Is it getting scary again?

abaxas

Jegersmart wrote: »

That is true, but I believe in objectivity and would not discount a source like this personally. I can make up my own mind, what do I lose by reading, digesting and evaluating such a report?

I would rather have too much information than stick my head in a pile of sand and hope my !!!! is ok at the other end. Good luck with that:)

My point is we should not put faith in failure.

Let those who didnt fail produce the reports.

angrypirate

Does anyone else get the feeling that the recession was more just an hors d'oeuvres and the main course is yet to come? I mean, USA talking of QE3, Italy talking of being the next Greece and the OBR saying that tax revenue needs to go up £22bn? Surely something is going to give???

pqrdef

angrypirate wrote: »

Does anyone else get the feeling that the recession was more just an hors d'oeuvres and the main course is yet to come? I mean, USA talking of QE3, Italy talking of being the next Greece and the OBR saying that tax revenue needs to go up £22bn? Surely something is going to give???

Primark is doing well. I don't know how much of their stuff is made in Britain, but I can guess.

We don't seem to have figured out how a "post-industrial" economy makes any money, once it stops overvaluing its assets.

More straws in the wind:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/8636155/Italy-money-supply-plunge-flashes-red-warning-signals.html

Jegersmart

angrypirate wrote: »

Does anyone else get the feeling that the recession was more just an hors d'oeuvres and the main course is yet to come? I mean, USA talking of QE3, Italy talking of being the next Greece and the OBR saying that tax revenue needs to go up £22bn? Surely something is going to give???

Yes, absolutely the risks to the downside (in terms of quality of life and investments etc) are enormous - in my view we are treading a very fine line since "capitalism" effectively failed in 2008. If, and it is potentially a very big "if" we can deleverage sufficiently and globally then we might avoid a lot of pain along the way. The problem here is that capitalism (or rather the monetary system) stands in the way of that - because we are chasing infinite growth in a world of limited resources. This is particularly important to the human race as we are a "petroleum civilisation" - as long as that underpins everything *and* we have a monetary system which promotes scarcity and profit etc. - it is not a good long-term combination - in fact in my opinion will inevitably fail....but that is a debate for another time perhaps? (although it all hangs together) IMHO, DYOR

michaels

If we really are looking at financial market meltdown pt 2 and stockpiling beans again I wonder if Dopester has got another dog yet to help us maintain our protein intake?

StevieJ

Generali wrote: »

Not exactly. I think that letting Lehman's go bust was the right decision and the bailouts were wrong. Why, for example, should the taxpayers of Iceland pay back money that was lent by the British middle-classes to banks that were registered in Iceland?

I wouldn't expect my neighbour to pay back my debt if I can't pay off my credit card. Why would my neighbour expect me to pay back the bank's debt to him?



To repeat my catchphrase, if the solvent keep bailing out the insolvent they become insolvent. Italy, Spain, the USA, the UK: it's all the same.

Didn't the Iceland banks behave illegally, i.e. allowing withdrawals from Icelanders but not other Euro nationalities, hardly paying out the neighbours

Degenerate

Generali wrote: »

Not exactly. I think that letting Lehman's go bust was the right decision and the bailouts were wrong. Why, for example, should the taxpayers of Iceland pay back money that was lent by the British middle-classes to banks that were registered in Iceland?

We've been over this enoungh times. Because their government abused their international treaty rights to allow their banks to fleece foreign savers for cash. The whole population of Iceland benefitted from this fraud - just go back just a few years and standard of living surveys were putting them top of the world.

We've actually been fairly magnanimous about the whole thing. They've clearly behaved as a rogue state, historically the choice would have been pay up or lose your country to invasion.

Generali

LydiaJ wrote: »

Because isn't that what happened with IceSave? British and other savers (Joe) deposited money in IceSave (Sam) on the understanding that the Icelandic government (Harry) had signed up to the passport scheme to guarantee those deposits - and the Icelandic government's money comes from its taxpayers (Tom). The fundamental problem is that a tiny little country like that should never have been guaranteeing deposits worth several times its GDP, not that those who invested money on the strength of the guarantee should want the guarantee to be honoured.

How could they stop them? The banks were privately owned companies taking deposits abroad. It seems pretty unreasonable for a company in another country that you receive no benefit from is allowed to run up unlimited liabilities in your name.

In trying to force the Icelandic Government to pay you're effectively telling poor Icelanders to bail out rich Britons. The Britons aren't poor as poor people don't have much in the way of savings as a rule: if they did they wouldn't be poor!

The Icelandic Government has done what any sovereign body is entitled to do in repudiating their debt.

Generali

michaels wrote: »

If we really are looking at financial market meltdown pt 2 and stockpiling beans again I wonder if Dopester has got another dog yet to help us maintain our protein intake?

Things are looking bad IMHO.

It's worth remembering however that nobody has ploughed salt into the soil. The world still has exactly the same productive capacity regardless of what happens to the financial system.

The main disruption is that almost all trade would have to stop until a new system of credit was worked out as trade relies on credit.

Degenerate

Generali wrote: »

How could they stop them?

By regulating their activities.

The banks were privately owned companies taking deposits abroad.

Under license from the Icelandic Government. Repatriating their profits to the Icelandic Economy. Paying their taxes to the Icelandic Government.

They could not have taken billions of pounds in ordinary British and Dutch saver's deposits without the facade of deposit protection that their brothers (quite literally) in the Icelandic Government afforded their activities, whilst simultaneously enabling them to use the passport scheme to avoid regulation in the jurisdictions they were operating in.

It seems pretty unreasonable for a company in another country that you receive no benefit from is allowed to run up unlimited liabilities in your name.

No benefit? For years in the run up to the crash, a nation with little to offer other than fish was winner or runner-up in the HDI surveys of living standards. You think this is a coincidence?