OK - back to the serious stuff....
Britain's eight largest mortgage lender and one of the country's biggest buy-to-let specialists, Bradford & Bingley, has become the latest institution to be hit by the escalating crisis in the financial markets and the deteriorating state of the UK housing market.
City analysts said the bank was unlikely to survive in its current form and one called on it to be nationalised as Northern Rock was last year. Bradford & Bingley had already planned to cut 370 jobs because of the continuing downturn in the market for mortgages.
Financial crisis: Bradford & Bingley to become latest victim
Meanwhile HSBC has said it needs to cut 550 jobs in London as the global financial crisis deepens. The banking giant is to axe 1,100 jobs worldwide, blaming the current financial turmoil for the decision.
Bank giant HSBC axes 1,100 jobs
And across the pond, Washington Mutual has become the the largest bank failure in US history, as regulators were forced to take control and sell off the mortgage lender. The Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS) sold its assets to JPMorgan Chase for $1.9bn (£1bn) after $16.7bn of deposits had been withdrawn in 10 days.
Regulator sells Washington Mutual
Finally, as Congress continues to debate in a bid to reach agreement on Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's $700 billion (£380bn) rescue package for the US financial industry, Marc Faber, managing director of Marc Faber Ltd. in Hong Kong, has stated the U.S. government's bailout may require as much as $5 trillion, seven times the amount requested.
Marc Faber Says $5 Trillion Needed for U.S. Financial Bailout
More and more these days, I think of "The Second Coming" by William Butler Yeats:
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world
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