'Labour = earnest, Tories = suits. Neither support interest rate cap' blog discussion

Former_MSE_Penelope

This is the discussion to link on the back of Martin's blog. Please read the blog first, as this discussion follows it.

Read Martin's "Labour = earnest, Tories = suits. Neither support interest rate caps. Views from the party conferences." Blog.

Please click reply to discuss below.

FATBALLZ

How much did Red Ed pay you for that little beauty of a headline then Martin?

MSE_Martin

FATBALLZ wrote: »

How much did Red Ed pay you for that little beauty of a headline then Martin?

You think that's pro-labour how bizarre? If you read the blog you'll see the description. Its a pretty fair impression if you ask me.

Saucepot

The title suggests you're a bit of a red, Martin. It's a free country and all that.

As for financial education. Why not start by teaching the kids basic arithmetic? That would be a start. Most of the kids today have a bucket full of worthless GCSE's and cannot add up.

MSE_Martin

Saucepot wrote: »

The title suggests you're a bit of a red, Martin. It's a free country and all that.

As for financial education. Why not start by teaching the kids basic arithmetic? That would be a start. Most of the kids today have a bucket full of worthless GCSE's and cannot add up.

Funny I dont think I can win in this one. My point was labour were overly earnest while tories were overly suited. If you read the actual blog its explained. I very deliberately stay neutral - yet those were my observations and Im not going to censor them as people read it differently to the way it was intended.

opalfruits_2

One good thing that may come out of this was chatting with Co-Op at the end. We discussed starting a collective lobbying group for compulsory financial education to target politicians. Everywhere I go I meet like-minded people from all sides of the financial world; maybe it’s time to bring them all together. This could’ve been the start of it.

Surely this is the kind of thing that MALG is there for? It's quite refreshing as a money advice worker to meet with creditors who are actually willing to look at improving consumer finance policies and procedures but as always, there is a lot of talk and sadly fewer actions.

jamesd

Financial education seems to fit well with the Conservative Party plans to have activist citizens. You can't be much of an activist for your own financial future if you're not educated on the subject.

Regrettably, interest rate caps don't make sense, because they deny people access to credit. Comparison sites like Lenders Compared* are a better way to go, along with making it easy to compare deals that are really available, using quotation searches, so people don't incorrectly assume that they are higher risk than they really are.

The almost complete failure of the credit industry to make quotation searches available is lamentable and seriously hurts consumers, who are blocked from effectively shopping around.

*for those who haven't heard of it, this is the site set up as a result of the office of Fair Trading's investigation into the doorstep lending industry. Anyone considering a doorstep lender or payday loan should check there to see if they can find a better deal. Most people will get better deals from mainstream lenders instead of those listed there.

MSE_Martin

opalfruits wrote: »

Surely this is the kind of thing that MALG is there for? It's quite refreshing as a money advice worker to meet with creditors who are actually willing to look at improving consumer finance policies and procedures but as always, there is a lot of talk and sadly fewer actions.

I've spoken before at malg - but its job isnt to lobby for compulsory financial education in schools - though it may support it

The aim here is a single focused lobbying group, which is whats needed. Fingers crossed we get there.

Mel_Kelly

Why are the conservative's doing nothing about the international credit rating agencies,

We have been immersed in a financial crisis across the entire continent of Europe. Most of the European Media and many European politicians have spent two years trying to brainwash a continent’s people into believing austerity cuts must happen.
But how did we get here?
It was not the Labour government that caused a financial crisis across the western world. It was not the Labour government or European borrowers that suddenly made most European banks bankrupt
So who did?
On the 31st of August of this year, barely 7 weeks ago, the American Securities and Exchange Commission issued one of the first reports on the causes of the financial crisis, a report stating the credit rating agency Moody’s held a meeting in Europe, in 1997, where they acknowledged their organisation had vastly overrated bad debt and sold it on as good debt to European financial institutions. Moody’s decided at this 1997 meeting they would not tell anyone of this massive overrating of this debt as this would ruin the company’s reputation.
The worldwide credit rating agencies, – Standard & Poor's, Moody's and Fitch are already being sued in America for being paid billions to bundle up bad debt and then sell it on as AAA debt. The lawsuit states the agencies were negligent when they gave gold-plated ratings to mortgage derivatives that have since turned toxic.
The rating agencies were indispensable players in the structuring and issuance of SIV debt, which they subsequently rated for huge fees paid by the issuers – 'rating their own work', according to a recent Securities and Exchange Commission report." "The credit ratings on SIVs ultimately proved to be wildly overinflated. The agencies "gave their highest credit ratings, and by doing so made negligent misrepresentation "The credit ratings on SIVs ultimately proved to be wildly inaccurate and unreasonably high."
They knowingly sold Europe bad debt and just a week ago the same organisation, Moody’s, told European governments if they don’t make austerity cuts to clear the bad debt they knowingly sold us, they will junk our credit rating.
Britain should not be held to ransom by Moody’s, Fitch and Standard & Poors. In fact, now that we have the information required, Britain should be suing every single credit rating agency but Moody’s triply so. Firstly for selling Europe mis-rated debt. Secondly for keeping quiet when they held a meeting in 1997 to acknowledge this was the case and thirdly for then trying to hold our country to ransom over the bad debt they sold us.
Britain should not be held to ransom by companies that have committed the biggest financial fraud in history.
The American government stated they cannot pursue this matter as it does not have jurisdiction because this happened in Europe. Well Europeans have jurisdiction and we should pursue this in court.
[FONT=&quot]The Conservatives and the Liberal Democrat government have known for seven weeks about Moody’s fraudulent dealings in Europe. Have they told this nation. No. Have the media told this nation. No

Martin will you tell this nation. I hope your answer is Yes
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