Brown And Fraudulent Accounting

Brown would doubtless claim that his accounting is not fraudulent. A judge might take the position that it did not contravene the Theft Act 1968. He, the judge that is might also want promotion. None the less Brown's accounting is designed to mislead, cheat and deceive. It is has precisely the same effect as fraud and it is done for the same reasons. If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and tastes like a duck it might very well be duck. And he has the insolence to complain when banks hide their assets.

From Private Eye 1220/26
IN THE BACK
PFI
Off balance and off his trolley
MUCH of the current financial crisis, claims Gordon Brown, can be put down to off balance sheet finance: the "securitization" or packaging up of debts followed by their sale to "special purpose vehicles" that appear on nobody's balance sheet.

Strange then that this July, well after Brown and chancellor Darling had started speaking out against off balance sheet finance, the Sale of Student Loans Act became law. The whole purpose of the £6.3billion sell-off is to get student loans off the government's books and put some cash into the government's coffers. But as the banks who will take over the loans will have to pay more for their funds than the government, and the government will have to make up the difference, the off-balance sheet option will end up costing the taxpayer even more than the conventional on balance sheet arrangement.

The sell-off, which a government spokesman insisted to the Eye will go ahead despite Brown's comments, involves the securitisation of the loans and onward sale to a special purpose vehicle (SPV) of exactly the sort now deemed "irresponsible", as depicted in the government's baffling "outline" plan for the scheme .
 

OFF BALANCE NUMBER CRUNCHING
£20 billion Debts moved "off balance sheet" by failed bank HBOS, of the sort Gordon Brown insists "have got to be on balance sheet"

£35 billion Government debt moved "off balance sheet" under Gordon Brown's private finance initiative.