Posted by seumasach on February 19, 2012
This is yet another bailout- a handy 20 billion, but not enough to to prevent the inevitable: a run on the banks.
18th February, 2012
The British bank is understood to feel that the Chancellor’s loan guarantee scheme – which will see the Government loan money to UK banks to lend on to small and medium-sized companies – is not workable as it would prove to be too expensive under the structure being discussed.
Posted in UK economy | Tagged: bailout, bailouts, bankrupt Britain, End of empire, financial collapse, no more bailouts-put banks into receivership | 1 Comment »
Posted by seumasach on February 10, 2012
Craig Murray has hit the nail on the head. The official narrative is devoid of sense – it is merely a cover for the reality of further bailouts. We should be opposing QE i,e, bailout and, as a logical corollary, calling for the banks to be put through bankruptcy proceedings. This is the next step which must be taken if we are to avoid disaster. The state would have to take on some of the banks liabilities, having foolishly bought large shareholdings in some of them, and would have to guarantee deposits. The state itself would then be bankrupt and would have to negotiate a settlement with our creditors. Debt could be written off in exchange for our abandonment of our current aggressive foreign policy, our leaving NATO, and adoption of a policy of cooperation with our international partners. Like Scrooge buying a turkey for Bob Cratchet on Christmas Day, we would present the world with the long-awaited, ever more needed, peace dividend.
10th February, 2012
The headlines all say that the Bank of England has pumped another £50 billion into the economy in the third round of quantitive easing. In fact, the money will not get far into the economy. It is given to the banks and other financial sector companies, and evidence from the previous £250 billion worth of quantitive easing is that almost all of it will stay there, being very handy stuff with which to fund massive salaries and bonuses.
Posted in UK economy | Tagged: bankrupt Britain, Craig Murray, End of empire, no more bailouts-put banks into receivership, peace dividend, QE3, Quantitive Easing | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on February 8, 2012
Clydesdale and Yorkshire Banks staff face uncertain future after Australian owner announces UK operations shake-up
8th February, 2012
The future of more than 8,000 workers at Clydesdale and Yorkshire Banks have been thrown into doubt after the pair’s Australian owner announced a major shake-up of UK operations.
Posted in UK economy | Tagged: bankrupt Britain, financial collapse | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on February 4, 2012
The British Pound extended the advance from the previous month to reach a fresh yearly high of 1.5882, but we are going to see the sterling come under pressure next week should the Bank of England take additional steps to stimulate the ailing economy. Although the BoE is widely expected to keep the benchmark interest rate at 0.50%, all of the 50 economist polled by Bloomberg News see the Monetary Policy Committee expanding its Asset Purchase Facility beyond the GBP 275B target, and the central bank may keep the door open to expand its balance sheet further in an effort to stem the risk of a double-dip recession.
This is a rather immodest proposal framed framed in the most modest terms: “Bankers of the realm, do you accept another tranch of newly minted cash in exchange for the worthless assets you are still holding on your balance sheets without daring to mark to market? We do!” reply the blushing bankers in unison, “till death us do part” Thus we will see in the coming weeks the consumation of the marriage between our elected representatives and the City if London. Of course, the BOE claims the money is for purchase of government securities rather than further bailout. They would say that and its hardly good news that we have to print money to sell guilts. Still, this will be at least in part another bailout of the banks, gratefully accepted. It is this money printing prowess that our pundits have been boasting about as the great trump card of the British economy which still has its own currency, unlike the hapless Greeks. Yes, but if we are to devalue our currency in perpetuity why would anyone accept or hold assets denominated in it. they would only do so if they had no choice- if all the other options had been knocked out. Hence the desperate campaign against the euro, but the euro will continue to be a viable alternative and the emerging econo ies are looking into new ways of bypassing the dollar and the pound. The “bearish” forecast is thus more than justified with all the horrors that that entails for an economy totally dependent on imports.
Fundamental Forecast for British Pound: Bearish
4th February, 2012
The British Pound extended the advance from the previous month to reach a fresh yearly high of 1.5882, but we are going to see the sterling come under pressure next week should the Bank of England take additional steps to stimulate the ailing economy. Although the BoE is widely expected to keep the benchmark interest rate at 0.50%, all of the 50 economist polled by Bloomberg News see the Monetary Policy Committee expanding its Asset Purchase Facility beyond the GBP 275B target, and the central bank may keep the door open to expand its balance sheet further in an effort to stem the risk of a double-dip recession.
Posted in UK economy | Tagged: no more wars!-no more bailouts!, QE3, quantitative easing | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on February 2, 2012
Watch out everyone- we’re in for “a period of balance-sheet adjustment”
2nd February, 2012
In a surprisingly (but also refreshingly) candid admission, Fed Chairman Bernanke declared last night that another round of quantitative easing may well be necessary to alleviate “high and persistent unemployment in an underperforming economy”. With inflation still low and Europe a potential drag on the economy, the Fed Chairman clearly feels that more asset purchases are a risk worth taking if it helps the recovery become more self-sustaining.
Posted in Battle for Europe, UK economy | Tagged: bankrupt Britain, dollar collapse, QE3 | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on January 28, 2012
Yes, there is an overwhelming case for a wealth tax. But it is necessary to get the figures in perspective: total UK debt is the highest in the world at about 10 times a GDP of over 2 trillion. Most of this is bank debt for which the government is guarantor of last resort. The left’s redistribution programme is not in itself adequate any more than the right’s austerity programme is: the banking sector must be put through bankruptcy.
Michael Meacher
27th January, 2012
One assumption dominates the start of 2012. It will be an extremely grim year as the public starts having to pay down the deficit in real earnest, but they will grudgingly accept the substantial pain involved so long as it is fairly shared. It certainly isn’t, however, and the growing realisation of this could well prove the government’s Achilles heel in this year’s bumpy handling of austerity.
Posted in UK economy | Tagged: bankrupt Britain, wealth tax | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on January 26, 2012
This seems a good moment to revisit Willem Buiter 2008 analysis of the UK economy and, particularly, his view on a possible simultaneous banking, government bonds and sterling crisis.
Willem Buiter
13th November, 2008
Posted in UK economy | Tagged: bankrupt Britain, join the euro!, sterling crisis, stop the bailout | Leave a Comment »
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.
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.
Posted in UK economy | Tagged: QE2, QE3, quantitative easing | 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
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.
Posted in UK economy | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on January 14, 2012
14th January, 2012
CASH-STRAPPED customers are pawning their most prized possessions in a bid to keep financially afloat and pay their bills.
Posted in UK economy | Leave a Comment »
In These New Times 