Green Investment Bank
The Budget Report states:
Infrastructure UK and other stakeholders have identified that there is a significant risk of a gap emerging in the provision of equity capital to large complex infrastructure projects within the next few years. To bridge this gap, the Government intends to establish a Green Investment Bank, operating on a commercial basis and involving both public and private sector capital. The Government will start by investing up to £1 billion from the sale of mature, government owned infrastructure-related assets and will seek to match this with at least £1 billion of private sector investment. The Green Investment Bank’s mandate will be to invest in the low-carbon sector where the equity gap is expected to be most critical.
So let's understand what is going on here. Darling intends to establish a private investment bank, and seed it with money raised from the sale of the nation's assets. These assets will be sold at a time when the price which the nation can command for them is at their lowest. Now in the hands of private corporations, they will become much more expensive for us to use. To add insult to injury, the money raised will be used to attract private "investment" for joint public/private forays into the discredited "carbon economy," which, as we all know, equals carbon taxes.
There should be no surprise here. As with Gordon Brown's sell off of the nations gold assets, the present government clearly enjoys asset stripping the nation.
And yet, the BBC does not seem to think any of this effects you or I.
Neither, apparently, does the Cabbage Patch Kid.
