Whats been your biggest financial blunder

Glen_Clark

sabretoothtigger wrote: »

I dont favour politics for principles when up against a wall, they'd do it alright

I agree on that.
If the Government had principles they would have protected retail depositors money and let the banks go bust. Bank investors chose to take a risk, the taxpayer and joe public didn't.
Instead of that they have printed money to bail out the banks - debasing the currency and increasing asset prices. The rich gain from increasing asset prices - whilst the poor lose through inflation when they had absolutely nothing to do with causing the financial crisis. :mad:

PS: The pound was a partial reserve currency for a few weeks when the Spanish and Greeks thought they were going to get pesetas and Drachmas for their Euros. Now the Euro panic has subsided the pound has resumed its downward spiral..

Archergirl

benny5 wrote: »

Not selling any of my 11,000 Marconi (employee) shares before all went belly up.

Simpson and Mayo (sound like a circus double act) what ever happened to them????

Yep, I'm another one that had Marconi shares with SAYE, did well for a few years though.

sabretoothtigger

Simpson's history is here. Alot of deal making, apparently he bet on the tech boom.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Simpson,_Baron_Simpson_of_Dunkeld

Seems that the good part of GEC or Marconi was sold to BAE whose shares I own.
They stuggle but also manage a good lot of business especially in defence budgets.
Shame is the shareholders werent given a share of BAE or money, it all went on the horses

UsernameAlreadyExists

I started to buy physical gold just before it burst through $1650 and set new records. I thought I was onto a winner. It then kept going and going upto $1800+ and was threatening $2000. So I kept buying. Not sold any of it yet.
LOL. What a moron.

Linton

Glen_Clark wrote: »

I agree on that.
If the Government had principles they would have protected retail depositors money and let the banks go bust. Bank investors chose to take a risk, the taxpayer and joe public didn't.
Instead of that they have printed money to bail out the banks - debasing the currency and increasing asset prices. The rich gain from increasing asset prices - whilst the poor lose through inflation when they had absolutely nothing to do with causing the financial crisis. :mad:

Any idea how much money is involved with protecting depositors - both personal and commercial? My reading of the government statistics gives this as around £1tn for the UK alone. Dont forget that the main UK banks are major world players. If one major UK bank went bust I believe they all would because of complex cross holding of investments and interbank loans.

Where would this protected money be held? Presumably in some government owned financial institution. Isnt this what happens now?

If the banks went bust the shareholders would lose all their investment. Whereas they actually lost in the case of RBS nearly 99%. I dont see the difference.

Glen_Clark

Linton wrote: »

Any idea how much money is involved with protecting depositors.

Not much as we only have government statistics and you seem to have more trust in them than I have.
But it would obviously involve a lot less money than what they have done - protected every depositor and bondholder, not just domestic retail depositors like Iceland. It would also be a quantifiable amount, wheras the Government has committed us to far greater liabilities which are unquantifiable.

Glen_Clark

Linton wrote: »

If the banks went bust the shareholders would lose all their investment. Whereas they actually lost in the case of RBS nearly 99%. I dont see the difference.

The shareholders funds are small beer compared to the liabilities (Bondholders etc, etc, etc,) of the Banks which have effectively been hoisted on to the taxpayer.

Now Sir Mervyn King wants to split the bank into its assets - for the shareholders, and its liabilities - for the taxpayer. The shareholders in the English Banks (Northern Rock and Bradford & Bingley) did lose all their investment. Why were the shareholders in the Scottish Banks (RBS & HBOS) treated differently?

Glen_Clark

sabretoothtigger wrote: »

18 years out of a Maestro is amazing, not all their engines were that reliable and you got lucky on the rust there. I have a early 90's Rover with an engine made while they were still partly owned by Honda

It could have been a lot more than 18 years if the Government hadn't been throwing taxpayers money at those buying new foreign cars.
I was about to invest in a cement mixer for the filler
(seriously it was immaculate. I just brushed a bit of engine oil around whenever I got under it to service it. I have often found rust growing under paint, but never found rust growing under oil)

atush

UsernameAlreadyExists wrote: »

I started to buy physical gold just before it burst through $1650 and set new records. I thought I was onto a winner. It then kept going and going upto $1800+ and was threatening $2000. So I kept buying. Not sold any of it yet.
LOL. What a moron.

and if you were posting here I was one those who told you to hold your buying spree lol.

Live and learn, we all do.

IronWolf

Glen_Clark wrote: »

But it would obviously involve a lot less money than what they have done - protected every depositor and bondholder, not just domestic retail depositors like Iceland. It would also be a quantifiable amount, wheras the Government has committed us to far greater liabilities which are unquantifiable.

It really wouldn't, it would have involved lots lots more money and a collapse of the financial system as we know it. ATMs would stop giving out money, credit/debit cards useless. It would have been anarchy.

Look at what triggered the financial crisis in the first place: it was the bankrupcy of Lehman Brothers and the US refusal to bail them out. And they didn't even have retail deposits for the government to guarantee. The world barely survived that bankrupcy, how do you think it would have coped with 5-10 of the biggest banks in the world going bankrupt?