Sterling Crisis Looms as U.K. Unraveling Points to Budget Cuts

Rochdale_Pioneers

purch wrote: »

.....plus the hilarity of Norman 'Shuffler' Lamont (the worst Chancellor in the history of worst Chancellors ) standing in front of the Treasury at 7pm and telling the world that we surrender from the fight we shouldn't have joined in the first place, and the 15% base rate :eek: he had announced at 4pm would not now be happening !!!!!

Probably the most embarrassing moment in the history of the Treasury.

You missed off "non, je ne regret rien".......

How lucky we are that Lamont's advisor at the time was a certain D Cameron. With that kind of grasp of economics its reassuring for everyone fed up of Brown's !!!!-ups that someone with such a good track record of competence in economic management will take over.

baileysbattlebus

Another question - I read somewhere that there was no such thing as a weak or a strong currency only overvalued or undervalued currencies.

Does anyone know if that is true or not?

michaels

Notice that when sterling came under pressure the Bundesbank famously did nothing to help whereas when speculators threatened to blow the whole EMS apart a year later the rules were changed to allow wider bands to remove the speculators target. Is it any wonder that sterling never ended up in the EUR given partners like these? Still currently the last laugh is with us, with our competitive sterling devaluation meanig we are avoiding the painful real wage adjustment of the Irish and the record contraction of the EUR zone.

Interstingly Clowns first spell as chancellor when he stuck to tight spending limits, set up independent interest rate setting by the BoE and came up with his 'convergence fudge' 5 tests to prevent Mr Blair from marvhing us in to the EUR was actualy right on the money (shame about the blunder in banking supervision but you an't win them all). Why did it all go wrong after that? Surely his instincts were to see the housing boom as unsustinable and to avoid unsustainable public spending? Perhaps he was blinded by his ambition for the highest office - one for the judgement of history to reveal. Strange that the most succesful economic managment of recent times is probably the Major / Blair 1st term period.

Rochdale_Pioneers wrote: »

You missed off "non, je ne regret rien".......

How lucky we are that Lamont's advisor at the time was a certain D Cameron. With that kind of grasp of economics its reassuring for everyone fed up of Brown's !!!!-ups that someone with such a good track record of competence in economic management will take over.

inspector_monkfish

baileysbattlebus wrote: »

Another question - I read somewhere that there was no such thing as a weak or a strong currency only overvalued or undervalued currencies.

Does anyone know if that is true or not?

depends what way round the trader is.....

michaels

Probably worth googling PPP (Purchasing Power Parity) and for a more amusing explanation the Economist big mac index. Also worth saying that I don't think anyone has ever made any money in the FX markets by backing PPP.

baileysbattlebus wrote: »

Another question - I read somewhere that there was no such thing as a weak or a strong currency only overvalued or undervalued currencies.

Does anyone know if that is true or not?

purch

Perhaps he was blinded by his ambition for the highest office - one for the judgement of history to reveal

A good Minister, but a rubbish Prime Minister.

Also worth saying that I don't think anyone has ever made any money in the FX markets by backing PPP

PPP is the sort of thing that get's 'wheeled' out after the event, rather than before it's happened.

StevieJ

Generali wrote: »

I've got 2 jobs right now - I'm helping looking after the finances of a small Sydney private hospital and doing some economics tutoring for a local offshoot of a university. I'm also about to start advertising my services as an HSC (like A' level) economics private tutor. Tutoring is pretty lucrative as it turns out!

I'm looking at starting a CPA (like CIMA in the UK) and going into running hospitals. It looks like fun and relatively low stress. The tutoring will keep the Generali finances in order in the meantime.

The mortgage people want me to go back part time but I think I'll stick with the tutoring TBH. We'll see.

Oh and I got a job offer today to be a train driver which I don't think I'll take up.
.

Is CPA the public services qual? If so Tramp and Slaphead will be on your case although I suppose they will not be paying you. What happened with the mortgage brokers?

StevieJ

purch wrote: »

.....plus the hilarity of Norman 'Shuffler' Lamont (the worst Chancellor in the history of worst Chancellors ) standing in front of the Treasury at 7pm and telling the world that we surrender from the fight we shouldn't have joined in the first place, and the 15% base rate :eek: he had announced at 4pm would not now be happening !!!!!

Probably the most embarrassing moment in the history of the Treasury.

I am sure he tried to put it up to 17% before he succumbed :eek:

Generali

StevieJ wrote: »

Is CPA the public services qual? If so Tramp and Slaphead will be on your case although I suppose they will not be paying you. What happened with the mortgage brokers?

It's management accounting. Basically it's the quickest way for me to become a qualified accountant at which point I should be able to run the finances of a small hospital without too much difficulty.

The mortgage broking was hopeless - the company I was working for didn't get us enough leads. We were averaging perhaps 1.5-2 per week which just isn't enough to earn a living if you've got a company creaming off most of the commission. I had quite a good sales ratio but it was ultimately pointless. The others that were there were also muttering about it too - I think someone else quit on the same day as me and a couple of others had sidelines that they had been hoping to get rid of but which ended up becoming the main income earner. I got some excellent sales training out of it though so not all bad by any means.

Mr_Mumble

I'm not exactly sure what constitutes a Sterling crisis since the depreciation this year matched 1931 and dwarfed 1992, back in February Goldman Sachs analysts had this to say:

On a trade-weighted basis, the exchange rate is down more than a quarter from the peak in mid-2007, at the start of the credit crisis - more than twice as big as the drop after sterling’s forced exit from the European exchange-rate mechanism in 1992, and close to the biggest-ever depreciation in 1931, when Britain abandoned the gold standard.

Puts the propaganda from the left-wing about 'Black' Wednesday into perspective. We lost more money letting Brown sell off the gold:

In 1997 the UK Treasury estimated the cost of Black Wednesday at £3.4 billion.

Gordon Brown's Gold Sales, 10 Years On - capital loss now at £3.9 billion