GBP to THB Exchange Rate

[chiang mai]

http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/federal_deficit_chart.html

It makes the UK's £7 bill a month look almost insignificant by comparison.

EDIT: I missed this line in the above link:

"Although the federal deficit is the amount each year by which federal outlays in the federal budget exceed federal receipts, the gross federal debt increases each year by substantially more than the amount of the deficit each year. That is because a substantial amount of federal borrowing is not counted in the budget".

So perhaps not that meaningful after all, unsure.

Edited October 24, 2013 by chiang mai

[mccw]

Governments desire to reignite the housing market is aimed at two things, increasing GDP and improving the mortgage loan books of the banks, not necessarily in that order. And whilst property prices have increased in Central London and to a lesser degree in the South East, the country as a whole has yet to see any meaningful evidence of across the board increases source, Land Registry.

But, property prices are already a significant concern to many with large segments of the population already priced out, those factors combine to supress an already limited supply where the downstream impact must surely be a housing market that stagnates, ergo, GDP does not increase to a meaningful degree and the stress on bank mortgage loan books remains.

If my argument is incorrect or Ive missed something, Im certain someone will tell me.

I agree; and much of the mortgage loan growth that does occure from the government stymulus will be even more unstable because these people will be squeezing in to a market they can't really afford and therefor worse dangerous effects/ defaults in the event of next down turn/ future job losses, cost of living rises and or interest rates rises- all of which are inevitable at some point.

[yoshiwara]

What progress ?

http://useconomy.about.com/od/usdebtanddeficit/a/National-Debt-by-Year.htm

See the graph in the FT article.

[churchill]

What progress ?

http://useconomy.about.com/od/usdebtanddeficit/a/National-Debt-by-Year.htm

See the graph in the FT article.

based on forecasts .....

[yoshiwara]

What progress ?

http://useconomy.about.com/od/usdebtanddeficit/a/National-Debt-by-Year.htm

See the graph in the FT article.

based on forecasts .....

Prior to the forecast section, I think it is showing progress from the bottom point in 2009 through 2010-2011-2012. Forecast to gradually improve through 2013-2014-2015 and then reverse from 2016.... As John Authers points out 'In the US, polls show that most voters believe that that the deficit is rising , when in fact it has halved during the last five years'.

What he does say however is that there certainly is a political crisis dealing with the situation and investors are having difficulty factoring this in.

Edited October 24, 2013 by yoshiwara

[chiang mai]

Perhaps I'm missing something here but I fail to see how or where the budget deficit has halved during the past five years:

FY 2012: $1,087 billion
FY 2011: $1,300 billion
FY 2010: $1,294 billion

FY 2009: $1,413 billion
FY 2008: $458 billion
FY 2007: $161 billion

http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/federal_deficit_chart.html

[mccw]

What progress ?

http://useconomy.about.com/od/usdebtanddeficit/a/National-Debt-by-Year.htm

See the graph in the FT article.

based on forecasts .....

Prior to the forecast section, I think it is showing progress from the bottom point in 2009 through 2010-2011-2012. Forecast to gradually improve through 2013-2014-2015 and then reverse from 2016.... As John Authers points out 'In the US, polls show that most voters believe that that the deficit is rising , when in fact it has halved during the last five years'.

What he does say however is that there certainly is a political crisis dealing with the situation and investors are having difficulty factoring this in.

If you poll most voters won't know the difference between debt and deficit.

They think the debt is rising, which it is. Tremendously so.

[yoshiwara]

If you poll most voters won't know the difference between debt and deficit.

They think the debt is rising, which it is. Tremendously so.

As I was saying......

http://www.businessinsider.com/deficit-to-gdp-falling-obama-chart-2013-10

[chiang mai]

If you overlay GDP by year onto that neat little chart you'll see that the fall in GDP in 2009 distorts the view, normalise the GDP for that period and the numbers look very different, it's a slieght of hand trick.

