Omega Owners Forum
Chat Area => General Discussion Area => Topic started by: Vamps on 22 February 2013, 22:22:00
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Discuss..... :y
Sit back with a bottle and some nuts..... :D :D :D
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The USA - the largest economy in the world - had the same done to it last year ... doesn't seem to have made any difference to the "real world" people at all.
The politically motivated stirrers of the world will use it as a stick to try and impose their views and blame everyone else.
Those with an axe to grind will use it as a means of putting others down purely for the sake of it.
Those with half a brain cell will ignore it and allow life to continue .. :)
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Inevitable! ::)
Milliband and Balls will get in a right old lather about it, but the fact is we would have been downgraded a couple of years ago if they were still in power... ;)
It may cost the government a bit more to borrow money, but as soon as Mark Carney get his hands on the printing presses at The Bank of England, he'll have them cranked up to the max to fuel inflation, so that Britain's debts are inflated away... :-\
Expect prices to rise rapidly! >:(
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Inevitable! ::)
Milliband and Balls will get in a right old lather about it, but the fact is we would have been downgraded a couple of years ago if they were still in power... ;)
It may cost the government a bit more to borrow money, but as soon as Mark Carney get his hands on the printing presses at The Bank of England, he'll have them cranked up to the max to fuel inflation, so that Britain's debts are inflated away... :-\
Expect prices to rise rapidly! >:(
Probably not ... Only Germany and Canada now have triple A ratings ... Its made no difference to prices in France or USA when losing theirs .... :)
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Inevitable! ::)
Milliband and Balls will get in a right old lather about it, but the fact is we would have been downgraded a couple of years ago if they were still in power... ;)
It may cost the government a bit more to borrow money, but as soon as Mark Carney get his hands on the printing presses at The Bank of England, he'll have them cranked up to the max to fuel inflation, so that Britain's debts are inflated away... :-\
Expect prices to rise rapidly! >:(
Yikes. Don't say that, I have great hopes for the man. You are paying him enough.
I subscribe to the Rods2 theory that the world is heading for a big adjustment. the credit downgrades are just a part of this showing countries are not so creditworthy. Lets face it most countries are bust. It is only the other (also) bust countries keeping them going. hang on to your gold and sell your shares, buy land.
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Inevitable! ::)
Milliband and Balls will get in a right old lather about it, but the fact is we would have been downgraded a couple of years ago if they were still in power... ;)
It may cost the government a bit more to borrow money, but as soon as Mark Carney get his hands on the printing presses at The Bank of England, he'll have them cranked up to the max to fuel inflation, so that Britain's debts are inflated away... :-\
Expect prices to rise rapidly! >:(
Probably not ... Only Germany and Canada now have triple A ratings ... Its made no difference to prices in France or USA when losing theirs .... :)
Think you misunderstood me Entwood. Prices will rise due to increased inflation not the loss of the AAA rating.
My point is that under Mark Carney The Bank of England will change it's policy towards inflation, supported by George Osborne. They will extend quantitative easing to levels previously thought foolish, which will in turn fuel inflation to levels previously thought unsustainable. The Treasury will in turn abandon it's low inflation policy and we will 'enjoy' much higher inflation rates than we are used to. So prices will rocket, but debts will stay the same. Good news for mortgage holders and Governments heavily in debt, but bad news in all other respects. :(
The AAA rating will be duly restored once the debt percentages are reduced. :)
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Oh well the expected has happened then!
However this morning I note most correspondents and financial experts were not really worried by this, pointing out that only Germany and Canada remain with the triple A rating as stated in other posts. What Osborne does over the coming year is now very important indeed however.
So real news, possibly not! It has been so expected that no one appears to have flinched and the markets are predicted to take it all in their stride :y :y
We shall see ::) ::) ::)
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Zero ferks given. :y
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In the short term nothing as it has already been priced in and expected (overdue), bond prices for the UK and France have crept up from about 1.9% to about 2.2% in the last few months, there has also been a slight rise in USA.
In the next few months probably not a lot as the risk return from investments in other savings are currently so poor from stagflation, that 2.2% on safe Gilts is as good as it gets right now. If or when the global economy starts to pick up then that is the time to worry as money will earn better returns elsewhere, so Gilt prices will drop and interest rates rise. If the rise is significant then this will start a crisis of funding the deficit, like there has been in Spain, Italy, Ireland, Portugal and Greece. The response will then probably be a significant amount of QE to fix the Gilt market and allow the Government to fund the deficit. The side effect of this will be a significant rise in inflation with the debasement of the pound, which will make the currency and Gilts even less attractive.... This is the start of a nasty positive feedback loop and a self fulfilling Sterling crisis and ever rising inflation until you have hyperinflation.
