What happens if our country goes Bankrupt?

peachyprice

fermi wrote: »

What happens if our country goes Bankrupt?

Broken hearted wouldn't approve.

:hello:

:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

BlondeHeadOn

Well it looks like if your country goes bankrupt, the government is likely to fall...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7851415.stm

Also this from the BBC article:

"The Social Democrats have urged Mr Haarde to fire the central bank governor and move towards closer ties with Europe. "

Mmmm - fire Mervyn King and get closer to Europe? Mmmmm.....

caroline1973lefty

Trust wrote: »

so we have trillions of pounds of debt,

Who do we owe that to?

I believe that most of it is owed to foreign governments, particularly China and the middle east?

I read that 80% of RBS's debt (soon to be taxpayers debt, it appears) is owed in foreign currency.

I think what's been happening for probably the last 30 years is that as trade barriers have been ripped down, we've stopped making stuff and growing stuff in this country. We've offshored most of these jobs to places where costs are low because they don't have pesky things like democracy and free trade unions (which make people expect decent wages, security and services). As a result we haven't really been able to generate enough income through exports (the idea that financial services alone could sustain an economy didn't work for iceland or for us). So to try and sustain our purchasing power, we've borrowed like crazy from abroad - mostly from China, whose been happy to lend so that we can keep buying its products, and from the middle east so that we can keep buying its oil. Clearly this situation couldn't last for ever and that's the bubble that's now broken. Unless we have a big shift back towards a more sustainable, locally strong economy, with investment in the stuff we need (like alternative energy, schools - that sort of stuff!) and control of corporate greed, then i can only see things getting worse. The government's response so far is just to prop up the current unsustainable system at horrific expense. I prefer the New Economic Foundation's 'Green New Deal' report, available on their website.

Rochdale_Pioneers

Sir_Humphrey wrote: »

Vince Cable doesn't think we are going bankrupt. Nouriel 'Uber bear' Roubini thinks we can afford to bail out the banks. All Jim Rogers is interested in is talking the market in his direction.

And Ken Clarke told Andrew Marr that we wouldn't need the IMF! Exactly the opposite of what his boss thinks......

Generali

Rochdale_Pioneers wrote: »

And Ken Clarke told Andrew Marr that we wouldn't need the IMF! Exactly the opposite of what his boss thinks......

What happens when the IMF runs out of cash?

The idea that every Government can borrow indefinitely is as untenable as the idea that every consumer can.

The IMF probably can't bail out the UK. The UK will have to sort herself out which may mean banks going bust and will mean Civil Servants not getting their pensions I suspect.

Sir_Humphrey

Rochdale_Pioneers wrote: »

And Ken Clarke told Andrew Marr that we wouldn't need the IMF! Exactly the opposite of what his boss thinks......

Thanks, I forgot to mention Ken Clarke. I wonder if David Cameron shares the same view as Alan Clark, who called Ken Clarke 'a podgy life insurance risk'. I am sure that Tory Ken will get as well with David as much as the Labour Ken did with Gordon. Aren't politicians lovely people!

Spiv_2

chriz1000 wrote: »

What would happen if Britain was to go Bankrupt?

Britain is not going bankrupt. It's just the papers scaremongering. Public sector debt stands at 50% of national income in 2008 (Euoropean Commission figures). This is low :10 percentage points below the Eoropean Union average and 15% below rock solid Germany. Even with a much nastier recession than elsewhere in Europe, the EU expects British debt to rise to the EU average.

Moodys (the credit rating agency) has been at pains to reaffirm the country's triple A status. They insist Britain is not about to be down graded, saying "the UK has enough vitality as an economy to rebound".

Investors would appear to agree - yields on government bonds remain at historic lows (that's a good thing;)) . There has been no problems at UK bond auctions.

Goldman Sachs have estimated that whilst costs are bad, they are nevertheless easily manageable - contained below 8% of National income.

Don't listen to the doom-mongers on this board. They have nothing better to do than try and scare the F*** out of people. Likewise the Conservative press also have an agenda - they are trying to scare you into voting Tory. By all means vote Tory but don't do it for the wrong reasons.

bubblesmoney

Generali wrote: »

Sorry to be a bit thick but what do you mean by 'off the books accounts'? I've had substantial dealings with both Clearstream (I had a meeting with them on 12/11/2001 in their offices on the xxth floor of Canary Wharf which was a little disturbing!) and Euroclear and haven't really come across the term.

I know a little about the scandal you're talking about.

Purch wrote:

I assume it's taking the phrase "Off Balance Sheet", and then misunderstanding what it means, and then spinning it to fit the initial premise.

