Firetop

This morning I popped down to Dorking high street with Maria in the pram and found lots of queuing old people lining the street. I didn’t pay much attention to the first queue which seemed to be outside the betting shop, the bus stop on the other side of the road seemed unusually busy - as if an outing of Age Concern was gathering. It was only when I got home and saw the news on TV about Northern Rock liquidity worries that I realised the old folk had been queuing at Dorking’s Northern Rock building society to withdraw their money. I now wish I’d taken a bit more interest in what was going on to see the real life re-enactment of movie ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’.

Working Lunch was understandably covering the Northern Rock concern, giving a soap box to all the concerned parties to try and reassure people that the Bank of England are supporting the building society. However, none of them let on to the fact that if everybody was to go to the bank at the same time to get their money out it would result in dire consequences. I seem to recall that in my A-Level economics lessons we were taught that ‘money at hand’ was only ever ten percent of total savings - so nothing could make this situation worse than everybody trying to get their cash out.

Apparently the Northern Rock website was inaccessible to many customers today - that being put down to an overloaded server, but if one was of a suspicious nature one would have to question whether that was indeed quite a lucky stroke - slowing down the rate of liquid cash being transferred out of the company coffers! Perhaps we can expect the board members of the company to prop up the business out of their own pockets, like George Bailey does in It’s a Wonderful Life.

Update on 17th September - Took some photographs of the continuing panic withdrawals in Dorking

Technorati Tags: northern rock, banking, it’s a wonderful life

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