Everthing You Worked For About To Vanish?

[misterman21]

Reported in todays Telegraph

They don't know what they're doing, do they? With every step taken by the Government as it tries frantically to prop up the British banking system, this central truth becomes ever more obvious.

Yesterday marked a new low for all involved, even by the standards of this crisis. Britons woke to news of the enormity of the fresh horrors in store. Despite all the sophistry and outdated boom-era terminology from experts, I think a far greater number of people than is imagined grasp at root what is happening here.

The country stands on the precipice. We are at risk of utter humiliation, of London becoming a Reykjavik on Thames and Britain going under. Thanks to the arrogance, hubristic strutting and serial incompetence of the Government and a group of bankers, the possibility of national bankruptcy is not unrealistic.

[patklang]

very extreme

[eek]

very extreme

Maybe so. I wouldnt know. All i do know is i find it very scary.

Im not financially minded, but im trying to read what i can about what is going on, and its hard to digest. Maybe its scare-mongering, and I will be relieved if it turns out to be so..but yeh, right now i feel VERY apprehensive and concerned.

[Scott]

And then there is global warming, which might really cause it to sink!

Sorry--I know for a lot of folks this is a very important issue, but there really isn't a lot that we can do.

Best of luck to all who are negatively affected the current situation.

[patklang]

Many of the expats here could have problems due to the gbp v thai baht.If it continues to drop many will be in poo poo street.Those who rely on exchanging gbp every month from pensions will have a torrid time until it gets better,but it would be the same if living in uk,so tighten the belts and cut down on expensive stuff and it WILL get better.Also many of us have savings in thai baht which mine is still at 69.9 to the gbp,but only about 6 months left,so i will have to try and make the baht last longer.

[IMA_FARANG]

Reported in todays Telegraph

They don't know what they're doing, do they? With every step taken by the Government as it tries frantically to prop up the British banking system, this central truth becomes ever more obvious.

Yesterday marked a new low for all involved, even by the standards of this crisis. Britons woke to news of the enormity of the fresh horrors in store. Despite all the sophistry and outdated boom-era terminology from experts, I think a far greater number of people than is imagined grasp at root what is happening here.

The country stands on the precipice. We are at risk of utter humiliation, of London becoming a Reykjavik on Thames and Britain going under. Thanks to the arrogance, hubristic strutting and serial incompetence of the Government and a group of bankers, the possibility of national bankruptcy is not unrealistic.

Oh, I feel so sorry for the poor Brits.....NOT. Seems like it was only about 6 months ago or so that I was reading on this forumhow thw U.S. Dollar was going to S--t, and I should get rid of my dollars and buy sterling. How times change, don't they! O.K. enough gloating. Actually I work here in Greece...getting paid in Dollars and paying rent in Euro (and sending my Dollars to Thailnd to get changed into Baht for my Thai family) At one point one Euro cost $1.65...and was about 32 Baht. Now the Euro is down to $1.32 and its almost back to 35 Baht for a Dollar. That was a double-whammy at that time. Now I feel likw I have a little breathing space at least. The one thing I'm sure of, the economy worldwide is bad, and I think, will still get worse. Even places like Japan, China and ....wait for it.... Dubai....are feeling the pinch. Factories closing down in China...that wasn't expected.

Everybody, grab your boots, and lift up your feet...there's going to be another flood.

[midas]

Surely the Olympic games will save it ?

[12DrinkMore]

Brown has totally screwed up.

He could have joined the Euro but refused to consider it.

He is personally shattered that the Royal Bank of Scotland (don't forget he is a kilt wearer) is more than insolvent, it has liabilities amounting to a considerable proportion of the UK gbp.

Brown has overruled the MPC and forced them to drop interest rates, in spite of the inflation rate at over 1% above target and the 30% devaluation of the GBP, which will mean massive inflation is heading to the UK.

Brown has authorised King to start the printing presses and force more GBPs into the country where the population is desperately trying NOT to spend and to pay off debts before they lose their jobs.

Pushing on a trillion meter piece of string comes to mind.

Now the fukcing speculators have the GBP in their sights, 6% drop overnight already. Brown will do nothing to counter this, he has lost control already.