Genarali- by off the books accounts i mean just that. i.e accounts hidden from auditors and regulators and courts and liquidators and governments. i am not confusing it with unpublished accounts meant for subsidiaries of multinational corps. off the books accounts happen in many companies and even on the books accounts in banks might be in fraudulent names as is often unearthed in tax evasion cases in many countries by investigative authorities. ask any senior tax investigating official. it is common knowledge in income tax enforcement circles and among company bigwigs too. but very difficult to expose and get all evidence because of difficulty getting compliance from tax havens in these matters. loads of countries get stuck because of secrecy laws in these tax havens. the very existence of these tax havens depends on secrecy and beggaring other countries by supporting all sorts of tax evasion and fraud and other illegal activities.

Purch- i am not misunderstanding things or spinning things. see quotes for explanation. just because you are not aware of things does not mean that i am misunderstanding things and spinning it to fit my premise.

R!gis Hempel, vice president of Cedel, explained to the Paris Tribunal de Grande Instance how the system of unpublished accounts was generalized, allowing all sorts of illegal operations; Clearstream, during the lawsuit against Denis Robert for "defamation", did not deny it (See below). According to Hempel, some dormant accounts were activated for special transactions: "Such an account can be opened in the morning, used for a transaction, and closed to appear as delisted in the evening,", Backes explains. "Only the guy who gave the order to open it in the morning knows about the transaction. An investigator or auditor would not look at such an account because it doesn't appear on the accounts list."

please see the detailed explanations about clearstream scandals on this link . on that link see how many people connected with the scandals conveniently die at the right times. see this link about BCCI which was a bank that involved in blatant fraud.

G!rard Soisson, murdered in July 1983, was the person who authorized each non-published account,

On July 5, 1991, the regulators persuaded a court in Luxembourg to order BCCI liquidated because it was hopelessly insolvent and had lost more than its entire capital and reserves in 1990. At 1 pm London time that day (8 am in New York City), regulators in five countries marched into BCCI's offices and shut them down. Within a few days, BCCI was no more.

In 2002, Denis Robert and Ernest Backes, former number three of Clearstream, described as a "bank of banks" which practices "financial clearing", discovered that the BCCI had continued to maintain its activities after its official closure, with "microfiches" of Clearstream's illegal unpublished accounts.[9]

so clearstream was clearing doing illegal things by maintaining active accounts for BCCI in unpublished accounts even after regulatory in multiple countries had closed down BCCI.

PLEASE NOTE

Clearstream Banking S.A. (CB) is the clearing division of Deutsche Börse, based in Luxembourg.

and regulators in multiple countries had closed BCCI down INCLUDING A COURT ORDER FROM LUXEMBOURG LIQUIDATING BCCI and clearstream was doing business with a company liquidated by the court in luxembourg where clearstream is registered as well !!!!! so if they dont follow the registration countrys laws, does anyone want to take any bets that they will follow anyother countrys laws.

and they seem to have made a habit of doing business with liquidated companies even after their official liquidation.
[quote=_http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_Menatep] [/quote][quote=_
Menatep Bank has also been accused by French journalist Denis Robert of having opened a non-published Cedel (predecessor to Clearstream) account on May 15, 1997, after Clearstream CEO Andr! Lussi visited Khodorkovsky in Moscow. "Menatep further violated the rules because many transfers were of cash, not for settlement of securities", writes Lucy Komisar. "For the three months in 1997 for which I hold microfiches, Ernest Backes says, only cash transfers were transferred through the Menatep account. They were a lot of transfers between Menatep and the Bank of New York." Natasha Gurfinkel Kagalovsky, a former Bank of New York official and the wife of Menatep vice president, was accused of helping launder at least US$7 billion from Russia, according to Komisar. US investigators have attempted to find out if some of the laundered money originated with Menatep. Furthermore, even though Menatep officially failed in 1998, it oddly remained on Clearstream accounts for 2000, as did the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), involved in another major scandal.
[/quote]

This system of unpublished accounts made it possible to hide money for the purposes of money laundering, tax evasion, accounting manipulation, and fraud. It allegedly was used for such purposes by a large variety of banks, among them Columbian banks linked to the drug cartel, Bank Menatep involved in the "Kremlingate," and the French Credit Lyonnais involved in a major crash in the 1990s. The money from the Taiwan frigates scandal allegedly transited via Clearstream, as did the money from Elf oil company, two major financial scandals which shook France in the 1990s. Clearstream secret accounts also allegedly held part of the Argentine debt which led to the December 2001 riots. Numerous unpublished accounts were owned by Argentine companies and by Citibank, which managed a large part of Argentine funds.

in all this fraud they have the connivance / negligence of the auditors. in most of the scams it is the big5 (now big4 after AA disappeared after one scam too many) that are involved. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accounting_scandals