A nice try but no cigar!

[mccw]

"""""""

The Bank of England Governor has unveiled a major overhaul of the way the Bank pumps cash into the markets.

In a speech on Thursday evening to celebrate the 125th anniversary of the Financial Times, Mark Carney revealed that the Bank will be making major changes to the terms under which the Bank provides cash to Britain's financial system.

Though the overhaul itself is unlikely to be noticed by bank customers, policymakers hope that it will help encourage lenders to provide more cash for those who want to borrow.

One of the key ways in which the Bank controls the UK economy, borrowing rates and financial stability is by lending private banks cash in exchange for assets.

However, over the course of the financial crisis it came under fire for offering this so-called liquidity at high prices and in exchange for only the best-quality assets.

Mr Carney said that the Bank intended to cut the charges for one such facility the Index Long-Term Repo and to allow banks to leave collateral of less-stringent quality in exchange for cash.

Whereas previously only high quality assets were acceptable, in future, lesser-quality investments such as mortgage-backed securities will be allowed.

The Bank will also make the terms of its discount window, an emergency short-term lending facility more generous.

Mr Carney said: "Our facilities are not ornamental. They are there to be used by banks to access money and high-quality collateral. We are offering money and collateral for longer terms.

"The range of assets we will accept in exchange will be wider, extending to raw loans and, in fact, any asset of which we are capable of assessing the risks. And using our facilities will be cheaper. In some cases the fees are being more than halved."

"""""""

-sky news app

A few things pop to mind:

Stimulation by the back door.

Helping the struggling banks further.

Propping up the shell from behind the scenes.

GBP negative risks growing.

[mccw]

Setting the scene for a right mess in a year or three.

[yoshiwara]

If you overlay GDP by year onto that neat little chart you'll see that the fall in GDP in 2009 distorts the view, normalise the GDP for that period and the numbers look very different, it's a slieght of hand trick.

A nice try but no cigar!

You misunderstand the situation utterly. We are precisely looking at what happened in 2009, the core event and what has happened since then which is that the ratio has declined in the years since then. The only sleight is in your illogical thinking. mccw is a little more on the ball in looking forward at the projected decline after 2015.

[chiang mai]

That doesn't wash at all, despite your bluster, perhaps if you rephrased it to say, "the Federal deficit has been recovering, following a susbtantial; fall in 2008", that might more accurately reflect reality.

Deficit spending is largely a fixed known amount each year, unless concious steps are taken to reduce the budget the outcome will nearly always be known at the outset. GDP or income on the other hand is variable and its value each year is at the mercy of markets and events, a declining ratio of one to the other does not therefore imply that a concious and purposeful reduction in the deficit has taken place, which is what you have implied, it merely means that the ratio has changed because of events.

The fact is that the Federal budget deficit (excluding forecasts) remains just below an ever increasing high whereas GDP fell 3.1% over two years, begining in 2008 and took two years to recover that loss. To imply in isolation that the budget deficit as a percentage of GDP has been falling is massively misleading and inappropriate to anyone other than politicians.

Regardless, what is the relevance of the above to the discussion on GBP/THB, do you have a conclusion to make as a result of this red herring, are you suggesting that US recovery is stronger than previously understood or are you merely being obscure with terminology and pointlesly challenging for the sake of challenging, again, again and again!

Edited October 24, 2013 by chiang mai

[Huayrat]

Things are looking up for the economy in Britain

http://news.sky.com/story/1159423/uk-economy-may-have-grown-by-up-to-1-percent

[yoshiwara]

Things are looking up for the economy in Britain

http://news.sky.com/story/1159423/uk-economy-may-have-grown-by-up-to-1-percent

Not so fast, Batman.

[mccw]

More on UK banking theme:

""""

Sky News understands that the Chancellor and senior Treasury officials will next week finalise a blueprint for the future of RBS, in which UK taxpayers hold an 82% stake, which avoids the need for a formal vote by independent City shareholders.

