The banks are being bailed out, the citizens are being fleeced. Quelle surprise.

“A frustratingly slow economic recovery in developed nations is holding back the global economy,” pronounced the World Bank yesterday while cutting its world growth forecasts for 2013.

We’re cutting forecasts, cutting expenditure and cutting corners. But nothing’s cutting it. The Slog’s long-predicted emergence of Spanish banking reality is creeping out shock by shock. Bankia’s shareholders  may lose most of their investments and probably all of them says the Spanish bank rescue fund in its latest report.

According to the Fund for Orderly Bank Restructuring, Bankia has a negative value of 4.2 billion euros, and its parent group BFA is 10.4 bn in the red.

So now we’re cutting wealth too. Bankia is about to receive 18 bn euros of eurozone aid. But not its customers.

Greece’s banking system needs 27bn euros. Its total worth is only 22bn. Finance Minister Stournaras says bondholder hair will soon be cut too. The euro and the banks must be saved.

But not the citizens.

Greece’s environment ministry yesterday announced that the 10% electricity price (inc tax) will actually be higher still as the Public Power Corporation hands them another 2.9bn in increases. Stournaras confirmed that the Euro Working Group should next Monday approve the disbursement of the January bailout tranche, which amounts to 9.2 billion euros.

None of it will go to the citizens.

The Fed and the ECB are both verging on $4 trillion balance sheets, the total for all of the world’s central banks is $14 trillion.

This is being readied to prop up banks – not people and their livelihoods. Take a look at this from the UK’s largest financial publication, Money Week:

‘We believe the outcome of this problem is inevitable… and the recession, joblessness and instability you see right now is only the first stage of it. Many people think the slump we’re in now is as bad as it will get.

But the truth is, it’s only the start. In fact, you will certainly see the consequences of this deep-rooted problem unfold across the cities, towns and villages of Britain. No one will escape the fallout.

In all recorded history, no country has ever recovered from the financial position we find ourselves in today.  No government has ever been able to reverse this trend. No emergency action has ever come close to a solution. This inescapable problem has only ever had one outcome: financial collapse.’

Now of course, this is MW trying to attract new subscribers. But sticking their necks out this much and then being wrong won’t be good for sales.

The fact is, they’re right. It’s time to focus even more on how you and I can come out the other end of this in one piece.

The Sharp eyes of Sloggers across four continents are to be greatly thanked for contributing to this analysis.