Anybody keen for a loan of $380 billion at, let’s say, an interest rate of 3.4 per cent?

Sounds nice eh? Well, you the taxpayer are in the process of actually making such a loan. Or at least you will soon extend, most kindly if as yet unwittingly, such a credit facility to the big banks, to be used at any time, at their discretion.

Only the big banks have access to the bailout fund.

Yes, it is execptionally generous, the so-called Committed Liquidity Facility, which is in effect a permanent bailout facility which comes into play in 2015.

In a story somewhat interred in the inside pages of the AFR this morning, Christopher Joye makes the point that this massive line of credit is unusual and generous by global banking standards and it has been established with “no public debate”.