Vat to rise to 20%?

[Diddy]

So david, according to your methodology, they did it (US and Germany etc) so naturally we do what others do? Sorry I don't buy that, when I used to sit on my uncles lap, he used to say, 'if they jumped off a cliff, would you...'

I assume you'll have no complaints when we're hit hard by tax increases, spending cuts and rising unemployment. You're also happy that for every pound you place in the bank you're getting back a mighty half a pence in interest. This seems like a great deal considering we kept them afloat. Just try borrowing some money at that same rate from the money that we gave to them. This is the type of behavior you support, these are the people you wanted to bail out.

A few have asked where is that money? Why won't the banks lend to us? I'd like to know where is that money?



Fecking heck, that's worse that The Day After Tomorrow type scenario. I don't scare that easy.

Nor do I propose propping up private insolvent financial institutions with my money, it's immoral, unethical and should be downright illegal.

I think I'm right in assuming that you're working on the too big to fail principle, I don't believe in any such thing. If you can not run a financial institution based on sound business fundamentals, you are not worthy of my support regardless of your size. You're rewarding failure which I am strongly against. Just imagine a society where failure is rewarded with bundles of cash, this is what you are actively promoting.

No mate you have me completely wrong. I think no one is too big to fail. I HATE the fact that we HAD to bail out the banks. But the way I see it is as quoted in your post. It may seem extreme but just a little thought and bang your there right in the middle. If the truth be told I really dont have the "perfect" answer to the situation that we were in (when the banks needed bailing out) But im 80% certain letting them fall would have led to big trouble for 50% + of this country. I can't really think off hand where a big bank has been allowed to fall so I am therefore unable to prove either way what would happen.
Maybe we need some sort of legislation that separates the types of banks ("I agree with Nick" lol) where on 1 hand you have a "High Street" bank which lends money and holds savings with minimal interests in "other" more risky activities. Then on the other hand you can have your other type of bank which involves itself in the riskier side of things.
Maybe that is too simple and we need 3 or even 4 "grades" of bank and then people who bank with each type can "Pay there money and take their chances" Only type 1 (the careful bank) would ever be eligible for government assistance in fact maybe even be part government owned.
But like I said Im no economist and don't pretend to be. I know about half a dozen guys down my local boozer who are all of a sudden economic "experts" self taught with help from the Sun and Sky news.....but im not up to their standards yet.
So to recap - It makes me physically sick that we HAD to bail the banks out - But I believe that in this instance it was the only way - But im quite happy for anyone to prove otherwise.

 

[xcell]

i dont know about this vat rise hitting but every shop i've been in in the last few days have put there prices up sharply, for everything particularly food !

 

[nara]

i dont know about this vat rise hitting but every shop i've been in in the last few days have put there prices up sharply, for everything particularly food !

Not where I live. Morrison's are doing some great offers at the moment.

 

[davidh]

So david, according to your methodology, they did it (US and Germany etc) so naturally we do what others do? Sorry I don't buy that, when I used to sit on my uncles lap, he used to say, 'if they jumped off a cliff, would you...'

I assume you'll have no complaints when we're hit hard by tax increases, spending cuts and rising unemployment. You're also happy that for every pound you place in the bank you're getting back a mighty half a pence in interest. This seems like a great deal considering we kept them afloat. Just try borrowing some money at that same rate from the money that we gave to them. This is the type of behavior you support, these are the people you wanted to bail out.

A few have asked where is that money? Why won't the banks lend to us? I'd like to know where is that money? .

your putting words into my mouth

no i explained why the banks where baled out

and no i dont want to be screwed for tax etc
if you would have read my ealier post
i think the banks should be screwed back with a tax on the profits they are now making
which is rediculas
they should be made to pay a better interest rate for borrowers and if u have money in the bank u should get half of what the bastards are making on ur money

i dont like to see the ordinary man in the street being made to pay for greedy bastards in the banks
all i argue for is the conlibs are going to make the ordinary man pay not the ppl who have the money
they with the banks are what coursed this shit

 

[xcell]

Not where I live. Morrison's are doing some great offers at the moment.

I should add, every shop I've been in lately also has had reduced price/ nearly out of date food in , they normally don't throw so much at you (Spar, Asdas to name two). Theres quite a thing happening since the new government came in panic selling if u will .

 

[cat123]

if you want to be politically correct then yes

but the amount of economic growth this year is less than .5 % in the last 3 months

the economy contracted over 4% in the last 18 months

you say were out of recession, i say it is rubbish

unemployment proves it also

I'm not being politically correct, the word recession means:

"A significant decline in activity spread across the economy, lasting longer than a few months. It is visible in industrial production, employment, real income, and wholesale-retail trade. The technical indicator of a recession is two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth as measured by a country's GDP."

The GDP has grown; unemployment proves nothing because after every recession unemployment continues to rise for a while afterwards. We are in recovery but as Gordon Brown said it is fragile and I fear a VAT rise will cause a double dip, because if everything that we buy rises in price then people will only buy the things they need the most causing some businesses a lot of problems.

 

[MikeS]

thats your view

i have mine

i live in the worst affected area in the UK and i see what goes on

 

[Munkey]

No mate you have me completely wrong. I think no one is too big to fail. I HATE the fact that we HAD to bail out the banks. But the way I see it is as quoted in your post. It may seem extreme but just a little thought and bang your there right in the middle. If the truth be told I really dont have the "perfect" answer to the situation that we were in (when the banks needed bailing out) But im 80% certain letting them fall would have led to big trouble for 50% + of this country. I can't really think off hand where a big bank has been allowed to fall so I am therefore unable to prove either way what would happen.
Maybe we need some sort of legislation that separates the types of banks ("I agree with Nick" lol) where on 1 hand you have a "High Street" bank which lends money and holds savings with minimal interests in "other" more risky activities. Then on the other hand you can have your other type of bank which involves itself in the riskier side of things.
Maybe that is too simple and we need 3 or even 4 "grades" of bank and then people who bank with each type can "Pay there money and take their chances" Only type 1 (the careful bank) would ever be eligible for government assistance in fact maybe even be part government owned.
But like I said Im no economist and don't pretend to be. I know about half a dozen guys down my local boozer who are all of a sudden economic "experts" self taught with help from the Sun and Sky news.....but im not up to their standards yet.
So to recap - It makes me physically sick that we HAD to bail the banks out - But I believe that in this instance it was the only way - But im quite happy for anyone to prove otherwise.

