UK interest rates held at 0.5% for years

rb10

leveller2911 wrote: »

What I posted IS FACT I am referring to savings v credit card interest. They were giving 6.49% interest on Bonds/ISA at the same time they were charging 9.9% on their credit card.
Now they are giving 2.75% on ISA's and charging 20% on their credit card......

Their profit margin on savings interest to credt card interest is far higher than it was.

It may be fact, but it has very little impact on their overall profits.

They have:

£126bn savings balances
£110bn residential mortgages
£1.5bn credit cards

... so it's clear that the credit card interest rate has very little impact on the overall profitability.

As in my previous post, you want to be comparing the savings rate with the mortgage rate.

lvader

Glen_Clark wrote: »

Osborne fixed Carney up with an £850k +++ job.
And yet they tell us Carney is independant of Osborne.
Well they would say that, wouldn't they.
I am only surprised you believe it.

He doesn't strike me as a yes man and he's far more competant than Osbourne, I'd like to think he was brought in to help set strategy rather than just do as he is told.

Thrugelmir

Glen_Clark wrote: »

Its a nonsense to compare interest rates without comparing inflation rates.
Japan has actually had deflation !!!

Japan had a financial bubble of its own. That's where the crisis started. BOE and other central banks are trying to avoid the same direction of travel. With the measures they have taken.

grey_gym_sock

the trouble is that they're been trying to stimulate the economy with an expansive monetary policy alone. it isn't working. a selective fiscal expansion is needed (and osborne has being trying to do the exact opposite).

and now they trying more of the same. even lower rates (through funding for deleveraging - sorry: for lending), for even longer (through this link to unemployment stats).

i think interest rates do need to stay low for the moment (to avoid the otherwise real threat of deflation). but that's not enough - other kinds of action are needed.

(osborne doesn't need to influence carney very much - he's picked somebody he agrees with.)

kidmugsy

It's pretty simple really. Mr Greenspan at the Fed set up the world for terrible trouble. Mr Brown at the Treasury ensured that Britain was really badly placed to survive that trouble. Conventional macroeconomics has nothing useful or intelligent to say about our plight: there's no conventional economic manipulation that will rescue us so Messrs Osborne, Carney, Bernanke etc flail about a bit, but mainly act so as to delay the evil day in hopes that something will turn up.

Old_Slaphead

FLAPJACK wrote: »

What are you on???

Today I am mostly mainlining geritol

FLAPJACK

Well its good to know you are trying to enhance your lifespan....

Maybe you can it work out by the cost of Geritol per month divided by your capital.....and multiply by the interest rate you are getting.

Nite nite

buglawton

FLAPJACK wrote: »

What are you on???

Dunno but I'll have some

crisp

no point in saving is the message from those with gold plated pensions in BofE and Parlt.

you will get shafted by QE
you will get rogered by funding for lending

and at the end of the day you are better off spending, wasting, anything so you can get benefits and credits when you reach pension age.

Thats the message I got yesterday from the dismally disappointing Carney.

ScarletBea

One thing that struck me in all the news reports about this issue was the continuous comments that this was good for mortgage holders because they were "mortgaged to the hilt", and even a variation of 1 percent point would make many people unable to pay back.
Now, whose fault is that? Why should people who are prudent, who only spend when they can afford, or who have mortgages reasonably linked to their income, suffer because millions are so lacking in basic maths that they go and get a mortgage for which even the smallest variance means they can't pay each month? For goodness sake, if someone is paying, say, £1000, an increase of 1% is £10 - they can't afford an extra £10 a month? Really?
It's just not fair...