The Times used to be the paper of record in Britain. Not so heady status today as part of the Murdock Empire.

Not a paper I usually read but I did have a look through a copy while I was having coffee in a Starbucks on Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow yesterday.

Hanging out in Starbucks is one of those bad habits I picked up in the States

So the stories and the reaction.

Page 1.

Alex Salmond was in London having talks with Alistair Darling about the banking crisis. Seems that we are in a bidding war with Dublin over guarantees for bank savings.

The bidding war has come about because all of the world's banks are loaded with toxic debt. A reformed Bank of Scotland without any derivatives on its books wouldn't need any guarantees. The value of gold bullion and highland granite is obvious for all to see.

Scotland would be a safe banking haven in these troubled times. The money on deposit could be invested in Scotland without any trips to Dubai with begging bowl in hand.

Page 2 Editorial

"The Paulson plan was, as President Bush noted, "a big plan for a big problem".....(Congress) must reassure Main Street that its hard-earned tax dollars will not vanish into golden parachutes. And they must show that they are not exploiting the whole mess for political gain".

Since the $700 billion was headed for the parachute factory, this isn't going to happen.

Page 4.

"Scots prisons at breaking point".

Seems that Scotland is going to get "executive release", a common solution to the overcrowding problem in England and Wales.

The simple solution is to rebalance the scales of justice. Make prison time a serious deterent. We will establish penal colonies on Mingulay for men and Pabay for women.

Page 5.

"The Masters of the Universe are dethroned".

"Yet Wall Street has changed for ever, and everyone on it knows"

This isn't true.

The forces that at the heart of capitalism are the same as they always have been. Greed and Fear.

Gordon Gekko in the movie Wall Street had the famous line "Greed is good".

For an effective market place, Fear is better.

The wimps on Wall Street rush off to Washington whenever there is a market correction and demand a bail out at taxpayer expense.

All they need this time around is $700 billion to make them feel better.

This sort of political action undermines the forces of the market place. Big companies have to be allowed to fail.

There has been a lot of Greed on Wall Street over the past fifteen years. It will take a lot of Fear to balance the equation and return sense to the trading room floors of Wall Street.

Page 11.

Well done the Gurkhas and shame on a government that forced them into Court.

Page 15

Mistakes happen in any sphere of life. The families of the men who died in the fatal Clyde tug sinking should not have to call for a Public Inquiry.

We need a simplified, routine procedure to review such incidents, learn the lessons from any mistakes and act in whatever way necessary including legislation to make sure that the mistakes are not repeated.

Page 23

If sea eagle diet has broadened to include lamb, DNA analysis of the pellets by an independent body would provide the evidence.

If sea eagles are killing lambs, crofters must be compensated.

Page 26

It seems that part of the current US economic problem is a change in accountancy standards.

The old approach was to estimate the cash flow from loans on a long term basis. The new way is to "mark to market".

To quote Anatole Kaletsky, the author of the opinion piece, "Under this new approach, promoted passionately by conservative fianciers and academics who believe that "the market is always right", banks base their profits not on how much income they expect to receive in the future but on how much money they could raise immediately if they sold all their loans and mortgages in the market at the best price they could fetch."

Anatole advocates a return to the Alice in Wonderland world of make believe where banks guestimate their profits and shareholders are always happy.

Wrong!

The problem is that governments around the world are interfering in the financial markets. That is not the role of government in a capitalist society.

We are in the current pickle because of a failure of democracy in the US. Big money from the financial institutions of Wall Street subverted the passage of regulations which would have controlled the excesses.

Big Wall Street money is again active in the American Congress in the fight for a $700 billion rescue package. Another failure of democracy.

Two wrongs cannot make a right.

Government has a role in regulating the financial markets. Government has no role in the markets themselves.

Bail outs at taxpayer expense distort the markets.

You do have a say in what is going on. Your vote counts in the next election!

Page 27

Camilla Cavendish is Polyanna. She believes in a financial Rambo where "America will save the world Hollywood-style".

Her heroes are Hank Paulson, the US Treasury Secretary and Ben Bernanke, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve.

She thinks that taxpayer bail outs of rich investors are good.

The list is long and getting longer.

Bradford & Bingley in the UK; Glitnir in Iceland; Hypo Real Estate in Germany; Dexia in Belgium and France; the Irish banking system; Fortis rescued by the Dutch, Belgian and Luxembourg governments.

Her perceived benefits from all of this taxpayer largesse - "they have not destroyed the capital structures".

But if the capital structures are wrong, preserving them doesn't achieve any worthwhile long term goal.

It may not be pretty to watch, but the market place has the ability to change and adapt.

If governments interfere, this natural process cannot happen and we will have economies dominated by large failed institutions.

Page 38

Vladimir Putin, the Prime Minister of Russia is having a tough time as the financial crisis reaches Russia. The Russian stock market has been suspended for the fourth day in a fortnight.

He has an interesting dilema. Micro-manage the economy and the markets in a hybrid capitalist/communist model, combining the worst of East and West. Or go against all of his instincts and let the Russian markets flourish unfettered by the state hand.

Page 50

An interesting take on the banking crisis from Carl Mortished.

With money in short supply, corporations are finding creative ways to by-pass the central log jam.

"There is however, a supply of liquidity available in the corporate sector, the proceeds of years of strong corporate profits and built-up reserves. This money could be tapped if there was a market that functioned effectively to match those flush with cash with firms requiring short-term funds."

"This is the proper function of banks. It is what they were created to do - match borrowers and lenders - but these institutions have erected on top of that simple business a tower of investment activity that has nothing to do with being a simple clearing house for funds. So overburdened are these banks from their activities as principal investors, as opposed to simple money agencies, that they have destroyed their fundamental purpose, to be effective conduits of funds."

"Ingenuity is required in times of crisis and, if the banking sector has lost its bottle, others must step in. Few corporates would wish to risk their balance sheets in setting up banks, but perhaps the time has come for an independent clearing house for commercial lending, owned by the borrowers - an instutution that has no function but to match lenders and borrowers. It sounds primitive but these are primitive times"