RBS: Or get off the pot

These days, markets despise uncertainty even more than they usually do. Look at the tumble in Royal Bank of Scotland’s shares, which were down by 35% in late afternoon trading, more than thrice the decline of its UK peers. RBS’s first credit downgrade in a decade was a factor. A bigger one was the maybe-yes-maybe-no prospect of a government recapitalisation. The idea was supposedly chewed over on Monday night at a meeting attended by Alistair Darling, the UK’s chancellor of the exchequer, Mervy...