It seems that everyone is delighted with the continuing sale by the Government of its once 43% stake in Lloyds Bank. If all goes well, say the journalists, prompted by the Treasury, “the taxpayer” will make a £7bn profit on the sale. Well, no, not exactly. You see, the sales are to the large institutions. They get their money from the trees that grow in their basements, or the Chinese, or maybe Russian oligarchs. No. They don’t. They get their money from you and me, UK pension scheme contributors. Which means we, through the institutions, are buying those shares for our pension schemes, at a higher price than we did when the UK Government used our tax monies (or loans guaranteed by our tax monies made by institutions who had previously got the money from us) to buy the shares from the market back in 2008.
In other words, we’re paying twice, because the Treasury isn’t going to return the money it used to by those Lloyds shares the first time. We’re not making a profit of £7bn, it’s the Treasury. Are we going to get a one-off rebate of £7bn / 30m taxpayers = £230 next year? That would be a NO.
Do the Treasury know that the they are making £7bn from the taxpayer? I’m almost certain they do. Do the journalists? I’m almost certain they don’t. Gotta be worth that £13.50 a week subscription.
No comments:
Post a Comment