I can only hope that he has now gone to the IMF and asked them to help get the UK into the Euro. The IMF does not have limitless funds and a bail out the size of the UK ltd would be both unaffordable but also futile. Brown has no long term policies to fix the fundamental problems of a country with no manufacturing, no natural resources and a financial service industry which has proven itself to be a massive liability. Maybe the UK could eventually become the holiday destination of Asians, who will buy up dirt cheap property in a year or two and travel around in tuks tuks in Brighton and the girls of the UK have to find work in the service industry :D

Over 30% of my assets have been destroyed and the resulting income from the Zero Interest Rate Policy is not worth a box of Chang.

And my backup plan when the cash runs dry? Soup kitchens in the UK, which, if Brown carries on his destructive policies, will be the horrendous outlook.

(just joking, I will be supported by my GF in the rice fields of Isaan, Khao Niaow, somtam, fried chicken and a Beer Chang every day :D )

Whichever way you look at it, we are lucky to be in Thailand and it is now time to try to secure a life here INDEPENDENT of any income from Farangland.

(Obviously any moaners, whyngers, complainers can bguger off back to where you come from)

[midas]

You could be right

Jim Rogers: 'Sell any sterling you might have. It's finished'

Investment guru issues grim warning as sharp fall in inflation hits pound

Independent.co.uk

By Sean O'Grady, Economics Editor

Wednesday, 21 January 2009

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Fresh concerns about the British economy and fears for the stability of the UK's financial system pushed sterling to new record lows against the dollar, euro and yen yesterday.

One of the world's leading investors voiced the markets' concerns. Jim Rogers, of the Singapore-based Rogers Holdings and co-founder of the Quantum fund with George Soros, told Bloomberg Television: "I would urge you to sell any sterling you might have. It's finished. I hate to say it, but I would not put any money in the UK."

Mr Rogers added that the pound will fall below its record low of $1.0520 reached in February 1985. Given near parity with the euro, it raises the intriguing possibility that the pound/dollar/euro exchange rate could yield a "triple parity".

At the same time, the Office for National Statistics released the latest inflation figures, down sharply to 3.1 per cent in December, from 4.1 per cent in November. Investors took this as a sign of the weakness of demand in the UK economy, rather than of its fundamental strength. Before the official growth figures for the last three months of 2008, to be published on Friday, the Governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King, warned that the world economy had "fallen off a cliff" and that, for the UK, "total output in the fourth quarter is expected to have fallen sharply. In the first half of this year, the rate of contraction is likely to continue to be marked". Some economists believe that the figure will be -1.5 per cent, one of the sharpest downturns since the Second World War.

Mr King also acknowledged the "risk" that inflation would drop below the target rate of 2 per cent in coming months, and confirmed that the Bank would embrace "unconventional measures" – also known as quantitative easing, or printing money – to stimulate the economy. Most economists believe that inflation will come close to zero before the end of the summer, and, on the RPI measure, will actually turn negative.

The Bank and the Treasury have so far remained relatively relaxed about the decline in sterling, believing that a boost to exports and manufacturing would help "rebalance" the economy, but that may change as the depreciation shows signs of turning into a rout, because of a lack of confidence in the British authorities to manage the situation. Worries about the scale of government borrowings, the cost of bailing out the commercial banks and that the slump in sterling will become self-reinforcing helped to push the pound to an eight-year low against the dollar, an all-time low against the yen and back towards parity with the euro. In trading, the pound crashed as much as 4 per cent to lows of around $1.386, in its biggest one-day slide against the dollar since Britain fell out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism in 1992.

Neil MacKinnon, director and chief economist at ECU Group, said: "There's a real danger of the decline in sterling becoming a full-blown crisis. The Government and the Bank of England have to change their tune on the pound pretty quickly."

However, John Higgins, of Capital Economics, said: "It is perhaps not surprising that investors are getting increasingly nervous about the health of the UK's public finances. The 5-year credit default swap for the UK government has widened by 25bp since early January. 'Printing press' headlines make for uncomfortable reading. But there is little reason to think that the adoption of quantitative easing should be negative for the pound, any more than for the dollar."

