Just like the crash of October 1929, investors poured more money into the black hole and lost everything. Seems to me Brown is acting like the speculators of 1929. If Brown loses the £500bn, what then? Will he resign? of course not!! Failure is rewarded in this government just like the banks!!

Louis , Liverpool, UK

STOP this madeness.
STOP this useless government now.
They got us into this mess, so they should resign.

Np, England, UK (while we have food)

Time to WAKE UP from the "rational thought depression" that has plagued the western world. Does anyone really believe they can switch their mind off for so long and then expect the world to be a better place when they finally recover from mass moral ambivalence? The world is all our responsibility.

NDG, Tokyo, Japan

BROWN WILL BRING THIS COUNTRY TO ITS KNEES BEFORE HE ADMITS FAULT. He ashumes that he has led this country through ten years of growth, when all he had done was simply borrow money from banks. Now its time to pay the pipper. He cannot do that without the taxpayer.
BROWNS FAULT . FOOLS PARADISE !!!!

Denzil, Coventry, UK

why make an exception of Landsbanki?
Does someone special have investments there?

Neil Kefford, Much Wenlock,

i agree, the governement shouldn't bail the bank, after all 1929 was not that bad...but maybe we're all to young to remember it...quick let's all go to the bank and withdraw so we can see the world collapse...

eric, charleroi, Belgium

£500 bn? - I don't think so! - get your figures right.

Anthony Smales, Beverley, UK

Finally the government has stepped in with the right move. hopefully we can see this crisis improving and at the end the government making some profit on the shares they invest in with taxpayer money. in my honest opinion every one is a winner.

Mo, London, UK

Lets hope this isn't an American style bailout. I'd hope that Brown and Darling would use the same model that saved the Scandinavian banking system some years ago as it was very successful. It's seems that this may be it.

Andrew Doyle, Manchester,

I understand that we have to do somthing to help the banks but this is one hell of a gamble, if we have so much money spare to help out the banks how come we can't cut fuel duty or give tax breaks to the hard hit workers of the uk? after all we are all strugelling under crippeling price rises.

Kieran McGowan, milton keynes, england uk

How come a country of 60million is forking out more than the US 300m ?? What the hell has gone on ? Who was a sleep at the controls Gordon ! The NuLabour experiment is over and like their glorious NHS is going to cost us all the earth.

Nick, London, UK

Its 50bn

Andrew, wiltshire, uk

Am I missing something,but if the banks are bust,and they are been bailed out by the government,who,according to Teletext,are going to borrow the money,guaranteed by the taxpayer,where is this bank ? Could not this bank lend money straight back to the banks that need it,and not involve me?

Peter Gee, Hull.E.Yorks, England

I am not aware that there has been any debate in Parliament on this bailout. Regardless of circumstances, this is quite inexcusable and underlines the ineptitude of the current administration.

Jon, London,

The government may have well just dug a big whole and dropped the cash in and left it there to rot.
That money will be swollowed up buy the banks and then they will be back for more before the year is out. and nothing we do no matter how much we throw at it will stop this depression.

MoneyMan, The City, UK

What climate catastrophe Toby? Does it matter what Gordon Brown or Darling do? Are they ever going to be right? Lets face it, these chaps cant do right for doing wrong. How about a bit of patriotism and a bit of support. What would help the most is if everyone would STOP BEING SO NEGATIVE!

David, London, UK

-"Why don't we get the same response to the climate catastrophe?"

Simple. Because there ISN'T a climate catastrophe!

Tony Pritchard, Cancun, Mexico

As a self-employed renter with no children and no pension, with small savings at risk, who has not participated in this orgy of speculation and credit - could someone please let me know why i should bother to get up for work again?

Tax Cow, Stafford, UK

Why is it that one gets the feeling that Gordon 'Billy Liar' Brown is to wisdom,competence and honesty what Icarus was to safe air travel ? where is John Prescott when we need him ??

Bryan, Totland, UK

The press keep quoting the cost per tax payer on implementing the bailout. However, what they fail to say is that, not all tax is from taxpayers, most of it comes from corporations/businesses. Additionally, these bailouts might/should make money in the long run as well as reduce economic woes.

