Farewell UK. Breakup inevitable says top civil servant

joguest

"To be honest, it's a bit rich having someone whose every word is inflected with venom talking about blinkered bigots, no?"

Fine words coming from the most unpleasant and obnoxious poster on here.

You fail to mention the rather larger subsidy provided by everyone in the country in an attempt to keep the financial services industry and house prices in the South-East propped up.

Generali

joguest wrote: »

"To be honest, it's a bit rich having someone whose every word is inflected with venom talking about blinkered bigots, no?"

Fine words coming from the most unpleasant and obnoxious poster on here.

You fail to mention the rather larger subsidy provided by everyone in the country in an attempt to keep the financial services industry and house prices in the South-East propped up.

The banks that went bust and were nationalised were Northern Rock (based in Newcastle), RBS and HBOS (remind me what the 'S' in both those banks stands for again) and Bradford and Bingley (based in Bingley, W. Yorks).

It seems like the banks in the North of England and Somewhere were bailed out. The London based banks, Barclays and HSBC did not want or receive a bailout.

julieq

I quite like the idea I'm the most unpleasant and obnoxious poster here. I'd hate to be one of the pack.

Classic Chewbacca defence though Joguest. Get exposed on the facts of cross border subsidy and go off a tangent about house prices on the Planet Endor or whereever. Incidentally, who do you think loses money if banks go bankrupt exactly?

Let the Scot's choose independence if they want. It's good for the residual UK if they go it alone. If they don't they're welcome as far as I'm concerned but I'd like to subsidise them less personally.

joguest

Generali wrote: »

The banks that went bust and were nationalised were Northern Rock (based in Newcastle), RBS and HBOS (remind me what the 'S' in both those banks stands for again) and Bradford and Bingley (based in Bingley, W. Yorks).

It seems like the banks in the North of England and Somewhere were bailed out. The London based banks, Barclays and HSBC did not want or receive a bailout.

RBS took over a much larger bank called NatWest. What does the West stand for? What does the R in RBS stand for? - does that mean it's the Queens fault?

What percentage of RBS's UK employees actually worked in Scotland? It was almost certainly less than 20%. Barclays and HSBC would have fallen if the others hadn't be bailed out.

Are you suggesting that the bailouts (which are greater in magnitude than the total tax ever paid by the City of London) haven't massively distorted the wealth of the UK economy towards the South-East over the last few years?

And then there are the indirect bailouts - slashing interest rates has done more to keep bad banks afloat than anything else.

joguest

julieq wrote: »

I quite like the idea I'm the most unpleasant and obnoxious poster here. I'd hate to be one of the pack.

Classic Chewbacca defence though Joguest. Get exposed on the facts of cross border subsidy and go off a tangent about house prices on the Planet Endor or whereever. Incidentally, who do you think loses money if banks go bankrupt exactly?

Let the Scot's choose independence if they want. It's good for the residual UK if they go it alone. If they don't they're welcome as far as I'm concerned but I'd like to subsidise them less personally.

Pardon me for going off on a tangent about house prices on a house price discussion board (classic Ewok defence of course - makes about as much sense as your ad hominem).

You were discussing unearned wealth, stating that the Scots receive more in public services than they pay for. I just pointed out that those in the South East have received vastly more in unearned wealth over the last decade as a result of house price inflation and the distortion created by the bailouts of reckless lenders/borrowers (both directly and through interest rate slashing) - a perfectly fair point to make.

Those in the South-East vote for a party that represents their interests - the Tories. Those in Scotland vote for parties that they think represent their interests. Same thing really, but it's rather sad that the Tories are no longer a one nation party.

A._Badger

joguest wrote: »

Same thing really, but it's rather sad that the Tories are no longer a one nation party.

Rather too much of one under the current patrician twerp.

As for your bizarre argument about house prices (ie the prices people are willing to pay for someone else's private property) being somehow comparable with the money forcibly extracted from people's pockets to make someone else better-off... words fail me. Polite ones, at any rate.

julieq

Actually Joguest, the money actually paid for the bailout is the cost of the acquisition of bank shares, and the cost of the bailout is the loss in value between then and now which is fairly low level. The remainder is essentially guarantees and some lending which appears increasingly unlikely to result in actual costs. And £58B annually isn't a bad contribution from one industry sector. It's much more than raised from North Sea Oil for example.

House prices are sustained by private lending which is perfectly healthy, on the back of a large shortfull in supply over demand.

And none of this has anything to do with Scottish Independence, unless you're claiming there to be no per capita cost to people living in Scotland from bailouts.

What are you arguing for anyway, outside spitting bile at me and anyone else who disagrees with you? For independence, against independence, or don't care?

joguest

A._Badger wrote: »

Rather too much of one under the current patrician twerp.

As for your bizarre argument about house prices (ie the prices people are willing to pay for someone else's private property) being somehow comparable with the money forcibly extracted from people's pockets to make someone else better-off... words fail me. Polite ones, at any rate.

No, it's your brain that's failed you.

Slashing interest rates forcibly takes money away from savers and gives it to the borrowers that forced house prices up. How's that different to a tax? When the majority of the population already live as owner-occupiers and decide they don't want any more houses built so they can extract more money from those that want to buy a house, how is that different to 'forcibly' extracting money from other peoples' pockets through democratic taxation?

Why is extracting unearned wealth by holding a monopoly any better/worse than redistributive taxes?

joguest

julieq wrote: »

Actually Joguest, the money actually paid for the bailout is the cost of the acquisition of bank shares, and the cost of the bailout is the loss in value between then and now which is fairly low level. The remainder is essentially guarantees and some lending which appears increasingly unlikely to result in actual costs. And £58B annually isn't a bad contribution from one industry sector. It's much more than raised from North Sea Oil for example.

House prices are sustained by private lending which is perfectly healthy, on the back of a large shortfull in supply over demand.

And none of this has anything to do with Scottish Independence, unless you're claiming there to be no per capita cost to people living in Scotland from bailouts.

What are you arguing for anyway, outside spitting bile at me and anyone else who disagrees with you? For independence, against independence, or don't care?

I'm not arguing for anything other than trying to open your eyes to the contradictions in your arguments.

The Scots that vote for parties that represent Scotland (and are happy with the unearned income directed as a consequence) are no different from those in the South-East voting for a party that only represents that area that helps to support unearned wealth flowing to that region. The mechanisms may be different, but they're both arguably theft.

How much would the Scots be better off for not having to bail-out London? Is it greater or less than the level of wealth they receive beyond what they pay for through taxation?

CLAPTON

joguest wrote: »

I'm not arguing for anything other than trying to open your eyes to the contradictions in your arguments.

The Scots that vote for parties that represent Scotland (and are happy with the unearned income directed as a consequence) are no different from those in the South-East voting for a party that only represents that area that helps to support unearned wealth flowing to that region. The mechanisms may be different, but they're both arguably theft.

How much would the Scots be better off for not having to bail-out London? Is it greater or less than the level of wealth they receive beyond what they pay for through taxation?

I thought the major bank bailouts were to the Royal Bank of Scotland and the Halifax Bank of Scotland