Unlike the dollar and the euro, though, sterling does not enjoy the backing of a large economic area, nor the status of a "reserve currency", its banking sector is unusually large in relation to national GDP (400 to 450 per cent), and the UK economy is forecast, by the IMF and others, to be due for the biggest contraction of any major advanced economy in 2009.

Even weaker demand and output than previously thought is helping to push inflation down by the fastest pace since the recession of the early 1990s. The Government's VAT reduction and heavy pre-Christmas discounting on the high street drove the December CPI down to 3.1 per cent. The RPI, which includes housing costs, plunged from 3 per cent to 0.9 per cent, helped down by lower interest rates. Reductions in clothing and fuel prices were the other significant factors; that the falls were not even bigger may be due to the precipitous fall in sterling. Some economists believe the RPI could decline to as much as –5 per cent for a time in the summer, with the CPI hovering around zero, all of which will keep up the pressure for bank rate moving down from its current level of 1.5 per cent.

Colin Ellis of Daiwa Securities said: "The prospect of inflation getting below zero and staying there is the key reason the Monetary Policy Committee has been cutting bank rate aggressively – and was also arguing behind the scenes for the pot of money the Government gave it to fund security purchases. This asset-buying facility is not strict quantitative easing yet – it will be funded by T-bills, not by creating money – but it sets up a framework for how the MPC will try to reflate the economy once rates get down near zero. That is increasingly only looking like a matter of time."

[Orac]

Maybe the UK could eventually become the holiday destination of Asians, who will buy up dirt cheap property in a year or two and travel around in tuks tuks in Brighton and the girls of the UK have to find work in the service industry :D

...........

(Obviously any moaners, whyngers, complainers can bguger off back to where you come from)

You're making it sound quite tempting if only something could be done about the weather!

[samuibeachcomber]

Maybe the UK could eventually become the holiday destination of Asians, who will buy up dirt cheap property in a year or two and travel around in tuks tuks in Brighton and the girls of the UK have to find work in the service industry

...........

(Obviously any moaners, whyngers, complainers can bguger off back to where you come from)

You're making it sound quite tempting if only something could be done about the weather!

would n't that be a hoot!bar girls in brighton taking thai men back to the farm in the west country to meet mum and dad.

[Owain]

I think Gordon Brown is doing a great job in a very difficult situation. What is happening is not his fault anyway. Everything I worked for is certainly not about to vanish either.

[12DrinkMore]

You're making it sound quite tempting if only something could be done about the weather!

Oh come on, the solution is already on the way...

GLOBAL WARMING

:D

[samuibeachcomber]

I think Gordon Brown is doing a great job in a very difficult situation. What is happening is not his fault anyway. Everything I worked for is certainly not about to vanish either.

are you gordon's son?or just have a droll sense of humour.

[Owain]

are you gordon's son?

I would have to ask my parents that but I don't think so.

[12DrinkMore]

I think Gordon Brown is doing a great job in a very difficult situation.

I must admit that there are very few alternatives for him. The whole situation is no longer in his hands he is being bulldozed out of the way by the global economy. Which leads to

What is happening is not his fault anyway.

Yes is is. The guilt lies solely with him and the Labour party policies. I cannot even be bothered to to list them here. only to scream the questions,

"WHY IS THE UK SUFFERING THE WORST OF ANY MAJOR DEVELOPED COUNTRY IN THE WORLD?"

"WHY DID THE LABOUR PARTY START ITS TERM WITH A TRADING PLUS AND END WITH MASSIVE NATIONAL DEBTS?"

"WHY DO LABOUR ALWAYS DO THIS?"

Everything I worked for is certainly not about to vanish either.

I have no idea where you are, where you derive your income, but if it is based on a UK GBP (private or public service) pension then it could very well

disappear. They are ALL insolvent and cannot finance their long term liabilities. Of course, any solid assets you own will not disappear, but 99% of us Brits in Thailand rely on a UK sourced income. This could very well dwindle to a very painful level. 35 Baht/GBP could now very easily happen in six months.

[britmaveric]

Brown wants to join the Euro, always had. However never will happen because most British do not want it.

BTW Ireland, Italy, Greece, and Spain are on verge of collapse with the EURO.