Diddy, people were afraid as they don't know any better, they thought that they'd lose their life savings, lose their pensions and any other investments they had with their bank. If the government had ring-fenced what was important, they could have dealt with it much further down the line ie, when a pension matures. Any casino type pension scheme where customers were misled (remember endowment mortgages in the 90's?) should have been investigated, hell that public inquiry was a complete sham. We were in a situation where banks were placing a bet for us and some were in turn betting against that bet. Not all of them though, some banks were so foolish to think that they were worth billions, RBS was a prime example.

So where is the bailout cash, easy! It's been leveraged up over 10-1 and invested back into the markets or as some would argue, used to manipulate the markets. So our government prints let say £100B, they give this money to the banks who in turn are legally allowed to turn that into £1T. That kind of money is more than what the governments can print, and we do it with the added cost of inflation and currency devaluation. Banks have no such problems as their money is allowed to be created out of thin air. I wish I were a banker!

Interesting story about the ECB and the currency crisis.

Take a look at the Argentinean crisis early in the decade to see what countries can do in such a situation. Argentina gave the finger to the IMF, said no to the bailout loans and went it alone suffering being in the financial wilderness for around two years. The last I looked they had better growth than us during the glory years, 8% or 9% I think and were one of the last countries to go into the financial crisis recession. You can say no as Moody's ratings really don't mean shit, Greece OTOH have chosen to indebt their citizens for a generation, that's why people are rioting in the streets. We'll be in a similar situation 12 months from now (except the riots as we're British n reserved n all that)

@ davidh, you didn't explain why the banks were bailed out in your earlier post.

 

[oneman]

The problem with that is your Argentina economy is not financial based and a fraction of the size. Going two years in the wilderness for a country like argentina is not the same situation that the UK was in. Much like what has happened in Greece and Iceland, yes a whole generation is fucked if you decide to pay of your national debt. Every country was overleveraging its assets in the last 20 years and now they are having to pay for it.

To say that Moody rating don't mean is not true, when a country has to borrow (yes, even china and germany borrow vast sums) then the interest rate they have to set is related to risk of non-payment which is why AAA+ rating is critical to the UK.

 

[Munkey]

The problem with that is your Argentina economy is not financial based and a fraction of the size. Going two years in the wilderness for a country like argentina is not the same situation that the UK was in. Much like what has happened in Greece and Iceland, yes a whole generation is fucked if you decide to pay of your national debt. Every country was overleveraging its assets in the last 20 years and now they are having to pay for it.

To say that Moody rating don't mean is not true, when a country has to borrow (yes, even china and germany borrow vast sums) then the interest rate they have to set is related to risk of non-payment which is why AAA+ rating is critical to the UK.

We are talking about the same Moody's right? The one I know of faced lawsuits from the US Securities & Exchange Commission over alleged false and misleading description of its ratings procedures. The Fianancial Times also wrote that Moody's had incorrectly awarded AAA ratings to billions of dollars in European constant proportion debt obligation, due to an error in the credit-rating model. I won't go into Lehman Bros.

IIRC Moody's commented that staff had violated policy and blamed the whole thing on a lowly employee :silly: Do you think the rating system is working or means anything to the markets?

The Argentinean example I gave was simply to show that even in a worst case scenario you can make it back in just a few years.

 

[CrazyFool]

I touch myself.

 

[oneman]

We are talking about the same Moody's right? The one I know of faced lawsuits from the US Securities & Exchange Commission over alleged false and misleading description of its ratings procedures. The Fianancial Times also wrote that Moody's had incorrectly awarded AAA ratings to billions of dollars in European constant proportion debt obligation, due to an error in the credit-rating model. I won't go into Lehman Bros.

IIRC Moody's commented that staff had violated policy and blamed the whole thing on a lowly employee :silly: Do you think the rating system is working or means anything to the markets?

The Argentinean example I gave was simply to show that even in a worst case scenario you can make it back in just a few years.

Rating systems may or may not be working but when moodys, finch, S & P, etc all have the same rating that rightly or wrongly has influence on the market. Difference in borrowing rate between AAA and junk could be 10% or more. Same with credit risk analysis companies such as Experian and Equifax have a lot of sway over an individual person ability to get credit (though I know the final decision does lie with the lender).

Having worked IT support for several financial companies, in my experiance there is a significant minority of dealers and traders who are basically cowboys though the majority know what they are doing. Most base a lot of their decisions on outside information such as ratings agencies. In my opinion this is what partly lead to the problem with the sheep mentality of the whole market as most systems were basing their decisions on the same information.

 

[madbrumie]

thats your view

i have mine

i live in the worst affected area in the UK and i see what goes on

Mate i dont mean to be rude, but i dont understand why you think you live in the worst affected area in the UK??
I have lived and worked in brum all my life, and working for council in the worst parts of brum was very hard, but there are many other areas that are even worse off than brum!!
What about the mining towns, steel towns, they are like gost towns now, no jobs only old people living there due to no work etc.
Brum is in fact 1 of the better places to live in this country, maybe your just having a bad time of it?

MB