steviedeluxe

At some point I believe the pound will recover. But - who here can tell the future? Could be many years, especially as the government is "going for broke" in its attempts to re-invigorate the economy.

encodeme

When it rains in Spain and its often cold and grey in Jan, Feb,..oh how I wish I had central heating, double glazing that worked and other such Northern european luxuries.
Who in their right mind would make windows from aluminium without a thermal break in a country where the overnight temperature often drops below 8 deg in winter?

steviedeluxe

Again I think this depends on the area, but I see your point. If you buy a flat in a northern city like Madrid or Valladolid you'll either have central (or more commonly communal) heating. Here we're talking about overnight temperatures far lower than 8 degrees. But yes, in other places where you may typically only get 2 or 3 weeks cold weather on average per year, heating isn't a priority. Which makes it very uncomfortable in those 2 or 3 cold weeks (and in a cold winter this period can be a lot longer).
What I always miss when I stay in Spain is decent carpets on the floor, but that's a different matter.

encodeme

Have you tried cutting squares of carpet and glueing them to your slippers.
its a really cheap way of carpeting throughout.

steviedeluxe

Lol. I knew someone who actually did this! Trouble is, it's all too easy to slip over, especially when your sense of balance goes after too many combinados...

encodeme

I'll bear that in mind if I try it. Suppose it restricts the wearing to before 4.30pm then.

chippie2

where can i get this update to check the currency changes that u use

poshnbucks

Why not use the BBC which gives regular updates why use an add on when you have to go to a site to double check the true rate anyway.



http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/f.../one_month.stm

Econ

Skys are not grey where I live on the Costa del sol and to be honest I love the rain when we get it, that's because we don't see it very much , having grey skys all winter 'and most of the summer' is * one * of the reasons that I moved to Spain. Oh if I could avoid having to listen to British 'when they come over on holiday' about how depressing the weather is there. Even if you get grey skys for a couple of months a year in your area of Spain it is about 8 months less than you will get them in the UK so I don't understand your point!

If you want these luxuries you mention then you can have them, just go out and buy them as you have to in other European countries!

British and some others expect these things in the countries they move to while in reality things are generally done differently in those countries, many Spanish are very comfortable sitting at night with a table and a heater under it or a blanket draped over their legs, you might not like it but many Spanish find this is just the norm.

bigglesworth

I absolutely agree - except I think their time horizon simply extends to the next election. After that they will worry about how to repay the extra 300 billion or more they plan to borrow.
The plan is in fact simple - Gordon the Moron and Maid Mandy have got their little John Bull printing presses out and will PRINT it. The international markets are even discussing the possibility that UKPLC might actually default.
So anyone looking for any improvement in the value of sterling could have a long time to wait.:curse:
As for joining the Euro, whilst I agree that that has always been Gordon's plan, I cannot see Germany and France permitting it with Sterling at or close to parity and UK Government debt in fact at 150 or even 200 percent of GDP compared to the maximum 60 percent permitted under Maastricht.
There are very real problems in many Euro area economies, but Germany has a visceral hostility to any measure they see as potentially inflationary.
Especially given the systemic problems that fiddling declarable Government borrowing has exposed in Italy and Greece, (150 pips premium for Italian and Greek Government debt) and therefore the very real risk that the Euro will fall apart unless some major reforms to the Treasury functions occur - which Germany again seemingly does not want to pay for.

poshnbucks

I thought last week it was discussed to scrap this or suspend it, France Germany and Italy have been fiddling the books for years even on entry trouble is UK always tried to play with near enough a straight bat and get dumped on by the above.

bigglesworth

There is some debate about scrapping it. I cannot imagine Germany permitting that though. The reason for the limit is to simply limit Governmental profligacy. There is a point at which Governments can no longer afford to fund deficits. Remember the problems Italy, Spain and the rest of ClubMed had funding their deficits -before the Euro enabled them to borrow at Teutonic levels?
Plainly as global interest rates have come down over the last ten years, there would appear to be some room for manoeuvre. A 'temporary' (cue hollow laughter) increase in the ceiling, say to 80 percent would enable Italy and Greece (and Spain) to pump more money into the economy to try to hold off recession. But the UK deficit is projected closer to 200 percent than 100. And that is BEFORE the fiscal situation has deteriorated and assumes that the recession bottoms this winter.
There is also a very strong (in my view irrefutable) argument that it is precisely the low level of interest rates that has enabled the weaker economies to increase their deficits to levels that are quite simply unaffordable.
But more importantly there are two sides to every contract. Who is going to lend them the money? At 2 percent or lower, if you were a Middle Eastern sovereign wealth fund, would you really want to take the chance that a country that had already significantly breached an essential part of a currency pact that underpinned its loans, would not commit a further and potentially more serious breach? Or even simply default. Or do as Gordo proposes to do - simply inflate the debt away.

shirley and anthony hide

I would'nt worry about to much about the deficit being a bar against entry.
They will bend the rules if the political will is there. Italy got in with creative accounting.(they cooked the books).They can also quote exceptional circumstances.The thing everybody should be looking for is the first time someone ie Brit politician,
or continental politician starts to quote specific entry levels. My guess would be Germans and others would want a higher gbp ag euro level but Brits would be more inclined to say let the markets decide (ie a low one please)
My guess is someone in Europe will mention this first so could se a dramatic move up for gbp for a while and a window of opportunity to buy some euros at better levels.It would all of course be theoretical speak by all concerned but as I have said before markets are only driven by 2 things, Greed and Fear

Beachcomber

This is a Firefox add-on (ie you need to use Firefox as your browser rather than Internet Explorer):

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6462

bigglesworth

In the Times yesterday, an overview (as usual ambivalent)

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/to...cle5295565.ece