UK Future

[Shrubby]

Roy
The speculative side of banking will make money in a volatile market, they have invented so many complex derivatives that they can't fail to.
Have a look at Goldman Sachs' involvemnet in Greece's debt
Spiegel, Forbes,Telegraph, Guardian and many others have covered it
Don't get me started on defence procurement
Matt

 

[Digit]

Greece has already written down some of its debt by 60%?, in essence, a devaluation, as I see it that means that considerably less money will be returned than was borrowed, so somebody loses.
If the Euro goes down it is likely that Spain, Portugal, Greece, Italy and possibly Ireland will devalue their currency also, as I understand it only some of the Euro's debts are underwritten by non-governmental groups, in fact the EU has been pleading with them to help.
As I understand it most of the debts are owed to governments and the IMF, therfore I fail to see how money will be made in sufficient quantity that Brian's 'markets', or the Jews or the Illuminaty will profit.
If the markets were that damaging then governments could take action by taxing them.
So I still don't get it.

Roy.

 

[Modernist]

I don't think we have the resources for a tutorial on investment banking here. Suffice to say there are organisations who profit at the expense of the value of the Euro. Do you remember Black Wednesday?

The point of the original thread was and is that our position in this machine was workable but is now insignificant and there will be an economic cost as a result. Further this was the result of............said it all before. I'm off to do some useful work, manufacturing and exporting.

 

[Lons]

The UK is the fourth largest contributor, behind Germany, France and Italy. That's why it's ignored by all of the German press.

So: As Italys financial situation is dire and France isn't that far behind, who exactly is funding these "contributions"?

Mrs Merkal wanted a full blown treaty and had stated so.
Sarkosy wanted to avoid ratification, and stated so.
DC wanted to look after a British institution.
Now unless they were all living a troglodyte existance they all knew each other's position.
Sarkosy stated before they met that DC's concerns would not even be discussed. He new that meant that DC would use the veto or back down, was he gambling or was there a deeper cause?
Sky net reported that certain sections of the French press stated that Sarkosy 'played' DC.
In other words he used DC to defeat the German's wishes as a treaty requires all to agree.
So why would he do that?
He is facing an election in ...March? and was playing to his voters etc same as DC.
Why would Sarkosy wish to avoid a treaty, probably because getting all member states to ratify such a treaty is likely to be impossible.
Merkal knows that as well, so why would she want a treaty? She also is facing an election soon and the German constitution will not permit her to enable a treaty without ratification. The obvious reason for her view, not necessarily the correct one of course, is that she does not want the responsibilty of a refusal.
A further point that is generally ignored is that the Council meeting decided nothing in detail, that is left to others to work out before presentation.
Next point, as I understand it the agreement that was reached was to establish a legal framework for control of debts etc.
Please note that it seems not to have addressed in any way how to deal with the Eurozone's current indebtedness.

I'm with you Digit


Having been away, I've only just managed to read the whole thread and come to the conclusion that some contributors have missed their vocation. All the twisting, blame and mud slinging smacks of politicians in the making :lol: :lol: :lol:

Bob

 

[devonwoody]

And you Europhiles.

allow EU to control your taxes means that Brussels will spend it for you and good socialists principles will mean that Roumania, Poland etc. will get large portions of your tax deductions instead of being spent in UK.

Eh. and wait for it, Russia will apply for membership sometime in the future, Coooooorh.

 

[Sawyer]

If they are so powerful why don't they solve the problem?
Roy.

Because they don't want to: it would mean scrapping capitalism. Under the present system, the constant cycle of boom and bust is inevitable: but the people who really run the show (no democracy involved, of course) will always succeed in hanging on to their ill-gotten gains while the rest of the world suffers.

Doubtless, we will end up paying for the current mess, the 1% will emerge unscathed, there will be a war or two (profitable for some) and in about ten years' time, be in the same place all over again.

 

[Digit]

Sawyer and Brian. I pointed out earlier that some time ago the EU governments were pleading with the financial institutions to take on more of Greece's debts, they being apparently reluctant to do so. How does that fit with arguments that this all down to the wicked bankers?
And may I please once again state the bleeding obvious that the borrower who borrows more than he can repay is the culprit as I see it.
If lending money to a bankrupt country makes money for the 'markets' why are they not lending more, is it because they stand to lose more by doing so or is that too simplistic?
I have asked similar questions of the anti-semite and the conspiracy supporter about the illuminaty, in both cases all they can tell me is that 'you don't understand!'
Yep!

Roy.

