In message 3, at
16:40:01 on Sun, 8 Jun 2008, Paul Treadaway
remarked:

And when things would fall by the wayside (e.g. Northern Rock), it
often isn't politically possible to let that happen.

I'll add Railtrack to that. In theory such "rescues" distort the market,
but people generally aren't very happy dealing with the consequences of
simply letting the market solve the problem.
--
Roland Perry