Dear listener,

I don’t own shares for reasons of professional independence and certainly don’t do share tips. But if I did I would be tempted to recommend investing in self-storage companies. I was shocked to realise this week that my local self-storer charges £50 a square foot a year to rent a cupboard sized room to hold all those boxes you can’t fit in at home. For less than that per square foot you can rent a serviced, heated luxurious office with one of London’s best addresses in Mayfair! So why do storage companies charge the same for a chilly unlit cupboard in a newly-built shed in the London outskirts? Let me know what you think.

A few months ago it would have been headline news. Anglo-Irish Bank has been nationalised by the Irish government. The US government has injected $20bn (£13bn) into Bank of America and promises to make good most of the losses on $118bn (£78bn) of dodgy debts. But this week the stories barely rate a footnote, so used have we become to public money being spent to bail out bankers. Once revered as the Masters of the Universe. Now we have realised they can’t even balance the books as well as a family on a tight budget. Illustrated today by the mighty Citigroup which has split itself in two after losing £5.6bn in a quarter. Will we do this story on Money Box? Can’t say at the moment. Other stories more firmly on the agenda are…

*** ON MONEY BOX THIS SATURDAY ***

Eight years after the Money Box documentary on what had gone wrong at Equitable Life the government has finally admitted its responsibility in misleading people into believing that the company was sound and well managed. And it will pay some money to some policyholders who have seen their investments fall. But how much? And to whom? And when? Eight years on these questions remain as unanswered as they were in January 2001. We try to find out more.

Tick tock tick tock. The deadline is approaching for parents to claim money back from the Revenue. It could be as much as £1,049 for parents with dependent children in 2002/03. We explain how to claim it it without giving a chunk of the cash – perhaps up to a third – to a claims management company. And remember the deadline is 31 January.

What does the £20bn of government money to help small businesses get the loans they need actually amount to?

And we ask why Standard Life has warned investors that their pension fund value has been cut by 5%.

We may not squeeze all that in and there is still a very busy Friday afternoon of news to assess. Find out what makes the programme and what ends up on the cutting room floor by tuning in (I know I am sooooo twentieth century) to Money Box. Saturday at noon, Sunday at nine pm or on the web anytime. And of course you can download or subscribe to the podcast through our website bbc.co.uk/moneybox where there is lots of exciting stuff including videos.

Best wishes,

Paul

PS Don’t forget the programme taster on BBC Breakfast between quarter to nine and nine o’clock. If you miss it, you can watch it on our website.

e-mail Paul Lewis