Last week's Fun Online Poll was an experiment, which might or might not have proved anything (I suspect it does, but you'd think I was mad if I told you what).
Faced with the following choice, 109 people actually pulled the trigger (which is surprising enough) and 29% of you were killed as a result, which is even more surprising as statistically, assuming people fire at random, only about 17% of you would be dead:
Faced with the following choice, 109 people actually pulled the trigger (which is surprising enough) and 29% of you were killed as a result, which is even more surprising as statistically, assuming people fire at random, only about 17% of you would be dead:
The best comment was by Jer: "Dead. In retrospect, and I know it's easy to say it now... but I suppose it was actually quite foolish to pull the trigger..." If you've already taken part, you can see the results here, if not, then please take a pot shot first.
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And lo, to this week's poll. The Vickers saga rumbles on and the bankers and their shills are bleating that it will push up the costs of lending to 'small and medium-sized businesses', cost jobs etc. Well, firstly it won't, and secondly, bank lending is not a particularly important source of finance to 'small or medium-sized businesses' and is more or less nothing if you exclude lending secured on the owner's home or on other land and buildings.
So that's this week's Fun Online Poll: "What are the best sources of finance for small and medium-sized businesses?"
Vote here or use the widget in the sidebar. You can choose as few or as many answers as you like.
4 comments:
"firstly it won't" - yes, it will. Even Vickers thinks it will cost them at least £4 billion.
"and secondly, bank lending is not a particularly important source of finance to 'small or medium-sized businesses' " - I believe it is. Do you have any figures?
"and is more or less nothing if you exclude lending secured on the owner's home or on other land and buildings." - probably true, but is this really relevant to this discussion?
AC, the £4 bn is the hypothetical cost to the banks from losing the value of the government guarantee for its investment banking division, the bit that is going to be hived off.
But lending to small businesses stays within the ring fence, which is not affected by these higher costs. And the higher share capital requirements mean that bond holders will ask for lower interest rates, so it all evens out.
Yes I do have figures, it's two or three per cent of all bank lending. Plus I spend all day looking at the accounts of SME's, they don't borrow from banks, and if they do, it's secured on land and buildings.
Yes it is relevant - if it's a mortgage on a house it's a mortgage on a house, it's not lending to business, it's lending to the owner of a house who then chooses to invest it in a business.
"it will push up the costs of lending to 'small and medium-sized businesses',"
That's like politicians saying that any cut in tax revenue is going to affect spending on schools and hospitals, (as if the governement had on other expenditure!), i.e. bullshit by definition.
B, exactly. The largest part of banks' income is 'rent' and they pay taxes out of their rent. By definition, any tax on rent is borne by the rentier, not the customer.
Or they may as well argue that the cost of the £60 bn odd in PAYE and corp tax they pay pushes up the costs to "small businesses and struggling homeowners" and justify a complete tax exemption for banking and financial services.
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