[humhumhum]

The problem with this view is twofold:

- what was the agreed rate of return at the time the loan was given?

- To maintain your image: why was the house on fire? Was it perhaps because of the enormous centralization of the financial market in the previous decades, combined with a massive deregulation, starting in the 80s? (your facade comment rings odd given the Grenfell Tower disaster)

The loans were given because the large financial institutions weren't able to make the profits they promised to their shareholders. The money which, no matter how you look at it, was free at the time, was an intervention in order to mediate the profit issue. That now ten years after the fact some of this money came back (of course shareholder returns were always prioritized during these years), is not a success by any means neither in terms of ROI nor in any others I could come up with.

Indicating that opportunity costs that are related to central government tasks in a democracy (education, health, infrastructure) are some form of luxury, only normalizes oligarchic structures.