R, London,

When the BANKS take loan of our monies, when do we the Taxpayers get our Share Certificates so that in the future we can if so desired sell them and make a healthy return on the Loan we have invested, or will it just be another bail out for the Fat Cats and hide the inadequacies of this Government

Kelvin Beeston, Newcastle-under-Lyme, England

For once the government have got it right.

GPC, Cambridge, UK

Are people really feeling the pinch?
One must wonder when the most read story is the new clickable touchscreen Blackberry and not the £500Bn bailout.
Do the public deserve to be saved?
£500Bn would by a lot of gadgets for each and every person on the UK.

Matt, Antibes, france

Last time I looked the UK national debt was around £500 Billion and that't taken previous governments over 300 years to build up!

This number is utterly astonishing, we alredy pay £30 Billion of our money to pay interest on the existing debt each year!

Rick, Manchester,

why should the taxpayer have to bail out banks when it was their greed that got us all into the mess in the first place the bankers should sink or swim like any other business has to do and if they lose their place on the banking gravy train TOUGH they don,t deserve a penny of our money

brian rice, halifax, ENGLAND

Rob, as to the debate. Debate? They came up with a plan within two weeks for a problem that has simmered for years?
They added pork to get the house to pass it.

Dick I believe every country should remove their troops from Iraq.

Laurance, Sequim, U.S.of A.

I'm not paying a single penny more in tax. I'm self-employed and there's no way on God's Earth I am shelling out for this at 48% of my income.

CraigF, Edinburgh, UK

If we don't have enough money to build prisons, to look after our elderly, to properly fund the NHS and to sort out our crippling transport problems, how come we have £500 bilion going spare?
Where exactly is this coming from?

How is biased bailing out "being responsible", as Brown says we shld be?

Laura Roberts, London, UK

How does this Government which keeps on saying they cant afford anything and needs to up taxes keep inventing all these billions of pounds from nowhere?

Martin, England,

Brown's back doing what he enjoys most: spending lots of other peoples money

P.Wilson, Brighton,

Will the publics' loaned money flow, returned from the bank be open to public scrutiny? I would not like the money to be discretely used to start to pay for other government failures to act, such as the public sector pension scheme.

Mark, Yorkshire,

We are seeing a de-facto Nationalisation of retail banking. If Central Banks were doing the job of licencing properly this type of crash could never happen. The effect of the big bailout will be inflation - good for debtors but bad news for creditors and savers.

Good luck everyone.

Bruce Clark, Redditch, UK

is the government going to bail out businesses that fail regardless of which sector? Given the bankers have clearly displayed their inability to perform one would expect city bonuses to be in line with actual performance ie not a lot.

Scott, London, UK

"The £50 billion is to buy shares and therefore we will have a stake in the banks and we will get the upside in the appropriate cases from what we have done."

Good luck with that investment! Since when did the government get the right to trade stocks with taxpayers money??

Richard, Roquebrune, France

This is absolutely wrong. Businesses are born and grow, as they grow they become inefficient. Eventually they die or are taken over. We should not try to stop this natural life cycle. We are damaging the future of the next generation of young businesses and our economy.

graham, Stoke-on-Trent, UK

Who are these important people who have "lost confidence and trust in the financial system"? Wouldn't it be much cheaper to replace these whimps with people who do have confidence and trust in the financial system. Surely that wouldn't cost £500billion.

se, wigan,

So.. Have I got this right.? The government is taking my money to give to the Banks so they can lend back it to me.. And charge interest. !!
Doh..

Barry, Midhurst, UK

Does anyone other than me think this rescue package will not make any difference. It will stabalise the market for the next 2 weeks, but it'll all be raising its head once confidence drops again. Now we have inflation spiralling and a recession for certain due to all this. Oooh and the 0.5% rate cut

Johnny, Lancaster, UK

In recent days countries have pumped billions into the markets, yet share prices continued to tumble, so where exactly has all that money gone? Has anyone in authority offered an explanation?

Chris K, Cheltenham, UK

Sep 2005 IMF report warning over £1 trillion mountain of debt
Sep 2005 Brown besieged over growth and borrowing plans
Dec 2005 IMF fires new warning over Britain's finances
Sep 2006 IMF warns over UK property crash
Oct 2007 IMF report UK house market is 'heading for crash'
Apr 2008 IMF: UK vulnerable to US-style housing slump

Jeremy Poynton, Frome, England

The first thing to do is reduce politicians wages. Salaries should be performance related, but then if they were, Brown & co would owe us money!!!!

