Absurd

Coordinated action has been taken by the world’s major central banks to tackle the financial crisis; interest rates have been cut by, among others, the Federal Reserve, the Bank of England and the European Central Bank. In the United Kingdom Gordon Brown has also announced a 500 billion pound bank rescue deal.1
Alright, firstly, what will the cut in interest rates achieve? Well, in the UK, banks, had an astonishingly high lending rate of 5% and it is difficult to imagine that the cut to 4.5% will achieve very much. It is, at least, difficult for me to envisage there being a rush to borrow money, especially in the present climate. Secondly, what exactly is this £500bn bank rescue deal? According to today's 'Guardian' it comes in three parts : "£50bn of taxpayers' money will be offered to banks to rebuild their capital reserves, £200bn of liquidity is being made available as short-term loans in an attempt to thaw the frozen interbank lending markets (twice as much as was previously offered under the Special Liquidity Scheme) and a further £250bn will underwrite lending between banks (another attempt to shore up their balance sheets)."2 Now the 50 billion pounds is most definitely taxpayers money and, while the last part of the deal is to be applauded because it means a much needed recapitalisation of the banks, I am not quite sure where the Bank of England gets its £200bn from. Still, let us just stick to the fifty billion and,while Gordon Brown has said that "the taxpayer will earn a proper return",3 the reality is that "Joe Soap's" money is being given to the banks so that they will be in a position to lend it back, with interest, of course! Still, the good news is that the interest rate has been cut.
Growing up in working class Glasgow in the 60s, I never could quite fathom either the logic behind someone profiting from my efforts or the absurdity that some people inherit substantial wealth, while others are born into abject poverty and, while I became aware of the consequences of those absurdities and that they led to greed, exploitation and, ultimately, the objectification of humanity, it was their basic absurdity that stayed with me and today we have people having their money taken away from them and given to banks so that the banks have the money to lend it back. The mind boggles and is this really the best that mankind can come up with?
1 http://www.independent.co.uk/
2 http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/oct/08/marketturmoil.creditcrunch
3 ibid