Bankers - Is it spelt with a W?

FIRST thing’s first, as you may have noticed gentle reader I am not one to shy away from the big stories.

It’s time for some Credit Crunch stuff, and what a surprise, the banks have screwed something up! Who’d have thought it, eh?

While this is about the country I live in, is yours really any different?

The people who make sure your cashpoint card doesn’t work when you’re abroad, who write you a £20 letter about your £10 overdraft, have cocked it all up.

No one knows how or why or when — least of all them — but somehow they’ve lost more money than anyone has lost before.

Thing is, when you take a step back and think about it, you realise just whose money it is.

Yes. IT’S OUR MONEY! They lost our money.

Whose money?

OUR MONEY!

So what do they do about it? Long before they apologise, long before they put their own money on a horse and hope it comes in (which is what anyone normal would do, let’s face it) they go to Norman Brown, cap in hand and ask him to help them out.

They say: “We’ve lost a load of money, we don’t know where the money is, help us, please!” (Whose money? OUR MONEY!) And then Gordon Brown says: “Aye, laddies, I’ll help ya oot, here’s a cheque for 70 ballion poonds, that should cover it.” That’s nice and dandy of him, but whose money is he giving them? That’s right, OUR MONEY! So he’s given them OUR MONEY to replace OUR MONEY that they’ve lost.

But the trouble is, he’s not got enough money because it’s been spent on Health and Safety and second houses for his fellow politicians, and so he’s had to borrow some more money.

So he goes to another bank and borrows a load more money, and whose money is it that he borrows? — OUR MONEY!

So he’s borrowing OUR MONEY to replace OUR MONEY, that he’s already spent, to replace OUR MONEY that the banks lost.

And how’s he going to pay off that loan? By raising taxes — which come out of OUR MONEY!

So he’s going to insist we cough up more of OUR MONEY to repay the loan of OUR MONEY needed to replace OUR MONEY the banks need to replace OUR MONEY that they lost. In other words, we pay four times over.

Thanks for that.

But here’s the part that really gets my goat.

I don’t have a goat, but feel like I should buy one just so it can get got.

The banks’ one job is to look after our money — that’s it, it’s not like they’ve got anything else to do, is it? That’s what they do, look after money.

Stick it in a safe, sit a bloke next to the safe, fill up the cashpoint machine as and when. It can’t be hard, can it?

If I can figure it out, why does a bloke who gets a million Pound bonus at Christmas not realise any of this?

Banks look after money, full stop. A bank that doesn’t have any money in it is just a building, the same way a pint without any black stuff in it is just a glass.

What’s worse is we don’t hear the bloody end of it, it’s all over the telly and papers. Ironically it’s the financial experts who are raking it in.

It’s lucky the media doesn’t charge us a tenner every time they tell us the country’s gone overdrawn like the banks do, otherwise we’d have even less money.

I might start it. You’ve got no money mate, there you go, I’ve just provided you with a service.

Please send cheques payable to SharpSpike, c/o Waste your money Inc.

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's Norman Brown

Gordon Brown has become the first European leader granted an audience with President Barack Obama.

With excitement mounting, we tune in once again to Eyewitness News, Palm Beach, for a special review of this historic meeting.

Good morning, America, how are you? This is your favourite son, Chad Hanging, back with another three hours of news you can use. Our top story this hour is the arrival of the President of Englandland in our nation's capital. Joining me now live from London is our special correspondent, Brit Limey.

Good morning, Chad. I'm standing outside Buckingham Palace, the world-famous home of soccer star David Buckingham and his wife, Queen Victoria.

Great to see, you, Brit. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought President Tony Blair had already met with President Obama at the National Prayer Breakfast a coupla weeks back.

That's affirmative, Chad. But President Blair isn't President of Englandland any more.

He's not? Then what was he doing in Washington?

Beats me, Chad. Perhaps it was something to do with his new role bringing peace to the Mid East.

How's that going?

Pretty good, Chad, if you don't count the war between Hamas and Israel, Hezbollah firing rockets at civilians and the crazies in Iran going nuclear.

So who's the new guy?

He's called President Norman Brown. This isn't his first visit, Chad, he met with President George W. Bush last year.

I must've been watching baseball that day. Funny, I don't remember seeing any coverage of an election in Englandland.

There wasn't any, Chad.

No coverage?

No election, Chad.

How did this Norman Brown get to be President, then?

Some kind of a coup, I guess. There certainly seem to be more armed policemen around these days, and there are surveillance cameras everywhere.

Jeez-o, sounds like a Commie dictatorship.

Feels like it some days, too, Chad.

So why is Norman Brown in Washington today?

He's come to tell President Obama to join his crusade to save the world. He thinks he's Superman and has all the answers to the economic crisis.

Englandland has to be doing real good if this guy thinks he can fix the credit crunch.

Not so, Chad. The IMF says Englandland is worst placed of all developed economies to cope. The currency has collapsed, unemployment is headed towards three million and the country is saddled with £2 trillion of debt, which it will take generations to pay off.

So who's responsible for that?

Norman Brown

Brown's the guy who got Englandland into this mess in the first place?

Affirmative, Chad. When he was Treasury Secretary he encouraged the banks to go on a reckless lending spree which has bankrupted the country, he let public spending rip right out of control, and destroyed Englandland's private pension system, which was once the envy of the world.

Does he admit he screwed up?

Far from it, Chad. He blames America.

He does what?

Blames America, Chad, for selling sub-prime mortgages, which were then bought by banks in Englandland and turned out not to be worth the paper they were printed on.

No one forced these banks to buy them.

No one stopped them, either, Chad. Ten years ago, Englandland tore up the rules designed to stop banks getting into trouble.

Who was the genius behind that cockamayme scheme?

Norman Brown.

So let me get this straight. This Norman Brown guy wrecks Englandland then flies to Washington to tell us that he's saved the world. And he blames America for his own incompetence?

America and a guy called Sir Fred Goodwin.

Who's he?

Ran the Royal Bank of Scotlandland into the ground.

And they made him a 'sir'? Whose idea was that?

Norman Brown. Now he wants Goodwin to lose his pension.

Can he do that?

No, but seeing as Brown's stolen everyone else's pension in Englandland, it won't stop him trying.

So what's happened in Washington then?

There was a formal meeting at the White House, followed by lunch.

Better tell President Obama to count the spoons.