 

[BigShot]

The markets don't make money. They are not some malevolent force working against us. Importantly, they are not the 1%.
Boom and bust is caused by market manipulation, that is, inflation, taxation, government borrowing, governments using and encouraging steady increases in house pricing and so on.

Derivatives aren't a big deal and as they only make money from other people involved in trading stocks, commodities, currencies and so on. You shouldn't care that someone made a killing from shorting FTSE when thing went wobbly back in 2008 because unless you were playing that game (or had an incompetent playing it for you) and got it wrong, it didn't cost you.

What cost you and will cost the next 2 or 3 generations *at best* was meddling in the markets and trying to have a capitalist system without the downside.

If you want someone to blame, blame your politicians for breaking capitalism by being willing to bail out companies that should have gone to the wall. Blame your politicians for being pathologically incapable of running a balanced budget through one of the biggest economic booms of all time, inflating the public sector and piling on debts bigger than we had at the end of WW2. Blame your politicians for being so afraid of reality the they won't even admit the scale of the problem they (or "the party opposite") caused that they are basing our current "austerity" measures on consideration of just ONE TENTH of our real commitments.

The bankers did what they could get away with. If capitalism had worked as it should have some would have gone to the wall. Some people would have lost money, most wouldn't and things would improve. Instead mountains of money yet to be earned by us, our kids or our grandkids has been poured into banks in order to stop that happening, resulting in more pain and bigger losses felt across the board.

If you want answers, don't bicker about newspapers. Don't bicker about some fanciful ideas about "markets", Jews or the Illuminati. Instead get angry with your politicians because (make no mistake about this) they caused 99% of the problems facing us today.

 

[devonwoody]

Inflation will cure the above mentioned at a stroke. :wink:

 

[BigShot]

Must... resist...!
Haha.

On a related note, did you know that in the earpy days of America the punishment for reducing the amount of silver in minted coins (so making more money for a given amount of backing... which is what, class?) was death?
I'm no believer in capital punishment, but I share the sentiment.

 

[Digit]

On the Press Review on last night's Sky News the Guardian reporter was complaining about 'misleading' reporting by the Express which has a headline about us being wanted to provide 30 billion to bail out the Euro. The article states that it is to fund another IMF attempt to..... bail out the Euro.
So here again it is non-'market' intervention. If the 'markets' could make money out of bailing out the Euro why does the IMF needed to go round cap in hand again?

Roy.

 

[Sawyer]

Browsing the net the other day, I found a downloadable report entitled: 'Euro Meltdown - how to make astronomical profits from the crisis'. :evil:

Casino capitalism got us into this mess in the first place and even now, people are seeking to profit. When their greed overreaches itself, everyone suffers. Eg. the sub-prime lending. Yes, Roy, borrowers need to be responsible, but so do lenders and seeking to make a fast buck out of someone who is unlikely to be able to pay is asking for trouble.

Whatever happens, expect another fine mess in roughly 10 years time. 20 years time. 30 years time. Unless of course, humanity destroys itself and the planet first.

 

[Digit]

If borrowers didn't go looking for loans they can't repay they wouldn't get them, next you'll be blaming the corner shop owner for lung cancer, personal responsiblity seems to be a thing of the past.
I note today that the Czech PM stated that he and the Hungarian PM would be unlikely to sign up for the new EU initiative unless the tax harmonisation clause was abandoned, seems that where HMG led others will follow.

Roy.

 

[Karl]

but so do lenders and seeking to make a fast buck out of someone who is unlikely to be able to pay is asking for trouble.

I think the problems which have arisen to date are as a result of these dodgy loans being wrapped up in financial instruments so complex that the people who made them up don't understand them. Which is why they weren't bothered about whether the loans were good or not (hence the explosion of the Sub Prime sector). In Robert Peston's excellent programme the other night - RBS bought ABN Amro, thinking it to have an asset base of £billion's. When everything was unravelled, it was pretty much worth £Nil.

Cheers

Karl

 

[Digit]

And Greece is supposed to have used some very dodgy accounting to have got into the Euro in the first place, so distrusted were they that before the most recent cash handover took place the EU sent in accountants to look at Greece's books. But seeing as the EU hasn't been able to get its own accounts approved for 17? yrs....

Roy.

 

[soulboy]

Must... resist...!
Haha.
On a related note, did you know that in the earpy days of America.

would that be the wyatt earpy days? :twisted:
dont mean any offence BigShot, too pedantic for my own good. chris

 

[RogerS]

The markets don't make money. They are not some malevolent force working against us. Importantly, they are not the 1%.
Boom and bust is caused by market manipulation, that is, inflation, taxation, government borrowing, governments using and encouraging steady increases in house pricing and so on.