[quote=_http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_laundering] [/quote][quote=_
Based in Luxembourg, Clearstream International, a central securities depository and clearing house or "bank of banks" which practices "financial clearing," centralizing debit, and credit operations for hundreds of banks, was accused of being a major operator of the underground economy via a system of un-published accounts; Bahrain International Bank, owned by Osama bin Laden, would have profited from these transfer facilities.[1] The scandal prompted Andr! Lussi, Clearstream's CEO, to resign on December 31, 2001; several judicial investigations were opened; and the European Commission was interpelled by Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) Harlem D!sir, Glyn Ford, and Francis Wurtz, who asked the Commission to investigate the accusations and to ensure that the June 10, 1990 directive (91/308 CE) on control of financial establishment was applied in all member states, including Luxembourg, in an effective way.[2]
[/quote]

As a clearing house, Clearstream has a "dominant position" in Europe, according to the European Commission. Funds composing the private and public Argentine debt have transited through Clearstream, which is inevitable because of its quasi-monopoly situation. However, according to Revelation$ (2001), written by reporter Denis Robert and Ernest Backes, some Argentine funds have transited through an illegal system of non-published accounts used by Clearstream; the Citibank in particular, which held a large part of the private Argentine fund, had numerous unpublished bank accounts in Clearstream. This illegal system of non-published accounts makes of Clearstream, according to several judges as Eva Joly and Renaud van Ruymbeke, European members of Parliament (MPs) such as Harlem D!sir, Glyn Ford and Francis Wurtz, and Attac NGO, a major actor of the underground economy, through which global tax evasion and money laundering may be investigated. Henceforth, Clearstream is a major key in the understanding of the evaporation of the Argentine funds which led to the economic crisis. As Luis Corsiglia, president of the Caja de Valores, which acted as the Argentine clearing-house intermediary between the funds and Euroclear, Clearstream & DTC, "Argentina can't succeed in balancing credit and deficit, because of a too high tax evasion" [1]. Critics alleged that Clearstream has been instrumental in this massive tax evasion which accounts for a large part of the 2001 economic crisis.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argentine_debt_restructuring

in this day and age where big money is involved, it is transferred most of the time by electronic means whether the funds are legal or illegal. companies, accountants and banks are involved in fraud and not all get caught.

apologies for the many links. i dont know how to remove the hyperlinks from the quotes from wiki.

Generali

bubblesmoney wrote: »

Genarali- by off the books accounts i mean just that. i.e accounts hidden from auditors and regulators and courts and liquidators and governments. i am not confusing it with unpublished accounts meant for subsidiaries of multinational corps. off the books accounts happen in many companies and even on the books accounts in banks might be in fraudulent names as is often unearthed in tax evasion cases in many countries by investigative authorities. ask any senior tax investigating official. it is common knowledge in income tax enforcement circles and among company bigwigs too. but very difficult to expose and get all evidence because of difficulty getting compliance from tax havens in these matters. loads of countries get stuck because of secrecy laws in these tax havens. the very existence of these tax havens depends on secrecy and beggaring other countries by supporting all sorts of tax evasion and fraud and other illegal activities.

Purch- i am not misunderstanding things or spinning things. see quotes for explanation. just because you are not aware of things does not mean that i am misunderstanding things and spinning it to fit my premise.


please see the detailed explanations about clearstream scandals on this link . on that link see how many people connected with the scandals conveniently die at the right times. see this link about BCCI which was a bank that involved in blatant fraud.




so clearstream was clearing doing illegal things by maintaining active accounts for BCCI in unpublished accounts even after regulatory in multiple countries had closed down BCCI.

PLEASE NOTE
and regulators in multiple countries had closed BCCI down INCLUDING A COURT ORDER FROM LUXEMBOURG LIQUIDATING BCCI and clearstream was doing business with a company liquidated by the court in luxembourg where clearstream is registered as well !!!!! so if they dont follow the registration countrys laws, does anyone want to take any bets that they will follow anyother countrys laws.

and they seem to have made a habit of doing business with liquidated companies even after their official liquidation.




in all this fraud they have the connivance / negligence of the auditors. in most of the scams it is the big5 (now big4 after AA disappeared after one scam too many) that are involved. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accounting_scandals



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argentine_debt_restructuring

in this day and age where big money is involved, it is transferred most of the time by electronic means whether the funds are legal or illegal. companies, accountants and banks are involved in fraud and not all get caught.

apologies for the many links. i dont know how to remove the hyperlinks from the quotes from wiki.

To remove hyperlinks, highlight the text and click on the picture of a chain with a red cross through it.

As for the off the books accounts. I think these are sometimes called shadow accounts. I guess accounts that are being used for fraudulent reasons are likely to be hard to find by definition almost. I've some knowledge of what happened with CEDEL. I have no knowledge of serious and substantiated allegations against Euroclear though*



*For the uninitiated, they are companies that will hold bonds, equities and cash for you in return for a small fee. They will also move those things around between accounts, again for a very small fee. I think Euroclear is owned by a consortium of 28(?) banks. CEDEL by the Frankfurt Stock Exchange now under their new name Clearstream.

Spiv_2

Pound is up - $1.4167 and weakening against the euro. Looks like Jim Rogers failed in his quest.

Scaremongers begone.