Sunday 28 September 2008

Sold Short.


"THREE MORE of Alex Salmond's economic advisers work for firms that profit from a form of share speculation the First Minister has blamed for the decline of Scotland's oldest bank. One of the companies that "short-sells" shares, Morgan Stanley, last year received a £6 million grant from the SNP Government to boost jobs in Glasgow. It has also emerged that the Scottish Government is funding another business, Timberpost, which creates artificial intelligence for short-selling firms."

Mr Salmond was wrong in his comments that "short selling" brought down HBOS. The reality was that it was bad management by those running the company which resulted in the bank's demise, but the involvement of Scottish Government advisers in the very practice Mr Salmond condemned illustrates that the Scottish Government is more obsessed with style rather than with substance than it ever has been before.

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