国际货币基金组织总裁多米尼克·斯特劳斯-卡恩在2008年10月11日至12日的周末，于华盛顿的一次会议上表示：“人们对美国和欧洲若干大型金融机构偿付能力的担忧日益加剧，已将全球金融体系推至系统性崩溃的边缘。”

The head of the IMF, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, told a Washington meeting over the weekend of 11/12 October 2008: “Intensifying solvency concerns about a number of the largest US-based and European financial institutions have pushed the global financial system to the brink of systemic meltdown.”.

在伦敦，戈登·布朗和他的财政部团队与其投资银行顾问一道加班加点地工作，这些顾问包括渣打银行、摩根大通、花旗集团和瑞士信贷。在截至10月12日的那一周里，各方团队昼夜不停地寻找应对危机的方案。瑞士信贷的高级管理人员在唐宁街10号的中央大厅设立了一个临时办公室，让"权力走廊的通道"一词有了新的含义。10月12日星期一早上宣布银行救助方案时，英国报纸将其称为"Balti救助"。这一说法源自财政部团队、律师、投资银行顾问与陷入困境的银行高管们连夜会谈、敲定拯救银行和金融体系协议的场景，危机应对团队在会议期间点外卖咖喱，花费245英镑。布朗不甘落后于国会在前一周通过的7000亿美元救助方案，于是在一次黎明时分、在外卖餐盒边敲定的交易中，拼凑出了自己的方案。

In London Gordon Brown and his Treasury team were working overtime with their investment banking advisors including Standard Chartered, JP Morgan, Citigroup and Credit Suisse. During the week ending the 12th of October, teams worked around the clock to find a solution to the crisis. Senior executives from Credit Suisse set up a temporary office in the central hallway of 10 Downing Street, bringing new meaning to the term access to the corridors of power. When the announcements were made of the bank bailout Monday morning the 12th of October, British papers hailed the “Balti Bailout”. This was in reference to the late night sessions between the Treasury team, lawyers, investment bank advisors and stricken bank executives to thrash out a deal to save the banks and the system, in which the crisis teams dined on take away curries worth £245. Not wanting to be outdone by the US $700 billion bailout package that Congress had passed the week before, Brown now had his own plan cobbled together in a dawn deal done over the take-away boxes.

虽然这项7000亿美元的救助计划在国会经过第二次表决才在极大争议中获得通过,英国的救助规模至少为5000亿英镑(8500亿美元),并使政府突破了其借贷规则,而议会对此几乎没有进行实质性辩论。尽管投资银行有着巨大的既得利益,希望确保其“赌博伙伴”不致倒闭,但正是投资银行设计了这项“投资银行”救助方案。它们完全清楚,苏格兰皇家银行、巴克莱银行、哈利法克斯苏格兰银行以及其他机构都是那条漫长的衍生合约多米诺骨牌链条中的关键环节,因此除了大规模救助、“不惜一切必要手段”(引用财政大臣阿利斯泰尔·达灵的话)之外,别无其他解决办法。但若以为领先的投资银行没有同时为自身利益打算,那也未免天真——它们借此压低那些不如自己幸运的机构,让后者承担政府控制的高息优先股,以及对高管奖金和未来股息的暂停发放。美国财政部长亨利·保尔森曾任高盛首席执行官,在起草这项7000亿美元的美国银行救助计划时,很难被视为公正的人物。对于这一计划,一位财政部官员承认,7000亿美元这一数字不过是采用了“一个非常大的数字”计算得出的。

While the US$700 billion plan passed with great controversy at the second time of asking by Congress, the UK bailout would total at least £500 billion ($850 billion) and take the government beyond its borrowing rules without any significant Parliamentary debate. Despite enormous vested interests in ensuring that their “gambling buddies” did not fail, investment banks were the architects of the “investment bank” bailout plan. Knowing full well that Royal Bank of Scotland, Barclays, Halifax Bank of Scotland and others were key pieces in the long domino chain of derivative contract holders there was never going to be any other solution but a massive bailout doing “whatever was necessary” to quote from the Chancellor Alistair Darling. But it would also be naïve to assume that the leading investment banks were also not acting in their own interests by nobbling those slightly less fortunate than themselves who would be lumbered with Government controlled high rate paying preference shares and a moratorium on executive bonuses and future dividends. US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson as a former head of Goldman Sachs could hardly be seen as an impartial figure as he drew up the $700 billion US bank bailout plan. A plan for which a treasury official admitted the figure of $700 billion was calculated by merely adopting “a very large number”.

虽然同样是仓促拼凑而成，但至少英国的救助方案还有一些细节来支撑其数字，只是这些数字读来并不令人安心。

Although equally hurriedly put together at least the UK bailout had some detail to back up the number, not that the numbers made for good reading.