Let the banks go to the wall not BA!
Frankly the whole Northern Rock fiasco sickens me, as does the gilded cage mentality that surrounds the 'City of London' These are the very people who have speculatively driven oil prices to ludicrous levels and hurt industry and consumers, charged ludicrous sums of money to companies (such as BA etc on brokerage and advisory fees) and then pay their barrow boy workforce millions of pounds in bonuses every year.
The city and the banks are a parasite on the back of society who reap huge rewards when times are good and then are incapable of weathering the storm when things go bad due to their own poor mismanagement. As a taxpayer I say let Northern Rock go to the wall, let the banks collapse, let them make tens of thousands of overpaid gits redundant, in short let them reap what they sow like every other darned industry has to.
I have a pal who recently joined one of the big banks after a career at a leading airline. He has said to me that the profligacy and waste has to be seen to be believed and he has just had a bonus equal to half his already large annual salary - and this at a time when the banks are supposedly 'hurting' - they don't know the meaning of the word!
I'd rather see taxpayers money used to save XL than pumped into these financial institutions.
As for BA going bust, I'd say we're more likely to be swallowed up by a black hole centred on Geneva!
Desk-pilot