Elisa, Deal, UK

instead of running our govenment down i think they deserve a hand for doing quickly what the americans bickered over and with no deals or sweetners they come out with more respect from the working public, those who run them down should have a long look at whats really happening.

lee, marlow,

So much for no more boom & bust. Brown has built an economy on sand, and now people ar eprobably about to get poorer than they have been for years. I wonder if the blind public will continue voting Labour?

Matt, Norwich, uk

Surely to goodness the Queen , as Head of State ought now to just say "ENOUGH" and dissolve parliament. If she's not there as a guarantor that a goverenment that goes bonkers will be removed what is she for? Otherwise this nutter (Brown) will sell us all to pay for the city's crimiality.

O Cromwell, London, Republic of Greedania

Toby - a really good point. At day's end, money talks. Perhaps when climate change strikes with equal ferocity, the chancellor will set some wedge on the table ... but of course you and I know that it will be too late at that point. What will the govt. do? Send blocks of ice to the north pole?

Paul Tinker, Henley-on-Thames, UK

You are at the cashpoint and no money comes out. The supermarket wont take your debit card for the weekly shop. How close were/are we to that? The masses will expect the gov to do something as they always do. There would be mass panic and civil unrest. Options what options? This is a cheap deal

Robina Hood, london,

Browns behaving like a broker. A small player,
trying to compete with the big boys and throwing
evermore money into a hole.

Mr Brown is only talking about limiting exe pay,
as opposed to sackings, is UNBELIEVABLE.

M Walker, Nr Bromsgrove, Worcs

Good news for the indebted British public. Your debts, bank charges and refunds plus your mortgage have all been nationalised so stop paying back your mortgages and other debts becuase no Govt is going to resposses you as it would be political suicide for both Labour and Tories.

Rupert, London, UK

I owe the banks my mortagage and now through my taxes I am lending them money, or to be more precise the govt are borrowing it on my behalf.

Whats the betting that I will lose out on this?

Russ, Glasgow,

The alternative for all of us was just melt down if this was not put in place. They are also right to resist giving blanket "guarantees" on savings. Risk and control go together and a blanket guarantee would give all the risk to us and the control to the banks. Congratulations to GB and AD!

John, Eastbourne,

I think its a much better plan than the americans came up with in buying £50billion in shares in the banks once everything improves the tax payers will benifit.. well the government will i'm not sure the pax payers will see it.

pat, lon,

Where are those windfall taxes now?

Mike L, Chippenham,

Beggar-thy-Neighbour!

Bjoern Werner, Nuremberg, Germany

it's such good news that we appear to have an unlimited supply of magic money. now we can buy all the magic beans we want. apart from magic beans can we buy anything real with it? now bank robbery has a whole new meaning

peter c, Devizes, Wessex

I resent big time having to cough up ANY of my tax to these wastrels. They've proved they can't manage it safely. What do governments do when my (and everyone elses) £8000 is all spent and piled up as fatcat bonuses in a Swiss bank?

They'll just give them more, obviously. Old boy network anyone?

Steve, London,

Always look on the bright side: The population is now starting to decline because Britain is too expensive. That's gotta be good, huh?

Ok, so nobody will have a job, but at least we'll be able to find a parking space at the Post Office when we get our unemployment payment.

Mark, Maidstone, UK

And the stock markets are still going down, the city and the speculators now being bailed out are the real enemy they are moving the markets up & down without any logic to business
activity, close down the 'Casino' until we have stability

bob, watford, uk

At least the american senate had the decency to debate their bailout. Seems that Brown and co have been blackmailed into it by the bankers and cobbled together a 'plan' amonst themselves.
Shouldn't the North sea fishermen have got a sweetner like the Alaskans?

rob, ashbourne, uk

So to fund this £500 billion, are we going to reduce foreign spending? Remove troops from Iraq and Afghanistan?

Or put up taxes, more like!!!

Dick Johnson, Ely, UK

£500 billion for a population of about 60 million.. Thats well over £8000 for every man, woman and child in the country! What a gamble.. Why don't we get the same response to the climate catastrophe?

Toby, London, UK