As the pound continues to weaken where oil, gas and soft commodities (staple foods) are priced in US Dollars, then the pound will continue to be sold along with Gilts and this will be the start of a Sterling crisis and the real nasty point will be when we run out of foreign currency and nobody will accept our debased Sterling. How do we then fund oil, gas and food? This is where you help by either allowing the Government to borrow against your private assets (you act a guarantor) or a more practical solution is just to confiscate your saving and assets (Mansion, Jewellery, Paintings tax that morphs into an assets tax anybody?). This is what effectively happened in 2000 in Argentina where the Government converted all US Dollar savings into New Argentinian Pesos at 1 to 1, where by the time the banks reopened the new Peso was worth next to nothing.
A bit of a conundrum at the moment is why GDP is flat lining or dropping, manufacturing and construction are shrinking, the service sector is growing slowly, but employment is up and unemployment is dropping. In a normal recession you would at this point in the economic cycle employment to be dropping and unemployment rising. Some of this is due to more part time jobs on lower wages and the rest is put down to lower productivity where employers are holding on to staff waiting for better times. But something is missing and I've had a think about this and I think is must be due to two things: We know North Sea oil production is decreasing and with the current price of oil the turnover per worker must be high but overall declining and we know high net worth people due to high taxes are leaving. The Inland Revenue have reported that those paying 50% tax on over on £150k has shrunk from 16,000 to 6000 so the tax take is smaller (Laffer curve effect). Now there is a continuing expansion of convenience store like Tesco express and other low value service industries, like caring for the elderly, so are the high value per per person jobs being replaced by those on the minimum wage? So we are getting higher employment but in industries where there is a smaller turnover per person?
If so, this would also help to part explain our deteriorating balance of payments, where we need to import more oil and gas, but also the high net worth people are also more likely to have been involved personally or be employing people that have been involved in the generation of income from abroad, through the export of goods and services. Now if this in financial services, it will be what are classed as invisible exports as it does not involve physical goods, but something that is vital never the less.
The more the politics of envy take root in this country and 'profit' is made a dirty word. The longer the rebalancing of the economy through public service cuts and tax cut is delayed the more we are going to be mired in the downward spiral of stagflation and falling wages. As the economy gets weaker and weaker, so the greater the danger of a real Sterling crisis through a collapse of Gilts and the value of Sterling or both.
I wish I could be positive, but none of the LibLabCons are up to the job of sorting out the economy. They have all taken the soft easy options and it is slowly but surely catching up with them. The brutal reality is that we need better politicians. Many people put the current crisis down to a banking and capitalism crisis. The banks have been allowed to behave unacceptable by the politicians and there is no capitalism crisis there have been remarkable few bankruptcies, with industry sitting on record saving waiting for signs of a growing economy, so they can start investing. What we have at the moment is a crisis of Government and politicians in most Western countries. Are UKIP the answer, who knows, but at least Nigel Farage has made a fortune in the city, has had a real job and understands finance, so I will give him the benefit of the doubt. The only person in the Conservative party, that understands the situation is ChrisGixer's MP John Redwood and I'm sure as Chancellor he would give us a fighting chance. The is nobody on the Limp Dems or Labour that I'm aware of that can get us out of this mess, in fact if they have their hands anywhere near the levers of power, I'm sure the current pending disaster will be made that much worse.
I wish I could be more positive, but the decline into a crisis is slowly and inevitably happening. On a personal and selfish note I hope I have sold my house, moved my funds elsewhere and I'm in the Ukraine, before this show motion train crash happens.
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Er....yes..............I agree! Well I think I understand all that Rods2!! ;D ;D ;D ;D :y :y :y
Whatever, a great informed piece! :y :y :y
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why is so much emphasis given to 1 american bank it seems they want to control what outher countrys do with there money
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To add to Rods assessment, this recession is different to past ones because the length of time it has been running and the depth of it has affected the psyche of the people that really matter......the consumer.
Not the rich who can afford to ride it out, or the poor who are hanging on for dear life, but the middle income folk who like nothing better than a Saturday afternoon splurge in town follwed by a meal out.
I, personally, will never be the same again. I simply do not trust politicians to look after my country's finances any more. We were told for years to save our cash and be careful. Ironically, what the country needs now is exactly the opposite.
Too late. The people with disposable income are sqirrelling it away, and who can blame them?
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Shame I was away over the weekend .. I'd have asked all you "future readers" for the lottery numbers ... :) but then .. if you are such "future experts" you'll have won the lottery anyway ... :)
I do wonder why such eminent financial experts drive Omegas and frequent a lowly forum like this .... :)
:D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D
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Shame I was away over the weekend .. I'd have asked all you "future readers" for the lottery numbers ... :) but then .. if you are such "future experts" you'll have won the lottery anyway ... :)
I do wonder why such eminent financial experts drive Omegas and frequent a lowly forum like this .... :)
:D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D
If you can't contribute constructively, why bother at all?
