The pain is Spain – it’s the Banks who are to blame (2)

Spain's fourth-largest bank, Bankia, has asked the government for a bailout worth 19bns Euros ($24bn; £15bn).

In addition Bankia has restated its results now saying it made a 2.98bn-euro loss for 2011 rather than the 309m Euros in profit it announced in February.

On Friday, trading in Bankia shares was suspended on the Madrid stock exchange while its management put together a restructuring plan.

The woes of the Spanish housing market are well documented but this latest development has far wider implications.

Time and again we are seeing reports coming from the Banking sector where massive losses have been established and yet it would appear nobody was monitoring these developments. It is all rather reminiscent of the old variety act where a performer started to spin a sequence of plates as long as he could keep running and adjusting the spinning plates all was well but as soon as he stopped the whole scenario collapsed. So it is with the Banking system.

Apart from the ineptitude of the senior personnel at the Banks whose total pre-occupation would appear to have been the size of their bonus pot one also has to question the role of the Auditors in all of these debacles.

The tragedy is that we all remain in thrall to the architects of these disasters.