How many subscribers here are over the FSA guaranteed savings limit?

Sapphire

isofa wrote: »

For all the people worried about loosing all their money over the 35K protection limit, can anyone cite anyone loosing any deposits at any UK bank with accounts for personal savers (precluding Barings et al, very different kettle of fish), in the past 80-100 years? I rest my case

No, but there is always a first time for everything - and the economic situation is looking grimmer than it ever has, IMHO. Brown's fawning trip to China - a country with an appalling record for human and animal rights abuses, and polluting the planet - smacks of desperation. His dithering over Northern Rock - and the astronomic cost to the taxpayer as a consequence of the government, through the FSA, not tightening lending regulations over the last few years - is terribly worrying. The man is absolutely not fit to run the country. :mad:

Any reasonably aware person, let alone the government, which would surely have access to the most 'expert' economists' advice, could have forseen what the result of several years of promotion of greed over housing, the 'me' culture, killing off Britain's industrial base, and so on, for short-term gain, would lead to.

The fact that there are shortages in power supply is also deeply worrying, since Britain seems to have too little power of its own and is at the mercy of not very friendly regimes for its supply.

I think that before very long people will be asking themselves whether the short-term feel-good feeling at the expense of all the good things that have been lost in this country was worth it. :mad:

Rant over…

For the record, I've more or less spread my savings around in several institutions - only Nationwide has more than £35,000 of my money, though not that much more.

nilrem_2

Sapphire wrote: »

No, but there is always a first time for everything - and the economic situation is looking grimmer than it ever has,
(Snipped)
For the record, I've more or less spread my savings around in several institutions - only Nationwide has more than £35,000 of my money, though not that much more.

But do you not see that (as I voiced in my opinions above) if any UK government just let a UK bank go bust with people losing their savings then the consequences would be so grave that other banks would then fail and with the chaos and anarchy that followed your £35k guarantee would not be worth a jot anyway!

Sapphire

nilrem wrote: »

But do you not see that (as I voiced in my opinions above) if any UK government just let a UK bank go bust with people losing their savings then the consequences would be so grave that other banks would then fail and with the chaos and anarchy that followed your £35k guarantee would not be worth a jot anyway!

Yes, I do see that, but the government should have prevented such a situation from arising in the first place by imposing controls over how much moneylenders could lend/lenders could borrow. The amounts that many of these people were lending were clearly insane, yet nothing was done to stop such practices. It is appalling that taxpayers will now have to foot the massive bill for the failure of the company; meanwhile the people who headed that company have made millions. :rolleyes:

One could go on and discuss why homes have become (in many cases) investment vehicles, rather than being regarded as places for people to live in as they used to be, but it would be a lengthy discussion, linked to several key issues and OT for this thread.

The whole situation just makes me so mad. :mad:

P.S. I like (presumably) your dog.…

dunstonh

and the economic situation is looking grimmer than it ever has

It isnt even close to worst times.

There are issues which could see the country go into recession but that is not a new event and if you look back in history you will find occasions that this country was virtually bankrupt.

missile

Sapphire wrote: »

Yes, I do see that, but the government should have prevented such a situation from arising in the first place by imposing controls over how much moneylenders could lend/lenders could borrow. The amounts that many of these people were lending were clearly insane, yet nothing was done to stop such practices. It is appalling that taxpayers will now have to foot the massive bill for the failure of the company; meanwhile the people who headed that company have made millions. :rolleyes:

One could go on and discuss why homes have become (in many cases) investment vehicles, rather than being regarded as places for people to live in as they used to be, but it would be a lengthy discussion, linked to several key issues and OT for this thread.

The whole situation just makes me so mad. :mad:

P.S. I like (presumably) your dog.…

We can all be wise after the event, but even with 20/20 foresight, but your government controls would not have prevented this situation. What you call insane lending in the UK was not the cause of the NR crash

Fella

nilrem wrote: »

But do you not see that (as I voiced in my opinions above) if any UK government just let a UK bank go bust with people losing their savings then the consequences would be so grave that other banks would then fail and with the chaos and anarchy that followed your £35k guarantee would not be worth a jot anyway!

Personally I don't agree at all that that is a given. It's one possible scenario. I think there is every chance that a bank could go bust & people could lose their savings (above 35K).

I think relying on the fact that something hasn't happened yet as a guarantee that it won't every happen is extremely unwise.

But it's all personal choice

Paul_Herring

EdInvestor wrote: »

One problem was that NRK either through accident or design made it impossible to move funds online

I vote for accident. Google for 'slashdot effect' for why. (No, it wasn't linked, but more people than normal did go there.)

Wolf_Man

This may be controversial to some people, but I firmly believe that the way the BBC broke the Northern Rock story created the panic.

I was watching at the time, and the way the story was, dare I say 'sexed up' probably in my opinion made a problem into a crisis.

nilrem_2

Wolf_Man wrote: »

This may be controversial to some people, but I firmly believe that the way the BBC broke the Northern Rock story created the panic.

I was watching at the time, and the way the story was, dare I say 'sexed up' probably in my opinion made a problem into a crisis.

You are not far wrong actually, the sight of long queues of people desperate to withdraw their cash was enough to incite a huge majority of NR savers to do the same even though in many cases those savers had less that the guaranteed amount in there so would have lost nowt even if the unthinkable had happened!

ManAtHome

More to do with the lack of financial knowledge - I was in Greece watching the queues, even the local barman who'd spent a couple of years in the UK was more clued-up than most of the punters. Even when the helpful news-peeps told some of them about the deposit guarantees they still stayed in the queue - no surprise we're dropping down the economic league table every year (now 6th - overtaken by China in 2006, France in 2007, place your bets for 2008).