News from the Music Industry

music stops, The

Now Kirch’s bankers may end up owning the cars, which would be all right if they were in business for fun and not money. Barclays once found itself owning a steam-yacht. The banks must hope that the assets of Enron and all their other bad debtors will be more saleable. They have tried the effect of wrapping their loans up and selling them on to each other, but we shall see who is left with the parcel now that the music has stopped. Some will lose their nerve and some will have lost their money. In Japan, it all happened years ago, and it may be beginning to happen in Germany. In this country, lenders are still saturating the housing market, in the belief that it is thirsty for money and accident-proof. Here, too, at some point the music will stop.