shirley and anthony hide

No Bigglesworth is right. In FX you sell Stg against another currency ie
Euro . At settlement date you have to provide the Stg and you get the Euro.
Soros was selling Stg against mainly Deutche marks at the time.I know as I was trading the Stg crosses at the time.And on the day the poverbial hit the fan to roll youryour short Stg position just 1 day was costing about 250 pips. ie in EuroGbp terms.differencebetween. .7750 and .8000

bigglesworth

Our beloved Prime Minister is "denying" he will head a new World Financial Regulatory Body!

bigglesworth

I did not realise how prescient Chrismortley was the other day.
If you don't hear from us for a while just check the dungeons at no 10.

bigglesworth

So yet more good news on the economy -retail sales very positive. So what does the Government do?

Yet again wheel out a senior official to talk the UK down - could last 10 years, worst recession ever, its a depression, worst for 60 years, we're all doomed. etc etc etc


Quote from one of the economists at a serious bank

The one thing we are highlighting is that the BoE may have actually have gone a little bit too bearish for the UK economic picture in 2009,

So although I don't doubt that Gordon and the Morons will continue to emphasise bad news, it looks very much as though the markets are onto them. And given all the really cr*p news to come on the Eurozone, the exchange rate might just snap back a bit faster than expected.

Except that we still have 16 months of this utterly delusional and incompetent buffoon to go. And heaven only knows how much damage he can do in that time.

chrismortley

It gets worse if we end up down there , with Gordon out of the way it could be Harriet Harman with the cat of nine tails dishing the punishment out

EsuriJohn

"OOOO'h yes."

shirley and anthony hide

Rumour is that Gordon has been claiming second home expenses on your villa for last couple of years
Now you moved there he is panicing big time. Only a rumour though.

bigglesworth

It is not just our children who will pay for Gordon and the Morons, but our grandchildren too.
Ten years to destroy the fourth largest and strongest economy in the world should assure him his place in the history books.
For those appalled at the sheer ignorance and incompetence of Crash Gordon this is a decent article.
(Those of a nervous disposition, look away now).
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/p...h-economy.html

dr_designer

I sympathise with your distrust of Gordon Brown and "New Labour" - which is a Thatcherite Conservative party, in cahoots with bankers and big business, with no connections to any previous Labour administration.

But what makes you think the so-called Conservative party will be any better? It promise to be lees Thatcherite, more "compassionate" and "green" and "small business". Do your really think these promises will last one month after it is elected?

bigglesworth

"No connection to any previous Labour administration?" Britain is bankrupt AGAIN.

Mitzyboy

You can pretty much guarantee that a conservative govt with the party members they have now would have made as much of a balls up if not bigger than Gordons Mob did

bigglesworth

Although no lover of politicians in general, and less so in specific, let's just remember where Gordon has led us - to Queer Street. The UK is so deeply in debt after ten years of Gordon that sterling has collapsed by 35 per cent, with some predicting it could HALVE from here. Many are looking for parity with the dollar, not the Euro.The only reason sterling is above parity with the Euro is because of the problems in Eastern Europe.

We are now, on HMG's figures, going to borrow 80 plus billion this year and 120 billion next year (others say 150). And so on ad infinitum. You know the old joke, you borrow 100 billion here and 100 billion there and pretty soon you are talking real money.

Annual borrowing of 12 percent of GDP. Total anticipated public sector debt of 65 percent of GDP within 2 years. Public Sector employment to continue rising. And NO change to policy and no plan to repay. The only policy they have is spinning the 700K to a *anker so we don't notice the extra couple of hundred billion they are throwing in the pot nearly every day. Would you lend them the money if they didn't force you to?

There is a real risk that overseas investors will simply refuse to buy gilts. It is the subject of open debate in the Government and in the money markets. Then what would happen to sterling?

The Audit Commission itself is ringing alarm bells . (VERY loudly). And these numbers do not include PFI, Network Rail, or public sector pensions. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/com...cle5811186.ece.
I cannot recall another occasion when they made any kind of statement at all.

Make no mistakes about the seriousness of this. By taxing pensions, Gordon stole our future. By forcing company pension schemes, pension funds and insurance companies to buy Government gilts at low rates, he stole our children's future. Now he is mortgaging our grandchildren's future.
He is a surreal combination of Nelson and the navigator of the Titanic. Full Steam ahead, I see no icebergs. And there aren't too many lifeboats.

So you may be right Mitzyboy, that Dave and Boy George wouldn't have done any better. But my dog wouldn't have done worse.

Chiclanagir

Having lived through the recession of the 1990´s with much more unemployment and jobs and home losses and with interest rates at 15% I do not see how a Conservative Government would have done any better now. This is a world wide recession with every country suffering including Spain with much higher unemployment than the UK.

bigglesworth

The peak in economic inactivity in the 1990s was about 16.7 million people out of a population of about 57.8 million. About 28.9 percent.

In November 2008 there were already 17.9 million economically inactive, out of a population of 60.9 million About 29.4 percent.

And you can certainly add another couple of hundred thousand at least to that already. Forecasts are another million by the end of this year, and possibly a further million by the end of 2012.

Repossessions have only just started. Many are hidden by title transfers to HAs and local authorities. We all hope that this is the highpoint, but realistically, they are bound to rise with unemployment.

Interest rates 15 percent on exit from ERM, but base rate averaged about 6/7 percent during the 1990s. Entirely consistent with a sustainable rate of growth. 2-3 percent beneficial rate of inflation, plus 2 to 3 percent for annual productivity growth plus a (little) extra to cover inaccuracies.

There is no doubt that it was Gordon's decision to keep interest rates down and inflate the money supply to finance his spending splurge that led to the enormous increase in public and private sector debt that is currently crucifying sterling and all those who are dependent on sterling incomes.

I do hope you are as sanguine at the end of this recession as you are at the beginning- or depression as Gordon prefers to call it.

dr_designer

I don't have much time for either of the parties at the moment. But if I were asked: who would you prefer to be overseeing the nation's finances, the gay young friend of Peter Mandelson, or the dour Scot? I know which one I'd pick.