Hi pugnacious,
Well, I think that's wishful thinking on the Fin's part. For a start, the profit on the spread trade wouldn't make much of a mark on the losses the banks are making.
Second, if there was any real appetite in such a trade for profit-making purposes, I reckon that the banks would arbitrage it down to it's natural level pretty quick.
A bank can make profits on the margin by playing this game, but it'd take them years to work themselves out of insolvency that way.
