HBG

I'm frightened to lift my head out of the sand as far as the pound Sterling is concerned, but this article ambushed me from out of the blue.

http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/The...272909453.html

It didn't just frighten me, it terrified me.

steviedeluxe

To be honest, nearly all the predictions I've seen over the last 5 -10 years regarding the pound, have been wrong. I agree that this latest batch of QE seems very worrying, but who knows, maybe it can work? If not, there's not a lot us ordinary folk can do about it. In fact, if the system does collapse, at least we'll be able to seize the bankers' homes!

bil

I'd rather sieze their throats.

HBG

I remember the glory days of 275 Pesetas to the pound, I remember the glory days of 1.70 Euros to the pound; I remember sitting outside Eduardo's in Benidorm having just paid 100 Pesetas for a coffee and brandy (about 35 Pence).

I remember getting 2,20 Dollars to the pound, only four years ago, in Las Vegas.

I suppose there's every chance that I will be sitting in rain-sodden Suffolk remembering that I once lived in the sun!

bil

F'uck, but I hope not. All we can do is just tighten our belts and see if we can get by. Let's face it, I'd rather go short here than try moving back to the uK.

HBG

I agree with that, of course I do, but the trouble with going short is that if you follow the graph of the pound's decline over the past 50 years or so, there's no hope left - it's almost as bad as the Zimbabwean Dollar, it's heading for parity with it.

What niggles me is that I can't think of anyone or anything to blame for it, even Harold Wilson with his 'pound in your pocket' nonsense.

It's got to be something bigger, like the loss of empire or the Marshall plan after WW2. Joining the Euro wouldn't have mattered either, the decline was evident long before Maastricht.

Well, I'm going to pick on an easy target to affix blame. De Gaulle. When he said 'Non' when we applied to join the EU, he f'ucked us and the pound for eternity.

Dick Dasterdly

When I was a kid 5 bob was referred to as a dollar and half a crown,(two and sixpence), half a dollar,(meaning a quid was worth 4 US dollars).
I believe that was a carry over from before my time and before wartime when that was supposed to be the approximate value, so it's gone downhill a long way since then.

It's not so many years since we got our wartime debt finally paid off and began to see some light ar the end of the tunnel, then along came Gordon,the bankers plus the World recession to pull the rug out from under us again.

The only redeeming factor at present is that other currencies in the western world are in similar trouble, so hopefully the pound won't drop too much further relative to them, providing of course the present policy halts the slide and we don't drop deeper in the mire.

bil

I think the blame is fairly easy to apportion. Grasping reckless bankers, the US of A for their madness in selling subprime (aka ninja) mortgages, and the blind incompetence of Labour and tories alike who allowed the British bankers to go dancing down the primrose path to ruin.

Our ruin, of course, not theirs.