pongo Posted September 30, 2008 Share Posted September 30, 2008 Irish government guarantees banks Clicky Covers branches over here too. Do you live in the UK Mutley? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amadeus Posted September 30, 2008 Share Posted September 30, 2008 How much is $700 Billion? More than the whole of the iraq war it seems Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mutley Posted September 30, 2008 Share Posted September 30, 2008 How much is $700 Billion? More than the whole of the iraq war it seems Goes to show what a waste of money the Vietnam war was too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gladys Posted September 30, 2008 Share Posted September 30, 2008 Irish government guarantees banks Clicky Covers branches over here too. Do you live in the UK Mutley? According to the press release I saw today, the Irish Govenrment's guarantee covers accounts held with IOM branches/subsidiaries of Irish banks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chinahand Posted October 1, 2008 Share Posted October 1, 2008 I don't know if its available behind the subscription wall, but Martin Wolf in the FT sums up the crisis pretty well as far as I can make out. Clicky We are watching the disintegration of the financial system. Finance is the web of intermediation binding economic agents to one another, across both space and time. Without it, no modern economy can survive. Yet that is now threatened, with the ongoing collapse in trust and flight to safety. We can indeed run this experiment. But why should we? Even before Congress rejected the plan, the spread in dollars between the London interbank offered rate and expected official rates (as shown in overnight indexed swaps) had reached more than 200 basis points, for a period as short as three months. Prior to the start of the crisis in August 2007, the spread was negligible. (See chart.) Nor is this all: on Monday short-term yields on Treasury bills were below 1 per cent; credit default swap spreads on financial institutions reached exceptional levels and credit spreads on riskier bonds were widening rapidly. In the aftermath of the plan’s rejection, all this was likely to worsen. The S&P 500 also fell by 8.8 per cent on Monday, its worst day since October 19 1987. Nothing can better demonstrate how absurd it is to believe one can punish Wall Street without hurting Main Street. The two streets meet. That is what streets do. If the financial system ceases to function properly and a range of financial institutions collapses, everybody will be hurt, as businesses and households are starved of credit. What is occurring now is a downward spiral of panic in which liquidity-starved financial institutions dump assets, weakening themselves and others, particularly now that their balance sheets are marked to market. This reduces their ability to lend and so undermines asset prices and the economy still more, thereby further damaging asset quality. This, then, is “revulsion” – the final stage of a bubble when, as the late Hyman Minsky argued, investors are so scarred that they can no longer bring themselves to participate in the market. Unfortunately, among today’s panic-stricken investors are banks. These even wish to avoid lending to one another. Against this dire background, what is one to make of the failure of Congress to ratify the plan? rejection is grossly mistaken because the resulting ruin will hurt the weak and destroy the legitimacy of the market economy. The plan is indeed flawed. But failure to ratify it is unlikely to convince anybody that something better will be forthcoming. It will convince them, instead, that the US is choosing to be impotent. At a time of such fragility, when the insurance offered by government is most indispensable, this is the worst possible message. Franklin Delano Roosevelt famously said that “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself”. In truth, the economic processes unleashed by the bursting of the housing and credit bubbles are real. But fear is also a danger. When confidence collapses, a market economy cannot function. It must now be restored. The problem is not lack of knowledge of how to do this: we know how to recapitalise and restructure damaged financial systems. The problem is lack of will. Government must start to show it is in control of events. In the twilight of a failed US administration, that may seem far too much to ask. Winston Churchill, Roosevelt’s partner, said: “The United States invariably does the right thing, after having exhausted every other alternative.” The alternatives are now exhausted. It is time for politicians to do the right thing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pongo Posted October 2, 2008 Share Posted October 2, 2008 Smack smack - we're dead See after point 5 @ the latest post on Robert Peston's excellent blog. And now for the complicated and scary stuff .... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Albert Tatlock Posted October 2, 2008 Share Posted October 2, 2008 Smack smack - we're dead See after point 5 @ the latest post on Robert Peston's excellent blog. And now for the complicated and scary stuff .... Watching BBC news 24 this morning, all the BBC, and any 24 hour news channel, do in these 'waiting' circumstances (with a void of news until the next US vote) is increase the panic by their incessant assessments of 'what-ifs?', and unrealistic reporting of 'how many people are now buying gold', 'how many people are running to Ireland with their money'. 'Northern Rock is closing its doors to new savers' or 'another sign of a recession, because house prices have fallen again'. Wankers the lot of them. Report the news - don't make it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sebrof Posted October 2, 2008 Share Posted October 2, 2008 Smack smack - we're dead See after point 5 @ the latest post on Robert Peston's excellent blog. And now for the complicated and scary stuff .... Watching BBC news 24 this morning, all the BBC, and any 24 hour news channel, do in these 'waiting' circumstances (with a void of news until the next US vote) is increase the panic by their incessant assessments of 'what-ifs?', and unrealistic reporting of 'how many people are now buying gold', 'how many people are running to Ireland with their money'. 'Northern Rock is closing its doors to new savers' or 'another sign of a recession, because house prices have fallen again'. Wankers the lot of them. Report the news - don't make it. Quite so. Peston's blog is a seething nest of rumours and wild speculation. I am going to predict how this will end. Central banks will continue to pump money into the system; there will be massive inflation; the massive inflation will wipe out negative equity and make mortgages affordable. All will be well again, except for savers who will see the real value of their savings eroded by perhaps forty percent. In other words, same as previous housing bubbles. This is where the wise man gets back into equities. Tesco, anyone? S Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pongo Posted October 2, 2008 Share Posted October 2, 2008 Peston's blog is a seething nest of rumours and wild speculation. His blog is excellent and he is going to end up winning multiple awards. Better than anyone else he has explained this story as it has unfolded. The blog comments are a seething nest of rumours and general weirdness ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ai_Droid Posted October 2, 2008 Share Posted October 2, 2008 So answer it here Albert. How is the UK labour government somehow soley responsible for a worldwide financial crisis that began in the USA? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Albert Tatlock Posted October 2, 2008 Share Posted October 2, 2008 So answer it here Albert. How is the UK labour government somehow soley responsible for a worldwide financial crisis that began in the USA? I didn't say it was - read the thread. This is an anglo/american generated crisis that is now spreading across the world. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ai_Droid Posted October 2, 2008 Share Posted October 2, 2008 I didn't say it was - read the thread. This is an anglo/american generated crisis that is now spreading across the world. You've said it plenty, and even refer to the conservatives coming along to fix it all up again. Yet it's actually the tory government under Thatcher who created many of these current problems in this country by encouraging so many more people to become home owners than in the past and by the deregulation of financials. I'm chuffed for you that you're so smug about this, hat's off to you for persistently banging on about something long enough for you to be right in the end! If you're referring to me when you say I'm choking on my cornflakes, well not at all. I've never been under any illusions that there's bust as well as boom, I lost enough value out of my property in the early 90's to know the score. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sebrof Posted October 2, 2008 Share Posted October 2, 2008 Peston's blog is a seething nest of rumours and wild speculation. His blog is excellent and he is going to end up winning multiple awards. Better than anyone else he has explained this story as it has unfolded. The blog comments are a seething nest of rumours and general weirdness ! I accept your modification regarding the rumours. But he does like to stir it all up. S Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mutley Posted October 3, 2008 Share Posted October 3, 2008 Will Hutton sums it up nicely - starts at about 5:50mins http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00drrz1/b00drryb/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mutley Posted October 3, 2008 Share Posted October 3, 2008 Fortis nationalised - http://www.reuters.com/article/ousiv/idUSTRE49263E20081003 The first of many? Wonder how that will affect Fortis jobs in IOM? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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