Derivatives aren't a big deal and as they only make money from other people involved in trading stocks, commodities, currencies and so on. You shouldn't care that someone made a killing from shorting FTSE when thing went wobbly back in 2008 because unless you were playing that game (or had an incompetent playing it for you) and got it wrong, it didn't cost you.

What cost you and will cost the next 2 or 3 generations *at best* was meddling in the markets and trying to have a capitalist system without the downside.

If you want someone to blame, blame your politicians for breaking capitalism by being willing to bail out companies that should have gone to the wall. Blame your politicians for being pathologically incapable of running a balanced budget through one of the biggest economic booms of all time, inflating the public sector and piling on debts bigger than we had at the end of WW2. Blame your politicians for being so afraid of reality the they won't even admit the scale of the problem they (or "the party opposite") caused that they are basing our current "austerity" measures on consideration of just ONE TENTH of our real commitments.

The bankers did what they could get away with. If capitalism had worked as it should have some would have gone to the wall. Some people would have lost money, most wouldn't and things would improve. Instead mountains of money yet to be earned by us, our kids or our grandkids has been poured into banks in order to stop that happening, resulting in more pain and bigger losses felt across the board.

If you want answers, don't bicker about newspapers. Don't bicker about some fanciful ideas about "markets", Jews or the Illuminati. Instead get angry with your politicians because (make no mistake about this) they caused 99% of the problems facing us today.

Oh God..where do I start? At random...

Derivatives aren't a big deal and as they only make money from other people involved in trading stocks, commodities, currencies and so on. You shouldn't care that someone made a killing from shorting FTSE when thing went wobbly back in 2008 because unless you were playing that game (or had an incompetent playing it for you) and got it wrong, it didn't cost you.

For every trade where someone makes money, someone else loses and that affects ultimately you and me.

What they are trading are intangible. You cannot touch them. In themselves they offer no intrinsic value to society. The whole world financial system was based on a sea of sand. Entire economies...see Iceland...were built on these ephemeral objects. Politicians did not create them....they might have allowed the regulatory system to be too lax (pace Brown and his little loose governance triumvirate)...but it was the banks that created this monster. And it is this monster....nothing but nothing else...that has got us into this situation.

Of course, they were aided and abetted by everyone who wanted to buy a house, take out a credit card, run up massive credit bills because it was made so so easy.

 

[Digit]

I think we are tending to talk on two different subjects, personal debts versus government debts, this is the BBC's take on Greece....

http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j& ... IQ&cad=rja

... the market, ie, banks, simply are not taking up Greece's debts, we are!
As even France now seems to be having second thoughts on their cobbled up agreement, what chance Greece and the rest of the Eurozone?

Roy.

 

[BigShot]

Soulboy - I don't know how I missed that one. :lol:
What an appropriate typo. I got a good laugh out of that so thanks.


RogerS - stocks, commodities, derivatives, futures, forex... the whole thing is built on the same principle of profit and loss as derivatives. You can't separate derivatives out from the rest in an outrage against someone profiting while someone else loses. What's your alternative? Yet more (bigger and more expensive government)? State ownership of everything?


We need governments to STOP bailing out private businesses. When they fail they should fail with heavy consequences for those who mae it or allowed it to happen. That is, those in charge of them at the time.
Corner shops, chains, franchises, supermarkets, manufacturing firms and more besides operate on a simple principle. Do it right and succeed, do it wrong and go out of business. It is this that stops them doing really stupid things and getting stung. it's also that that punishes those who do it wrong.
The simple fact that the banks and bundles that caused the lending crisis (along with an inflated housing market and so on) were acting in full knowledge that there was almost no chance at all that they were "too big to fail" is the reason they were so reckless.

They were a major cause - but they were only that cause because our governments are so utterly clueless about how capitalism works and so utterly irresponsible with their power and so derelict in their duty that they produced a situation where this whole mess could happen in the first place.

Without the downside, capitalism is a complete monster - and it's the governments which have removed that downside. They deserve the totality of our anger.

As someone who should really know about these things famously said "if they're too big to fail, they're too big".

 

[devonwoody]

Dont you lot side with me, inflation will cure the problem.

Afterall Germany knows all about it, remember they had 1000% inflation or what ever figure it was, and twelve years later had a fighting machine that nearly conquered Europe in the 40's.

(They apparently found 50 billion euros in one of the banks (last week) they had taken over last year, they know how to cure debt problems :wink: