Looking through the key headlines of last week, the biggest headline of the week had to be the one from the Daily Telegraph:
“£2,000,000,000,000”
That’s about the size of the bailout budget generated by the actions of Gordon
Brown and other world leaders over the past week.
In the UK, that bill of
£500,000,000,000 ($850 billion or €600billion) is equivalent to an increase of 11
pence per £ in Income Tax for each citizen of Britain.
And so Gordon Brown became a hero to the world.
Not only did he
promote the idea of a new Bretton Woods Agreement, which has
been taken up by George Bush and Nicolas Sarkozy over the weekend, but he was invited to the EU’s inner sanctum meeting,
a meeting to which he was previously shunned.
He was hailed by José-Manuel Barroso, the European Commission
President, at this meeting who said: "I want to pay a very sincere tribute to Mr
Brown” who provided the “impetus for action”.
And he meant it!
Usually, he would say something more like, “fancy a holiday in Iceland?”
Chris M Skinner
Chris Skinner is best known as an independent commentator on the financial markets through his blog, TheFinanser.com, as author of the bestselling book Digital Bank, and Chair of the European networking forum the Financial Services Club. He has been voted one of the most influential people in banking by The Financial Brand (as well as one of the best blogs), a FinTech Titan (Next Bank), one of the Fintech Leaders you need to follow (City AM, Deluxe and Jax Finance), as well as one of the Top 40 most influential people in financial technology by the Wall Street Journal's Financial News. To learn more click here...