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Shame I was away over the weekend .. I'd have asked all you "future readers" for the lottery numbers ... :) but then .. if you are such "future experts" you'll have won the lottery anyway ... :)
I do wonder why such eminent financial experts drive Omegas and frequent a lowly forum like this .... :)
:D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D
If you can't contribute constructively, why bother at all?
And there I was thinking it's a free country and everyone is entitled to an opinion ?? :)
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I do wonder why such eminent financial experts drive Omegas and frequent a lowly forum like this .... :)
I don't think we'd do much worse to be honest.... ::)
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Shame I was away over the weekend .. I'd have asked all you "future readers" for the lottery numbers ... :) but then .. if you are such "future experts" you'll have won the lottery anyway ... :)
I do wonder why such eminent financial experts drive Omegas and frequent a lowly forum like this .... :)
:D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D
We all have our hobbies and one of mine at the moment is trying to understand what is happening economically, as being forewarned is to forearmed. :)
I've personally been hard hit by the recession not only work wise, but it has also hit my future pension pretty hard. I'm at an age now where I've got realistically 10 to 15 years to replace those losses and to build new businesses. Fortunately, my income with new customers and other income streams is recovering and as a computer programmer I can work anywhere in the world as long as I can live and work in that country and have a reasonable Internet connection, so it sure isn't going to be here, once I've sold my house.
As for lottery numbers, random future events can't be predicted. The best I can do is tell you that with probability theory your odds of 6 correct numbers are: (6 / 49) * (5 / 48) * (4 / 47) * (3 / 46) * (2 / 45) * (1 / 44)
Economics is a cross between maths, social interaction and random events and that makes it interesting.
This makes any outlook on future events impossible to absolutely predict, but in stable times using an extrapolation of where we are now and therefore what is likely to happen in the future works reasonably well and but at the moment we are not in stable economic times.
Somethings like the country's debts are increasing along with interest payments are obvious, many things are not. By reading other economic columns and blogs, plus writing my own thoughts and interacting with people is helping my knowledge base. Am I ever going to be an economic expert, no and I've no wish to be, do I want to understand enough about economics, so it helps to make good life / business decisions, most definitely.
I could have been as rude as you with my reply, but I would personally rather keep to the moral high ground and leave trolling to others!
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/matt/ (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/matt/) ;D
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/matt/ (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/matt/) ;D
Don't laugh. I hope Nick doesn't see that. :(
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To add to Rods assessment, this recession is different to past ones because the length of time it has been running and the depth of it has affected the psyche of the people that really matter......the consumer.
Not the rich who can afford to ride it out, or the poor who are hanging on for dear life, but the middle income folk who like nothing better than a Saturday afternoon splurge in town follwed by a meal out.
I, personally, will never be the same again. I simply do not trust politicians to look after my country's finances any more. We were told for years to save our cash and be careful. Ironically, what the country needs now is exactly the opposite.
Too late. The people with disposable income are sqirrelling it away, and who can blame them?
From BBC business today:
The British Bankers' Association (BBA) also said that loan and overdraft repayments outstripped new borrowing.
Personal loan levels are almost half of their peak in 2007-08, the BBA said.
"January's severe weather impacted adversely on what was already a subdued picture of borrowing demand from households and businesses," said David Dooks, BBA statistics director.
"While general economic growth stalls, low consumer and business confidence generates a natural tendency to restrain borrowing appetite, repay borrowing where possible and to build up cash and savings as a buffer."
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To add to Rods assessment, this recession is different to past ones because the length of time it has been running and the depth of it has affected the psyche of the people that really matter......the consumer.
Not the rich who can afford to ride it out, or the poor who are hanging on for dear life, but the middle income folk who like nothing better than a Saturday afternoon splurge in town follwed by a meal out.
I, personally, will never be the same again. I simply do not trust politicians to look after my country's finances any more. We were told for years to save our cash and be careful. Ironically, what the country needs now is exactly the opposite.
Too late. The people with disposable income are sqirrelling it away, and who can blame them?
From BBC business today:
The British Bankers' Association (BBA) also said that loan and overdraft repayments outstripped new borrowing.
Personal loan levels are almost half of their peak in 2007-08, the BBA said.
"January's severe weather impacted adversely on what was already a subdued picture of borrowing demand from households and businesses," said David Dooks, BBA statistics director.
"While general economic growth stalls, low consumer and business confidence generates a natural tendency to restrain borrowing appetite, repay borrowing where possible and to build up cash and savings as a buffer."
There is another point, rarely mentioned by the pundits (as they like to think they are the only ones with brains) .. this recession is markedly different from previous versions as Official Interest Rates are now at spectacularly low levels.
