A Horse with rabies exhibits a terror of water - hydrophobia. There is no way you can lead a horse like this to water.
In his article about the Budget, Robert Peston has written in his BBC blog that LloydsTSB and RBS (banks supposedly owned by us)
…are repeating their standard caveats.
First that they will only lend to businesses they deem to be creditworthy – and their perception of creditworthiness may still be too cautious for the tastes of some.
Second, they will insist that they can take the business horse to water, but it won’t be their fault (guv’) if business does not want to drink.
This is an excellent statement of the true state of affairs. Business is not ‘RISK averse’, they are ‘BANK averse’. Business urgently needs credit or as one commentator on the Peston blog put it …
Creditworthiness is an interesting concept. When things go pear shaped a “viable” business may no longer be viable over a short period, until the market sorts itself out, and the business has re-structured. In this condition the business needs short term (3 yr) finance to adjust and survive. But of course it’s current profitability is poor, so the loan won’t be granted…
The solution to this appalling state of affairs is to adapt different ways of financing the economy. Therefore, if the Welsh Assembly Government politicians really want to help business then they need to rapidly research and introduce new financial mechanisms to underpin business such as Credit Unions based on the Irish or US models.
It may not seem so to the hysterical Media, but people actually still have confidence in Banks. We are all still depositing cash, cheques and are still using ATMs, debit, credit cards and online banking. What we don’t have, is confidence in the banking systems, the stock market and the systems of credit brokering/exchange that are now manifestly broken.
