small businesses are complaining about the lack of credit." We asked if there might be a better way of getting this money into the economy. "Absolutely - give it people and let them spend it." We asked why the government doesn't do this. "Are you bloody joking? A Tory government giving the people something? Anyway they're afraid that people, frightened to death about the future, might save it instead - just like the banks are doing. The difference is that giving it to the banks means that they are being shored up again with public money without any embarassing talk about them being nationalised."