[Owain]

Yes is is. The guilt lies solely with him and the Labour party policies. I cannot even be bothered to to list them here. only to scream the questions,

"WHY IS THE UK SUFFERING THE WORST OF ANY MAJOR DEVELOPED COUNTRY IN THE WORLD?"

"WHY DID THE LABOUR PARTY START ITS TERM WITH A TRADING PLUS AND END WITH MASSIVE NATIONAL DEBTS?"

How does the guilt from the current world wide economic problems lie with the Labour government? As far as I know it lies with greedy BANKS unless I have missed something.Were the Labour government responsible for lending loads of cash to people who could not pay it back? I don't think so.

What are you on about with they started with a trading plus and end with a massive national debt? What's a trading plus? You on about trade deficit?

[Shotime]

Maybe the UK could eventually become the holiday destination of Asians, who will buy up dirt cheap property in a year or two and travel around in tuks tuks in Brighton and the girls of the UK have to find work in the service industry

...........

(Obviously any moaners, whyngers, complainers can bguger off back to where you come from)

You're making it sound quite tempting if only something could be done about the weather!

would n't that be a hoot!bar girls in brighton taking thai men back to the farm in the west country to meet mum and dad.

Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

Is sin sot traditional in the UK, too?

[Owain]

Brown wants to join the Euro, always had. However never will happen because most British do not want it.

BTW Ireland, Italy, Greece, and Spain are on verge of collapse with the EURO.

Spain have had their credit rating dropped from triple A, which is a huge hole to drop into as it makes borrowing money on the international markets 4 times as expensive and you do not want that when you are in a recession as well.

Edited January 21, 2009 by Owain

[mommysboy]

What is going around at the moment is sheer hysteria IMHO. It's almost as if people want the extraordinary at all costs, and if they can't get it positively then negative will do. Obviously the cure is sober assessment and hard work. This is addiction.

I suspect UK will re-emerge as the hub of European industry as well as re secure it's place as a financial centre.

Get a grip.

[bartender100]

I like posting this, so I'll post again on this relevant thread. Now this is really scary stuff.

Sunday Times 14 Dec. 2008

I was in Dublin last weekend, and had a very real sense I’d been invited to the last days of the Roman empire. As far as I could work out, everyone had a Rolls-Royce Phantom and a coat made from something that’s now extinct. And then there were the women. Wow. Not that long ago every girl on the Emerald Isle had a face the colour of straw and orange hair. Now it’s the other way around.

Everyone appeared to be drunk on naked hedonism. I’ve never seen so much jus being drizzled onto so many improbable things, none of which was potted herring. It was like Barcelona but with beer. And as I careered from bar to bar all I could think was: “Jesus. Can’t they see what’s coming?”

Ireland is tiny. Its population is smaller than New Zealand’s, so how could the Irish ever have generated the cash for so many trips to the hairdressers, so many lobsters and so many Rollers? And how, now, as they become the first country in Europe to go officially into recession, can they not see the financial meteorite coming? Why are they not all at home, singing mournful songs?

It’s the same story on this side of the Irish Sea, of course. We’re all still plunging hither and thither, guzzling wine and wondering what preposterously expensive electronic toys the children will want to smash on Christmas morning this year. We can’t see the meteorite coming either.

I think mainly this is because the government is not telling us the truth. It’s painting Gordon Brown as a global economic messiah and fiddling about with Vat, pretending that the coming recession will be bad. But that it can deal with it.

I don’t think it can. I have spoken to a couple of pretty senior bankers in the past couple of weeks and their story is rather different. They don’t refer to the looming problems as being like 1992 or even 1929. They talk about a total financial meltdown. They talk about the End of Days.

Already we are seeing household names disappearing from the high street and with them will go the suppliers whose names have only ever been visible behind the grime on motorway vans. The job losses will mount. And mount. And mount. And as they climb, the bad debt will put even more pressure on the banks until every single one of them stutters and fails.

The European banks took one hel_l of a battering when things went wrong in America. Imagine, then, how life will be when the crisis arrives on this side of the Atlantic. Small wonder one City figure of my acquaintance ordered three safes for his London house just last week.