This has lead to Banks, Building Societies etc etc dropping the rates offered to savers to what could be called "stupid" levels in comparison to the rates they are still charging borrowers ... the "split" in the rates between loans and savings has never been so obscene.
Thus those folks with the odd functioning brain cell have worked out that it is far better to pay off your debts with your savings, it actually saves you money.
In past times this was seen to be a "bad" idea as it left you vulnerable to any unforeseen eventuality ... no "rainy day" money to fall back on; however, with the Social Services the way the past lot left them - but only when you have no savings - it is now so easy to run to SS for help there is no need, in fact, it makes no sense, to have savings.
Politicians, Bankers and Economists don't like this for 3 reasons.... 1) They don't believe the population should be allowed to think, 2) Money is only made from those people who are in debt, not from those who have cleared their debts. 3) they have fed the falsehood that a citizen is required to spend to support the country in order to try and make folks take on debt they don't need.
When folks see through their smokescreens they call it "lack of confidence" .. they are probably right .. but it is a lack of confidence in THEM nothing less !!!
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The Bank of England base rate is nothing more than a con. As you say, the interest rates offered on savings is, taking inflation into account, less than 0%. Mention this to your bank/building society and they will tell you that their rates are base rate +?%.
But, of course, when they lend you money, at 8%, they are lending you money they borrowed for free, and are cashing in big time.
One way to recapitalise the banks, I suppose.
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The banks get cheap money from the Government and in return they lower saving interest rates and widen borrower rates to boost their profits. Just what the BOE and Government wanted, where it helped them reach their new capital reserve requirements.
The falling pound will also add to inflation to debase the currency, but to talk it down and make it go down further they are talking about another £25bn of QE. They may also be concerned about the money supply where people are paying down debts and they think this needs a further boost. But don't worry about Lord King when he retires in June about inflation hurting his massive pension, it is index linked. Shrinking pensions is for the plebs. >:( >:( >:( >:(
The UK population is paying down debts at the moment as they can see that the current Government spending situation is not sustainable and are rightly worried. At some point interest rates are going to have to rise and the prudent who have paid down debts will be in the better position. Once official rates hit 4,5,6% many zombie households are going to be in trouble. Where there have been relatively few repossessions during this recession, that's when they will start to rise. :o :o :o :o
Two Fundamental Government Rules:
1. It is never the Government's fault but always the populations / consumer or even due to the wrong sort of weather.
2. If it is the Government's fault, see rule 1.
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To add to Rods assessment, this recession is different to past ones because the length of time it has been running and the depth of it has affected the psyche of the people that really matter......the consumer.
Not the rich who can afford to ride it out, or the poor who are hanging on for dear life, but the middle income folk who like nothing better than a Saturday afternoon splurge in town follwed by a meal out.
I, personally, will never be the same again. I simply do not trust politicians to look after my country's finances any more. We were told for years to save our cash and be careful. Ironically, what the country needs now is exactly the opposite.
Too late. The people with disposable income are sqirrelling it away, and who can blame them?
From BBC business today:
The British Bankers' Association (BBA) also said that loan and overdraft repayments outstripped new borrowing.
Personal loan levels are almost half of their peak in 2007-08, the BBA said.
"January's severe weather impacted adversely on what was already a subdued picture of borrowing demand from households and businesses," said David Dooks, BBA statistics director.
"While general economic growth stalls, low consumer and business confidence generates a natural tendency to restrain borrowing appetite, repay borrowing where possible and to build up cash and savings as a buffer."
There is another point, rarely mentioned by the pundits (as they like to think they are the only ones with brains) .. this recession is markedly different from previous versions as Official Interest Rates are now at spectacularly low levels.
This has lead to Banks, Building Societies etc etc dropping the rates offered to savers to what could be called "stupid" levels in comparison to the rates they are still charging borrowers ... the "split" in the rates between loans and savings has never been so obscene.
Thus those folks with the odd functioning brain cell have worked out that it is far better to pay off your debts with your savings, it actually saves you money.
In past times this was seen to be a "bad" idea as it left you vulnerable to any unforeseen eventuality ... no "rainy day" money to fall back on; however, with the Social Services the way the past lot left them - but only when you have no savings - it is now so easy to run to SS for help there is no need, in fact, it makes no sense, to have savings.
Politicians, Bankers and Economists don't like this for 3 reasons.... 1) They don't believe the population should be allowed to think, 2) Money is only made from those people who are in debt, not from those who have cleared their debts. 3) they have fed the falsehood that a citizen is required to spend to support the country in order to try and make folks take on debt they don't need.
When folks see through their smokescreens they call it "lack of confidence" .. they are probably right .. but it is a lack of confidence in THEM nothing less !!!
Would you like to elaberate on that E, have you tried to access Social Services, front line services almost none existent, all effort now on Safeguarding - a bit like locking the door after the horse has left.......... :( :( :(