The key recommendations of a four-month review led by Rothschild, the investment bank, and BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager, are understood to focus on "internal surgery" rather than a wholesale break-up of the RBS group.

They will include the creation of a more formal internal "bad bank", a further reduction in the size of RBS's investment banking operations, a more aggressive strategy to resolve the future of impaired loans, and a number of other asset sales.

""""

And later goes on to say

""""

Under the currently-envisaged plans, the shake-up would involve in the region of £40bn of RBS's bad assets being held within a rebranded non-core asset division, or "bad bank". That figure is at the lower end of a range considered during the review, according to insiders, and roughly corresponds to the size of RBSs existing non-core unit.

"""

Not small change dealing with here.

The mess is still trying to be cleaned / not sorted yet; and this is still huge numbers of toxic assets attempting to be hidden and shuffled away through accounting tricks.

Also:

""Citizens, the US retail bank, is likely to be floated earlier than a previous target date of 2015, while the international arm of Coutts, the wealth manager owned by RBS, is also a candidate for sale."""

-sky new app

[mccw]

£40bn added to existing 40bn

80billion pounds worth of non performing debt they are trying to sweep under the carpet. Quite a trick. -

--------

Of course the UK banks are all perfectly stable. As is the value of the pound. And the "recovery" is going to last, eerrrr indefinitely.

The positive message is full on holes when we read the sounding facts and data in my opinion.

We have a couple of years maybe to Saftey up ourselves.

[chiang mai]

, what is the relevance of the above to the discussion on GBP/THB, do you have a conclusion to make as a result of this red herring,

No conclusion, no interesting view point, nothing, just one liners, cartoons and a void, what a suprise, not!

[mccw]

On a positive note:

""""

Production from the British sector of the North Sea, one of the world's more mature oil fields, is forecast to level off after nearly 15 years of decline and could increase again if current investment continues, WSJ reports.

The spark has come from tax incentives offered by the U.K., companies are happy to do business in a stable environment, and even small discoveries can be profitable since existing infrastructure can bring the oil to market quickly.

Production this year is forecast to reach 1.2M-1.4M boe/day but stabilize in 2014-15 and could reach 2M boe/day by the end of the decade; investment in the area is expected to reach $18.6B, a level not seen since the mid-1970s.

Top producer in the British North Sea include BP and Royal Dutch Shell (RDS.A, RDS..

""""

-source- seeking alpha app

This should help with the balance of trade and deficit maybe

Good for £

But just a little part of the puzzle of course.

[chiang mai]

On the subject of banks, this time Asian ones, on the THB side of the equation:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/china-business/10407625/BIS-sees-risk-of-1998-style-Asian-crisis-as-Chinese-dollar-debt-soars.html

I'm not sure what to make of it, it seems that even though it's Asian banks being discussed the risk is on the lending banks in the West.

[mccw]

On the subject of banks, this time Asian ones, on the THB side of the equation:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/china-business/10407625/BIS-sees-risk-of-1998-style-Asian-crisis-as-Chinese-dollar-debt-soars.html

I'm not sure what to make of it, it seems that even though it's Asian banks being discussed the risk is on the lending banks in the West.

Bit light on detail/ facts. Talking mostly about the Chinese company debt but then worrying about Thailand etc with out giving any numbers. Last I read the Thai government debt is around 40% of GDP and only 7% of that is foreign denominated.

Companies I don't have any firm data but from what I see of bond offerings I can't remember seeing anything other than bht.

Chinese Yuan has been allowed to strengthen slowly again dollar? In wich case borrowing in dollars in china is a smart move if you can be sure that policy will continue.

[Naam]

On the subject of banks, this time Asian ones, on the THB side of the equation:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/china-business/10407625/BIS-sees-risk-of-1998-style-Asian-crisis-as-Chinese-dollar-debt-soars.html

I'm not sure what to make of it, it seems that even though it's Asian banks being discussed the risk is on the lending banks in the West.