Of course, you may imagine the government will simply step in and nationalise everything, but to do that, it will have to borrow. And when every government is doing the same thing, there simply won’t be enough cash in the global pot. You can forget Iceland. From what I gather, Spain has had it. Along with Italy, Ireland and very possibly the UK.

It is impossible for someone who scored a U in his economics A-level to grapple with the consequences of all this but I’m told that in simple terms money will cease to function as a meaningful commodity. The binary dots and dashes that fuel the entire system will flicker and die. And without money there will be no business. No means of selling goods. No means of transporting them. No means of making them in the first place even. That’s why another friend of mine has recently sold his London house and bought somewhere in the country . . . with a kitchen garden.

These, as I see them, are the facts. Planet Earth thought it had £10. But it turns out we had only £2. Which means everyone must lose 80% of their wealth. And that’s going to be a problem if you were living on the breadline beforehand.

Eventually, of course, the system will reboot itself, but for a while there will be absolute chaos: riots, lynchings, starvation. It’ll be a world without power or fuel, and with no fuel there’s no way the modern agricultural system can be maintained. Which means there will be no food either. You might like to stop and think about that for a while.

[dave2]

i might be wrong here but the way this post is written , the bad english etc i doubt if the poster has ever been to england .... was never educated there ...... and has no idea what hes talking about !

prove me wrong misterman21 : )

enjoy ..... dave2

owain ..... Everything I worked for is certainly not about to vanish either..... same same from a very confident dave2

[Owain]

I like posting this, so I'll post again on this relevant thread. Now this is really scary stuff.

I also heard we will be hit by a meteorite on Friday and that Jesus will be returning to the earth on Monday morning.

[Orac]

I like posting this, so I'll post again on this relevant thread. Now this is really scary stuff.

Though entertaining it really depends on the credentials of who wrote the piece which, if I am not mistaken, was the well known economist Jeremy Clarkson.

[sleepyjohn]

Over 30% of my assets have been destroyed

I have said to friends before....if you live abroad for good but leave your assets in your home currency you are effectively a rather extreme type of speculator. For the vast majority of us that is not a good thing to be.

Given your detailed financial analysis Drinkmore I'm surprised you remained 100% in GBP (which a 30% loss suggests) instead of simply diversifying. I don't say this to piss you off but to warn others.

[BeauKarl]

Brown wants to join the Euro, always had. However never will happen because most British do not want it.

BTW Ireland, Italy, Greece, and Spain are on verge of collapse with the EURO.

Spain have had their credit rating dropped from triple A, which is a huge hole to drop into as it makes borrowing money on the international markets 4 times as expensive and you do not want that when you are in a recession as well.

I have my business in Spain and 70 % of my customers are British holidaymakers, so yes I'm doomed.

Thank Whoever I have a paid roof over my head and my wife knows how to grow rice

[Khun Jean]

it is not really Brown's fault. He is just following orders from his masters. The ones who also control the Central bank. If you look for someone to blame look in that direction. Derivatives, fractional banking, gold sales, interest rate control, currency manipulation etc...

They are just grabbing your assets with money they loaned you before. Money that was created out of thin air on a computer.

Free money loaned to you with interest and when you can't pay the bill, taking your assets, all for free.

Of course this system of banking has to come done, it is already incredible that it took so long.

[BeauKarl]

it is not really Brown's fault. He is just following orders from his masters. The ones who also control the Central bank. If you look for someone to blame look in that direction. Derivatives, fractional banking, gold sales, interest rate control, currency manipulation etc...

They are just grabbing your assets with money they loaned you before. Money that was created out of thin air on a computer.

Free money loaned to you with interest and when you can't pay the bill, taking your assets, all for free.

Of course this system of banking has to come done, it is already incredible that it took so long.

And who's been in power to make it carry on that long

[Naam]

Brown wants to join the Euro, always had. However never will happen because most British do not want it.

BTW Ireland, Italy, Greece, and Spain are on verge of collapse with the EURO.

Spain have had their credit rating dropped from triple A, which is a huge hole to drop into as it makes borrowing money on the international markets 4 times as expensive and you do not want that when you are in a recession as well.

that of course is nonsense!