More on Barclays

From Gillian Tett:

(...) Most notably, by selling those $12.3bn assets to Protium, what Barclays is essentially doing is taking a pile of toxic items out of its front room (ie the balance sheet) and stuffing it into an entity that is not inside the house (the garage, or cellar).

(...) For the really dirty secret that currently bedevils the whole financial reform debate is that the more that regulators force banks to clean up their “front rooms” (ie regulated activity), the greater the risk that activity will flee to unregulated corners of finance – if nothing else because financiers have little desire to subject their pay to public scrutiny.