Archive for the ‘Financial crisis’ Category
The financial system established in England after 1688, based on usurious lending to the state by private bankers, is reaching its final blowout in the form of a series of devastating bubbles and a massive bailout of the financiers with public money. But the issuance of money doesn’t have to be in the hands of a private consortium: another credit system is possible.
Posted by seumasach on January 22, 2012
Here are the main themes of the UK media’s coverage of our economic collapse: the recession is a “technicality”; it’s all Europe’s fault; things will get better with more QE just like they didn’t last time.
It’s hard to know what to say to this. Britain is a consumer economy or it is nothing. The recession is plain for all to see: all three of my favourite coffee shops in the West End of Glasgow have closed since Christmas. The streets and roads are emptying. This is a downward spiral, a reverse multiplier.
Since our exports to Europe never amounted to much, even with the pound approaching parity with the euro, Europe can hardly be to blame. Of course, hedge funds may be losing bullions speculating against the euro but that is a different matter.
QE did nothing to help last time: it merely generated inflation and gave the financiers a number of ingenuous options such as carry trades to make a quick buck.
As I say we’re a consumer economy or we’re nothing. It looks like nothing. Mired in debt, stuck in homes which can’t sold, overwhelmed by rising prices of food and fuel, facing unemployment and frozen wages, facing cuts in benefits, overburdened by unfair taxation such as the notorious council tax, a virtual poll tax which hasn’t been introduced elsewhere, facing endless fines for trivial driving or parking offences, unable to afford the exorbitant cost of public transport, watching our business fail as disposable income dries up, wandering around half-empty supermarkets looking for bargains and finding everyone gathering round the reductions shelf, unable to get simple house repairs done and paying through the nose for the failed attempt, buried under a cruel and corrupt benefits system, fighting failing health as the government blasts us with dangerous and carcinogenic radiation. All this only to be told by the media and politicians that everything is fine apart from the Eurozone, to be lied to incessantly by an army of irremediably corrupted experts, to have our intelligence insulted and our pockets emptied. This is Britain before the abyss, blind and befuddled, threatening or hectoring our international partners, hubristic and delusional, smug and stupid, rejoicing in the woes of others whilst seemingly unaware of where we are going. We are going to hell.
Telegraph
22nd January, 2012
This week official growth numbers are expected to show that the economy shrunk by 0.1% in the final three months of last year.
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Posted in UK economy | Tagged: QE2, QE3, quantitative easing | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on January 21, 2012
We always post GEAP’s public announcement with which we are once again largely concurrent, and we strongly recommend
their website
GEAB no.61
16th January, 2012
This GEAB issue makes it six years that the LEAP/E2020 team have shared their anticipations with their subscribers and readers of their public briefing on the development of the global systemic crisis each month. And, for the first time, in the January issue which presents a summary of our anticipations for the year to come, our team anticipates a year which will not result solely in a worsening of the world crisis but which will also be characterized by the emergence of the first constructive elements of the “world after the crisis” to use Franck Biancheri’s phrase from his book «
The World Crisis: The Path to the World Afterwards ».
Posted in Battle for Europe, Financial crisis, Multipolar world, UK economy | Tagged: franck biancheri, Laboratoire européen d’anticipation politique LEAP, QE3, rating agencies, u, UK bank bailout | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on January 19, 2012
Posted in Financial crisis | Tagged: MF Global, bank holiday | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on January 15, 2012
Liam Halligan is , I suppose, obliged to follow the party line in bowing down to the rating agencies, the same ones that triple-AAA rated subprime CDOs, as a paragon of objectivity and financial virtue. Still he is one of the very few who has, or admits to having, a near realistic grasp of the true horror of Britain’s financial predicament.
Liam Halligan
Telegraph
14th January, 2012
The eurozone’s second-largest economy has lost its AAA rating. Eight other single-currency members were also downgraded. Given that Paris is bankrolling no less than a fifth of the purported “big bazooka” bail-out fund – the so-called European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) – monetary union is now on very thin ice.
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Posted by seumasach on January 14, 2012
Bournemouth Echo
14th January, 2012
CASH-STRAPPED customers are pawning their most prized possessions in a bid to keep financially afloat and pay their bills.
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Posted in UK economy | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on January 14, 2012
Leaving aside the question of why Britain’s bankruptcy would be the fault of the eurozone, this is a significant and ominous development for the British economy, barely afloat only due to low interest rates on mortgages
Scotsman
14th January, 2012
Homeowners face a fresh rise in mortgage costs as lenders respond to the eurozone crisis by raising loan rates, brokers have warned.
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Posted in UK economy | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on January 11, 2012
To view Britain’s crisis from the point of view of controlling expenditure alone is very one-sided: Britain’s problems lie, above all, in the lack of a productive base. Still, Halligan provides some useful insights into the real state of Britain’s finances.
Liam Halligan
Telegraph
11th January, 2012
Ten-year sovereign yields dipped below 2pc during the last week of 2011. As Chancellor George Osborne often points out, UK state borrowing costs are now similar to those of Germany. In fact, they are at their lowest since the late 19th century.
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Posted in UK economy | Tagged: QE2 | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on January 8, 2012
Times-Standard
27th November, 2011
NEW YORK—The world’s bond buyers have turned on Europe’s deeply indebted governments and fled to another deeply indebted government across the Atlantic — the U.S. As a result, U.S borrowing costs have plunged to historic lows while rising rates in Europe have many worried about a catastrophic financial crisis.
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Posted in Battle for Europe, Currency Wars, Financial crisis | Tagged: dollar collapse | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on January 8, 2012
YLE.fi
8th January, 2012
Finland’s Finance Minister Jutta Urpilainen hopes a tax aimed at curbing currency speculation will be adopted widely across the EU. She added Finland was one of the keenest promoters of such a financial transaction tax within the union. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Battle for Europe, Financial crisis | Tagged: Jutta Urpilainen, robin hood tax, tobin tax | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on December 26, 2011
Olivier Berruyer
Les Crises
23rd October, 2011
J’ai publié cet article sur le site Les Echos.
Les autorités morales des sociétés ont toujours combattu la notion d’intérêt. Ironiquement, il n’aura fallu que deux décennies après la totale dérégulation du secteur financier pour assister à son écroulement, comme l’avaient prévu les plus grands économistes français… Il nous reste très peu de temps pour des actions drastiques – sauront-nous l’utiliser ?
« Tu ne prêteras point à ton frère ton argent à intérêt. » [Bible, Ancien testament, Lévitique, 25.37]
Durant plus de deux millénaires, de Platon au Pape Léon XIII, en passant par Charlemagne et Saint Louis, les autorités morales des sociétés ont lutté drastiquement contre le prêt à intérêt : l’usure, qui a même valu excommunication au Moyen-Âge. Cette notion existe d’ailleurs toujours dans notre législation contemporaine : il y a une limite au taux d’intérêt exigible.
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Posted in Financial crisis | Tagged: Olivier Berruyer | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on December 18, 2011
Posted in Financial crisis | Tagged: MF Global | Leave a Comment »
