Bernard Madoff Arrested

[Pragmatopian]

On the up side though, it's a good time to be a fraud examiner. I've got my yacht on order...

[oldmanxfella]

At least there is some good credit crunch news amongst the bad.

 

For instance

 

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/mortgages/buy...=moretopstories

 

I see that irritating "multi-millionaire" twat Grant Bovey and his hideous bag of a wife Anthea Turner have gone tits up for £100m because their buy-to-let empire (ie, massive mountain of mortgage debt) has imploded and they might have to sell their vulgar mansion in Surrey.

 

Sometimes these stories really warm your heart.

[thesultanofsheight]

Sometimes these stories really warm your heart.

 

Well its either bankrupcy or cancer. Either would have been a result.

[Mutley]

Bovey told the paper: 'Our net worth was over £100m - now it's an awful lot less, just a small fraction of what it was. We are in the same boat as millions of other people.'

 

I'm sure the people on or around minimum wage staring down the barrel of redundancy in many companies can identify with you. Cock.

[GD4ELI]

At least there is some good credit crunch news amongst the bad.

Indeed there is, many thanks for the link.

 

[Mutley]

Looks like the hurt is starting to hit indirect victims now...

 

http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssFinanci...F31153020081215

[Sebrof]

Just seen that pratt Peston on the news, stirring things up again. He should be taken out and shot.

 

S

[pongo]

Just seen that pratt Peston on the news, stirring things up again. He should be taken out and shot.

 

S

 

What's your big problem with people explaining these events ? Robert Peston has been consistently accurate, informative and interesting? How come you are so hung up on him? It's as if you blame him for reporting events.

[Sebrof]

Just seen that pratt Peston on the news, stirring things up again. He should be taken out and shot.

 

S

 

What's your big problem with people explaining these events ? Robert Peston has been consistently accurate, informative and interesting? How come you are so hung up on him? It's as if you blame him for reporting events.

 

Markets are all about confidence. If you were to destroy confidence in gilts, for instance, their value would collapse. Many people think that because Peston works for the BBC, he must have information or insights that render his view more valid than, say, mine or yours. Such people will be swayed by his views, however alarmist they may be, and as a result his predictions become a self-fulfilling and very damaging prophesy.

 

S

[Pragmatopian]

Many people think that because Peston works for the BBC, he must have information or insights that render his view more valid than, say, mine or yours.

 

Dare I say that the fact he's risen to the position of business editor of the BBC and spends all of his time gathering and analysing information about business issues DOES render his views more valid than, say, mine of yours? I'm assuming of course than you don't work in a similar position (economist, analyst etc). If that is the case, I retract the last comment unreservedly.

[Slim]

Markets are all about confidence. If you were to destroy confidence in gilts, for instance, their value would collapse. Many people think that because Peston works for the BBC, he must have information or insights that render his view more valid than, say, mine or yours. Such people will be swayed by his views, however alarmist they may be, and as a result his predictions become a self-fulfilling and very damaging prophesy.

 

Easy to blame the messenger, isn't it? I think the pace of collapse can be blamed on the speed of modern media, but to blame the worldwide losses on confidence blows caused by Peston, who's really only reporting on UK finance, is pushing it.

[pongo]

Markets are all about confidence. If you were to destroy confidence in gilts, for instance, their value would collapse. Many people think that because Peston works for the BBC, he must have information or insights that render his view more valid than, say, mine or yours. Such people will be swayed by his views, however alarmist they may be, and as a result his predictions become a self-fulfilling and very damaging prophesy.

 

What he has done is reported from the inside track - he has reported what people in the markets and close to the business are actually saying. In a sense he has been like an economic version of a lobby journalist. His reporting has been excellent.

 

If people on the inside track have that information then it also deserves to be public. If confidence cannot withstand the reporting then that confidence is misplaced.

 

You should blame the financial services industry - not the reporting. The economy has been brought down by bad practices. It is a great pity that some of the best brains of a generation wasted their opportunities by going into the financial services industries - creating dangerous instruments which were ultimately difficult or impossible to value because they had very little real value - only, perhaps, that they had been created by institutions which seemed respectable or posh. These people have been repackaging and shifting value and debt - rather than actually creating real value or wealth.

 

(Bad practices including the securitization of worthless debt; dodgy instruments; bogus valuations; inflated and unreliable credit ratings and now the 'hedge fund' industry is quickly being discredited and will cease to exist).

 

You cannot reasonably blame the reporting.

[Sebrof]

Markets are all about confidence. If you were to destroy confidence in gilts, for instance, their value would collapse. Many people think that because Peston works for the BBC, he must have information or insights that render his view more valid than, say, mine or yours. Such people will be swayed by his views, however alarmist they may be, and as a result his predictions become a self-fulfilling and very damaging prophesy.

 

What he has done is reported from the inside track - he has reported what people in the markets and close to the business are actually saying. In a sense he has been like an economic version of a lobby journalist. His reporting has been excellent.

 

etc..

 

You cannot reasonably blame the reporting.

 

If you have read other posts of mine on this topic, you will know that I place the blame for the British financial catastrophe squarely on the shoulders of those bankers who behaved so irresponsibly, and on Gordon Brown and his regulators, who did nothing to stop the housing bubble developing.

 

I agree that Peston's role is very minor, but he does tend to see the worst, and as a result has probably damaged what little confidence remains.

 

S

[pongo]

If you have read other posts of mine on this topic, you will know that I place the blame for the British financial catastrophe squarely on the shoulders of those bankers who behaved so irresponsibly, and on Gordon Brown and his regulators, who did nothing to stop the housing bubble developing.

 

If Mr Brown had tried to restrict the economy he would have been vilified by the media for interventionism and would have been removed from office in the face of hostile reporting. Indeed - it was only the New Labour project (basically a promise to let big money do whatever it wanted) which persuaded the heirs of the old press barons to allow Labour to be elected in the first place.

 

For 30 or more years Britain and the US had been locked into a dogmatic and fundamentalist belief that nothing should stand in the way of free market capitalism. Personally, with hindsight, I think that things started to go wrong about the time of big bang. About the same time that the coal mines began to be shut down and the council houses were sold off. Stock broking had previously been a respectable occupation. And you needed to queue to get a mortgage because lending was tightly controlled. It was a better world in which people were more cautious.

[Sebrof]

If you have read other posts of mine on this topic, you will know that I place the blame for the British financial catastrophe squarely on the shoulders of those bankers who behaved so irresponsibly, and on Gordon Brown and his regulators, who did nothing to stop the housing bubble developing.

 

If Mr Brown had tried to restrict the economy he would have been vilified by the media for interventionism and would have been removed from office in the face of hostile reporting. Indeed - it was only the New Labour project (basically a promise to let big money do whatever it wanted) which persuaded the heirs of the old press barons to allow Labour to be elected in the first place.

 

 

I completely disagree. There were a great many people, including Conservative politicians like Kenneth Clake, who would have supported him.

 

But even if it was a difficult thing to do, that was his (highly paid) job, for goodness sake.

 

For 30 or more years Britain and the US had been locked into a dogmatic and fundamentalist belief that nothing should stand in the way of free market capitalism. Personally, with hindsight, I think that things started to go wrong about the time of big bang. About the same time that the coal mines began to be shut down and the council houses were sold off. Stock broking had previously been a respectable occupation. And you needed to queue to get a mortgage because lending was tightly controlled. It was a better world in which people were more cautious.

 

Agree with all that. Thatcher has a lot to answer for. But Brown had the wherewithal to change that belief, and the policies that flowed from it.

 

S