Bit light on detail/ facts. Talking mostly about the Chinese company debt but then worrying about Thailand etc with out giving any numbers. Last I read the Thai government debt is around 40% of GDP and only 7% of that is foreign denominated.

Companies I don't have any firm data but from what I see of bond offerings I can't remember seeing anything other than bht.

Chinese Yuan has been allowed to strengthen slowly again dollar? In wich case borrowing in dollars in china is a smart move if you can be sure that policy will continue.

gloom&doomer ol' Ambrose is firing as usual bovine feces from all barrels. BIS this, BIS that, BIS sees risk... but when you scour the BIS website and use the search function you get nothing of what he claims.

[chiang mai]

Yes possibly, but having just taken a look also at the BIS web site, there are so many papers and reports there that what he refers to could easily be buried, it's not a bad site to browse around if a person wants to understand better the international dynamics of banking, credit and lending.

http://www.bis.org/statistics/gli.htm

[i claudius]

Chiang Mai

will you please stop questioning what Naam says ,

[chiang mai]

This is an excellent article that summarises the recent economic improvement and the current position well, an extract:

"Delving into these latest growth numbers, we see that agricultural output expanded 1.4pc during the third quarter, while construction activity surged 2.5pc – the highest quarterly increase in this notoriously volatile sector since early 2010.

Manufacturing rose by 0.9pc compared to the previous three months, while output in the service sector – which now accounts for a jaw-dropping 78pc of the economy – was 0.7pc up.

Peer deeper into the data, though, and the picture of a “sustainable and well-balanced recovery” that the Coalition wants to project begins to fade. The UK economy, for one thing, remains 2.5pc smaller than it was during the first three months of 2008 – the last whole quarter before the sub-prime debacle began in earnest".

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/10406800/Better-figures-should-not-mask-battles-ahead.html

[mccw]

"78% service sector" shows how susceptible the economy is to increasing cost of living / wage squeeze. As the years tick by and costs rise more than wages the service sector must suffer? Weak pound will make matters worse so makes "rebalancing" very difficult proposition.

[chiang mai]

"78% service sector" shows how susceptible the economy is to increasing cost of living / wage squeeze. As the years tick by and costs rise more than wages the service sector must suffer? Weak pound will make matters worse so makes "rebalancing" very difficult proposition.

That simply jumps out at you, 78% is insane.

Edited October 28, 2013 by chiang mai

[Naam]

"78% service sector" shows how susceptible the economy is to increasing cost of living / wage squeeze. As the years tick by and costs rise more than wages the service sector must suffer? Weak pound will make matters worse so makes "rebalancing" very difficult proposition.

That simply jumps out at you, 78% is insane.

take a wild guess where the lion share of these 78% are produced and by what means.

hint: location less than one sqare mile in the city of London.

[chiang mai]

"78% service sector" shows how susceptible the economy is to increasing cost of living / wage squeeze. As the years tick by and costs rise more than wages the service sector must suffer? Weak pound will make matters worse so makes "rebalancing" very difficult proposition.

That simply jumps out at you, 78% is insane.

take a wild guess where the lion share of these 78% are produced and by what means.

hint: location less than one sqare mile in the city of London.

And therein lies the problem, no wonder Europe wants a transaction tax.

[i claudius]

"78% service sector" shows how susceptible the economy is to increasing cost of living / wage squeeze. As the years tick by and costs rise more than wages the service sector must suffer? Weak pound will make matters worse so makes "rebalancing" very difficult proposition.

That simply jumps out at you, 78% is insane.

take a wild guess where the lion share of these 78% are produced and by what means.

hint: location less than one sqare mile in the city of London.

And therein lies the problem, no wonder Europe wants a transaction tax.

And yet another reason that we should leave the Eurozone .