Should the Banks be nationalised?
I wonder what people think of the idea of nationalising the banks? Or having at least one national bank, so that people can avoid being involved with capitalist grabbers?

This is particularly relevant in view of an article posted below 'Irish banks now in danger of foreign takeover,' which states that the share price of Irish banks have halved in the last 12 months, and that National Funds from various Arab states are looking at buying at least one Irish bank. So at least one Irish bank may well be nationalised anyway - but by a Middle Eastern state.

Does anyone have an opinion of the Northern Rock bank being nationalised in Britain when it failed? If banks can be nationalised, at great expense to the taxpayer, when they fail, why cant they be nationalised when they are making massive profits?

Brown fights Northern Rock backlash Gordon Brown, the British prime minister, has been forced to defend his economic credentials after mounting criticism over his decision to nationalise ailing bank Northern Rock. Brown has been accused of dithering in a five-month crisis in which the government lent $49bn to keep the bank afloat, while it cast around for private bidders. At his monthly news conference on Monday, he said: "We did the right thing, at the right time for the right reasons. We have contained the problems. It has not spread across to the rest of the economy. "It was right to look at all the options available to us. We have lost nothing in doing so." No timetable The government, which rejected two private sector-led bids for the bank, announced legislation allowing it to take over Britain's fifth-largest mortgage bank on Sunday. It has consistently said the nationalisation, the first in Britain since engine-maker Rolls-Royce was brought under public ownership in 1971 by the then ruling Conservatives, would be only temporary. But the government declined to comment on Monday on how long public ownership could last. "We can't have a timetable when we're talking about the return of better market conditions as a first step," Brown said. Both Brown and Alistair Darling, his finance minister, said the bank would be run at arms' length and on a commercial basis. Shareholder anger The government now faces the threat of a drawn-out legal battle with disgruntled shareholders. Shareholders in Northern Rock reacted with anger as the suspension of the bank's shares left them unable to sell their stock. The UK's Daily Telegraph newspaper quoted Jon Wood, founder of the bank's largest shareholder SRM Capital, as saying: "We will wait to see the details of the nationalisation bill and after that we will pursue all ... actions available to us to secure value for shareholders." The UK shareholders' association said it would not accept a solution which could allow an eventual buyer to profit. An independent audit is set to determine the value of the shares and how much the government will pay shareholders. Opposition charge Opposition politicians blame Brown for the crisis, pointing to the regulatory framework he put in place a decade ago when he was finance minister under Tony Blair. While the government has criticised Northern Rock's business model, Brown blames the bank's problems on a credit crisis that started with risky mortgage lending in the US and has since spread throughout the world's banking system. Day-to-day running of Northern Rock will pass to Ron Sandler, who rescued Lloyd's of London from the brink of collapse. Sandler visited the bank's headquarters in Newcastle on Monday.

It looks like shares in the Irish banks are set to fall even further. No doubt the free state regime will be called on to bail them out if things get really bad. Hopefully they will not just give them taxpayers money, but buy the shares cheap and let the Irish people have ownership of these banks.