No, you can’t have your tuppence back! What are you, some kind of Bolshevik?
Mr. Dawes, Jr.: In 1773, an official of this bank, unwisely loaned a large sum of money to finance a shipment of tea to the American colonies. Do you know what happened?
Mr. Banks: Yes, sir. Yes, I think I do. Uh, uh, as the ship lay in Boston harbor, uh, a party of the colonists dressed as Red Indians, uh, boarded the vessel, behaved very rudely, and, and threw all the tea overboard. This made the tea unsuitable for drinking, even for Americans.
Mr. Dawes, Jr.: Precisely. The loan was defaulted. Panic ensued within these walls. There was a run on the bank!
Mr. Dawes, Sr.: From that time to this, sir, there has not been a run on this bank until today!
The move came after three days of long queues at branches up and down the country as customers withdrew more than £2bn of their money - about 8% of Northern Rock’s total deposits.
There were still queues of about 70 people at a Northern Rock branch in Golders Green and about 50 in Kingston-upon-Thames on Tuesday morning, with some anxious savers still not placated by the government’s reassurances that their savings were totally secure.
And what is the British government doing to ensure that there isn’t a banking collapse?
Desperate to restore faith in British banks, Chancellor Alistair Darling pledged the Bank of England would guarantee all existing deposits…
Mr Darling suggested that the government would underwrite the savings of any other bank that came to the Bank of England for help to promote “a stable banking system” in an interview with the BBC on Tuesday.
But even as the groundswell of panic eased, there were growing question marks over the government’s handling of the situation and how long they had known about Northern Rock’s troubles before they took action.
Former Conservative Chancellor Ken Clarke told the BBC: “I did not expect to see the government ever having to reassure worried savers with money guaranteed by the tax payer.
“The response should have been clearer and quicker. It shouldn’t require queues of pensioners down the High Street before the chancellor says something.”
It’s a bit startling for an American to consider life without the FDIC, although one suspects certain small-government types are sitting in a back room plotting that very thing. Ironic, then, that the great big-government devil FDR himself initially opposed the FDIC because he worried it would be used to protect inept and embezzling bankers.
Mr. Dawes, Jr.: Uh, Father, these are Banks’s children. They want to open an account.
Mr. Dawes, Sr.: Oh, they do, do they, boy? Excellent. Excellent. We can al-always use, al-always use more money to, to put to work for the bank, can’t we, boy?
So, you have tuppence? May I be permitted to see it?
Michael: No. I want it to feed the birds!
Mr. Dawes, Sr.: Fiddlesticks, boy! Feed the birds and what have you got? Fat birds!
Bankrupt American Home Mortgage is attempting to seize as much as $27 million that former employees set aside from paychecks for retirement, according to an attorney representing them.
Who would have thought that a large corporation which was routinely stealing money from its customers in the form of bait-and-switch loans, undisclosed fees, and non-disclosure might also try to steal from its employees?
Mr. Dawes, Sr.: You can purchase first and second trust deeds. Think of the foreclosures! Bonds, chattels, dividends, shares. Bankruptcies. Debtor sales. Opportunities. All manner of private enterprise. Shipyards. The mercantile. Collieries. Tanneries. Corporations. Amalgamations. Banks!
Michael: Gimme back my money!
Thanks to Amp for tracking down the screencap.
17 Responses to “Supercalifragilisteconomyisatrocious”
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That sounded really smart, but I have no idea what it means. Damn you, augmented matrices, for grasping your concept has hurt my brain! Stupid Algebra 2 class…
But yea. Anyone know this in Stoopid?
person 1: “I know a man with wooden leg named Smith.”
person 2: “What was the name of his other leg?”
Pretty sad when old Disney movies are an inspiration for “modern” economics. But I guess that that only makes sense, since old distopian novels - 1984 and Brave New World - are inspiration for “modern” politics.
Next up: Dr. Strangelove…
I never saw Mary Poppins. I was quite unaware of the banking part of the movie.
A Cultural Philistine, that’s me.
So… if the greedy-banker pack leader mysteriously dies laughing… everything will be okay?
I just love it that the English panic by standing in line.
When the Second Depression starts, will there be free wifi for those standing in the bread lines?
I love that movie, even if it’s Disney, much more than I should.
I would call this…The Revenge of Barbara Ehrenreich! When I’m Insecure, You’re Insecure!
Anyways, on that last part about bank embezzling? Don’t feel sorry. The victims were all high ranking officials who were attempting a tax dodge.
Keith, the Depression is a myth propagated by Marxists who glorify the terrorist FDR and want to turn this country into Stalin’s Russia.
I’ll be damned, shah8, you’re right. I’ll always favor employees over corporations, so I’m still not impressed by AHM’s move, but it’s not quite as “class war now!” as I first thought.
Isn’t AHM the bank that wrote checks to the city of Philadelphia for customers’ property taxes and the checks bounced? Yep, it was. Classy guys, those.
Oops. Baltimore, not Philadelphia. Still…
There better be! How else will they be able to catch the live streaming circus broadcast?So flying a kite is the answer?
Auguste, I love ya for this one…
The commentary in the FT as to the wisdom of this gov’t bail-out has been interesting. Half of the letters disapprove of the bail-out and would have let Northern go down the tubes, the other half are applauding the rescue and asking for further raises on the limits covered.
Also a thoughtful op-ed article about how to set up the system so as to protect small investors while avoiding moral hazard. Nice if they can do it.
“When a bank says don’t panic, the wise panic. The first person to get his money out is always richer than the last. ”
Simon Jenkins in today’s Guardian.
A Poppins allegory re Greenspan declaring we went into Iraq for oil, in the minds of the kool-aid punditry:
“A wooden leg named Smith. A wooden leg named Smith. A wooden leg named Smith. A wooden l-….
Hehehehehehhhhh….”
[wheeze]
“Hehehehehhhh….”
[Mr. Dawes, Sr. floats into the air}