RBS posts biggest ever UK loss , page 1

RBS posts biggest ever UK loss

english.aljazeera.net

The UK's Royal Bank of Scotland has posted a net loss of $34.4bn for 2008 – the biggest ever loss in British corporate history.

Announcing the news on Thursday, the bank unveiled plans to cut $3.56bn in costs as part of a massive restructuring programme, which could see up to 20,000 jobs cut.

The largest loss in corporate history in England, which is coming out within a few days of the offical announcement of AIG's loss of 60 billion - which will be the largest corporate loss in U.S. history.

What exactly will that mean to all of us? Will it mean billions more going to those companies? If so, who will keep buying both the U.S. and England's debt?

It also emerged that Fred Goodwin, the bank's former chief executive who was largely blamed for leading it into disaster, has begun drawing a pension worth $713,000 a year, despite being only 50-years-old.

Stephen Hester, Goodwin's successor, said the "key building blocks for RBS's recovery are now in place," but added that did not mean it would bounce back successfully.

RBS has confirmed that it will offload so-called toxic assets into a government insurance programme.

The bank has already been part-nationalised under government bailout packages worth almost $30bn.

The UK government is set to unveil a scheme that could insure more than $700bn worth of banks' risky assets, potentially giving it a 95 per cent stake in RBS.

The scheme is designed to restore confidence into the banking system and get credit flowing again into the recession-hit British economy.

RBS's huge loss contrasts with the $10.5bn profit the bank made in 2007

How can governments survive and the fiat money of those countries survive all this printing?

Then, the other question is, at what point will the true value of things come out... including gold - when will it stop being manipulated by the govts?

english.aljazeera.net
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