Like many others, for example Wat Tyler over at Burning Our Money, the writer of the Leader in yesterday’s Times is deeply unimpressed with the ongoing soap opera that is the sorry mess we call a banking system. Specifically yesterday’s Leader Writer is railing against the debacle which is the Lloyds TSB “takeover” of HBOS. These two quotes are quite telling:

Instead of steadying the financial system, the merger has further undermined it.

The episode shows a lack of foresight, competence and financial understanding; at such vast expense for the taxpayer, it is also and increasingly a public scandal.

It grieves me to be right but “I told you so!”, to the extent that as Lloyds TSB shareholders we both voted against the merger and declined to indulge in the recent Lloyds TSB share issue (at a price which was above the market rate at the time of the offer).

Sad, bitter and twisted because I’ve seen my investment go down the tubes? No, actually. We bought a small number TSB shares when it was privatised 20 years or so ago (since transmogrified into Lloyds TSB shares when these two banks merged) and we have since recouped our initial investment several times over in dividend payments. And the current share price is around what it was when we bought those shares – although that is less than 10% of its peak price. Our investment is small and luckily we can afford to lose it: never gamble with more than you can afford to lose! So no, I’m not bitter. Just annoyed at the incompetence and unprofessionalism of it all.