socialmedian: PM wants global bank bailout fund

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PM wants global bank bailout fund

Source: The Guardian

Nov 07, 2009

Summary

The prime minister tells G20 taxpayers must be protected from bearing the cost of failure by world's banks

The prime minister, Gordon Brown, has called for a new "economic and social contract" with the world's banks to ensure that the cost of their failure would never again be borne by taxpayers.

Addressing a G20 meeting in Scotland, Brown said it was not acceptable that banking success was reaped by the few but failure was "borne by all of us".

He called for a fund for future bank bailouts to be set up, possibly paid for by a tax on banking transactions.

Brown told the meeting of finance ministers from the world's 20 richest nations in St Andrews that there should be a "just distribution of risks and rewards".

"I believe we should discuss whether we need a better economic and social contract to reflect the global responsibilities of financial institutions to society," he said.

"This is a unique sector that, when it fails, imposes such a high cost to the wider economy and damage to society that government intervention becomes essential. So the taxpayer had no real

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