nomadr:

 "oh we only use these laws in genuine terrorist emergencies"

All the people of the world are been terrorised, by the falling share price and the collapse of the banking world.

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SK
The Best Photographer in the world 4th November - 5th November 2006 & 17th-18 November 2007
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My ex of 4 years just messaged me out of the blue, after 2 years of no contact.

Not sure its annoyed that I feel, more confuzzled....

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Strictly speaking it was yesterday.

'No Card' error message on a lovely day out, Doh!!

i agree, but who caused it ? or should i say "what" caused it,

 i reckon greed,

yet me as a taxpayer is going to have to foot the bill ,

 why should i bail out someone who decides to invest off shore for an extra point of a percentage ?

 worse still why should i pay extra council tax because my council has decided it would like to invest heavily in overseas banks for a slightly better percentage rate  (and lost the fu%in lot), methinks there is a rebellion underfoot, Gordon has no idea about what he has led this country to, cheers nomad

not to mention all the extra taxes i will have to pay for my Darlings promise to all the UK banks , he is giving out dosh like there's no tomorrow,

 the trouble is there is no money in the coffers, they already quaffed everything the tories left and pretty soon got into a 600billion deficiet ,

 i think the labour word was "prudence" when gordon was in charge of cooking the books,

 save for a rainy day he kept saying, pretty sure he also mentioned that every bubble would burst , pity he didnt have the economic forethought to save for it tho,

i just feel really let down by the sheer incompetence , please dont say things like

 "well he didnt see it coming"

 its been on the cards for ages, they just spin their way out of things but now its come home to roost,

  ok they are spending money (they havent got) like theres no tomorrow but the IMF will step in at some point and say

 " hang on your now bankrupt"

It amuses me when people talk about the economy doing this or that -as if it had a life of it's own. We (people) invented the economy - we run it - and if it goes wrong it's down to us. You cant stand back and say it's the fault of the economy - the blame lies with those people running the economy on our behalf. If they cant do it properly they should admit it and hand over to someone who can.
Our government encouraged Local Authorities, Police Authorties and British Businesses to invest in overseas banks for minimal amounts of extra interest instead of asking them to invest in Government backed securities so that the money stays in this country to benefit our people.
Yes it annoys me when I hear politicians saying it's down to the economy - It's not IT'S DOWN TO THEM....

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Our government encouraged Local Authorities, Police Authorties and British Businesses to invest in overseas banks for minimal amounts of extra interest instead of asking them to invest in Government backed securities

 that is so true, our local authority is the second largest loser in the Icelandic affair, i ask myself why ?

 and who is going pay ?

 my council said the gov told them to invest in Iceland ,

 hmm, the gov told them yet i must pay more council tax  (not to mention normal tax due to their failings)

 nope , enough is enough, i pay huge taxes already without this added burden, time for an uprising methinks

If you invest overseas your money has a nasty habit of staying there-at least if it's in this country it's a bit nearer to home and there should be  more legal protection [hopefully].Personally,the attitude of Iceland in the cod war told me all I needed to know.Would I put my money there?- no.

I'm pretty sure, it was just that I forgot to take the card out of the reader and put it back in the camera.

I don't think I can blame the government/greed for this one

Not being a financial wizzard I would like someone to explain to me"where has all the money gone"?

Six months ago there was, for arguments sake, 10 trillion of £'s $'s Euros , whatever, swilling around in the global system. The US have problems with dodgy mortgage scams and everthing starts to go base over apex and then things are devalued, property, stocks and shares etc.

Have all those trillions of money withered and died, they must still exist, or did they not exisit in the first place, were they just figures on balance sheets?

Global economists among you please enlighten me in words of one syllable.

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At the most fundamental level, the financial system is based on trust. If a person/business's credit is good, other people will lend them money becuse they trust them to pay it back. The person who lends the money is likely themselves to have borrowed all or part of it from someone else who trusts them. They'll have borrowed it a bit cheaper than they lend it on for (because their credit is so good they are a lower risk) and the margin is where their profit comes in.

You can go on and on and get very complicated in terms of transactions but the bottom line is that as long as confidence is high things go well. The 'money' doesn't have to be 'real' in the way a bar of gold is real: it's a token that has value because people believe it has and for that reason it can be traded for other things.

But once people stop having faith that the system works then it begings to unravel... That's why governments are so keen to restore confidence and prevent panic.

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The whole financial system works on credit backed by assets. If the value of those assets falls, then there may not be enough to cover the credits you have lent hence, the turmoil in the markets. Some 'very clever blokes' in Wall Street found a way of hiding risky, 'Ninja' loans in three star rated bonds. These bonds are used as credit covered by the property as assets. These bonds were traded all over the world backed by the said property, but once people started failing to pay the mortgage the value of these assets fell. The problem is nobody knew how much of these bonds were backed by these assets and therefore, how much risk was behind them. The old proverb, 'Buy a pig in a poke', springs to mind, as that is what the banks did.

 

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SK
The Best Photographer in the world 4th November - 5th November 2006 & 17th-18 November 2007
Oldboy’s Gallery

just to add to that statement Oldboy, a lot of the UK banks were sold these risky sub prime mortages without knowing the huge risk, as you said they were repackaged and sold as 3 star which means in the banking industry virtually no risk,

 buliding societies like northern rock who sold 100% (and more sometimes) mortgages were always asking for trouble.

 IMO i think the buy to let market has caused a lot of trouble, it puts prices up so first time buyers cant get on the market, people borrow money thinking they are going to get rich quick with all their portfolio's, these people are the first to declare themselves bankrupt at the slightest whiff of a downturn in the housing market,

 While the normal guy in the street who bought his house to give his family a home will only welch as a last resort, its basically down to greed.

 I dont know what your thoughts are regarding negative equity ? my house is my home, i didnt buy it to make money, when i drove my car out of the showroom it went straight into negative equity but i dont write to the papers and moan about it, , the banks arent asking for the loan back because the value has fallen neither.

 cheers nomad

 

I agree, Nomad, negative equity is only really a problem if you have to move house.

WAMT?
Park Camera's open day - I knew I wouldn't be able to go and not spend money...

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Dan Rand:

I'm pretty sure, it was just that I forgot to take the card out of the reader and put it back in the camera.

I don't think I can blame the government/greed for this one

Yeah, did that myself back in the summer It was quite a challenge going round Marwell Zoo with only the 16Mb secondary XD card in the camera   I refused to buy another card on principle - to teach myself a lesson!

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Brian

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