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Interseting (scary) blog…
….for those in the UK. Tell me it isn’t so. Makes pretty grim reading. 😮
http://cynicuseconomicus.blogspot.com/2 … -west.html
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15 Replies
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It’s not so Brian, don’t believe everything you read, its just another conspiracy story 😕
Peter
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I fear it is true.
I have wondered for a long time now why Britain was such a wealthy nation when in fact we are no longer a manufacturing nation. The answer used to be "because of our financial services industry". Britain supposedly had one of the worlds best financial services industries. Now that this has been shown to be a house of cards what is left?
I also used to believe that North sea Oil was the reason why we had become a wealthy nation (from being almost bankrupt in the 1970’s – north sea oil was discovered, then along came the eighties and everyone was suddenly becoming wealthier).
To be honest – I don’t understand any of it at all, but with the prospect of hyper inflation ahead I suspect the safest investment (for anyone with any savings) is to buy property (now that it is apparently dropping back towards it’s true value) or gold. Alternatively, perhaps convert all currency to a strong currency such as the Euro?
I do remember the 1970’s and inflation. I also recall my Father bought his house for under £2,000 in 1969. That same house now would be worth about £250,000 but in a few years time it may only be worth a fraction of that at todays supposed values.
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I can see some minor errors in thinking, but fear that the general thrust is correct. I have been predicting for years that our economy was unsustainable and we would end up in trouble, although my main concern was more basic – food.
This country has not been self sufficient in food since before WW2, and is therefore reliant on imports, which requires money to pay for it. The result, when we can’t borrow enough to buy it, doesn’t bear thinking about. Never mind property, euros or gold – I’m stocking up on shotgun cartridges and barbed wire.
If anyone thinks that a bit far fetched you don’t need to go back very far into history to see the precursor, only as far as my own father’s generation. Talk to them and they’ll tell you about how they were always hungry in the twenties and thirties. That’s within living memory! Only a decade or two before that quite a lot of men joined the army to fight in WW1, not because of any great sense or patriotism or duty, but because the army was the only place that guaranteed them three squares a day.
The economy of a country is no different to that of any company, or even personal finances – only the scale varies. What would happen to our businesses if we increased our borrowings and overheads in the same way that our government has? That’s rhetorical, because we all know the answer – we go bankrupt.
Very worryingly I have on my desk, returned by my bank, a cheque from HM Customs and Excise for a VAT refund. It bounced. 👿
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My worries were similar, especially when the price of fuel was rocketing.Food is one of the essential commodities and I am now a firm supporter of "within 50 miles" where possible. A few of the shops round here have started producing "food miles" information. By supporting I can help grow a supplier base that will keep me in local produce………..also got a descent sized garden and grow quite a bit of the staples myself……..shotgun and barbed (razor) wire may be a thing of the future 😮
It didnt take the Army long to catch onto the security of employment during the current credit crunch…"Join the army – Beat the Crunch"………. :lol1:
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I have puzzled for many years over what makes England tick. I have lived in Spain and Germany for the last twenty years and often have conversations with my friends on this very subject. The motor industry has been sold off, coal is no more, steel all but gone too. As said before, we used to have North sea oil and our Financial district in London was one of the biggest and most respected in the world. Now even that has gone to the dogs.
The last government has sold off all the gold reserves and they are now looking to borrow money from abroad to support the country. Imagine what would happen if England couldn’t pay this loan back…
I go back to visit my family twice every year. Ten years ago I saw a strong and confident country. Gradually over the last years I see it going down and down.
This Christmas I was very sad to see the state of GB. Airports with leaky roofs , dirty and in need of repair. Rail lines and stations all dirty and again needing repair. Litter on the sides of roads. The list goes on. Its getting worse each visit I make home.
Shameful for a once powerful and proud country. -
It’s so easy nowadays to discount anything that’s not in your normal field of perception as a conspiracy theory without even to bother looking or listening to the alternative view, You dont need to agree with the different view but just read or listen and make your own mind up.
Just go back 10 years or so with house prices just starting to rise, all these programs on TV with “just give it a lick of paint and make 30k” all this just wasn’t sustainable. The banks were lending out money that they didn’t have to people and then the media started to create the usual panic and hype with “credit crunch & downturn”, people naturally start to tighten the belts. I think we’re all in for a rough ride very soon.
A good website section on a alternative view of money.. -
With all the traveling Ive done over the years, its always been a little depressing coming back to the UK after prolonged spells away. I always tried to believe that the extra money I was on shifted my perception of the country I was in to make it feel better.
I have friends in Alberta, Canada (Plus Mr Wilkie!!) who are currently reaping the benefit of high oil prices (even though they have since plumeted). Alberta sits on massive oil reserves stored in sand and shale. Only recently has this been profitable to remove from the ground. For the past couple of years the Citizens of Alberta have had some nice Tax refund cheques from the Government.Dubai have invested their oil money into a future in tourisim, so when the oil runs out they have a sustainable future. UK……mmmmmmmmmm……..spend spend spend!!!
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You want conspiracy theories? I’ll give you my conspiracy theory:-
All this talk about sub prime mortgages being the catalyst for all these banks collapsing is a smokescreen.
Lets face it, when these banks lend money they take a security on the property, so when all these sub prime mortgages couldn’t pay back their loans the banks would simply re-possess the homes. I’m sorry – but the official explanation doesn’t add up!
What’s it really all about then? – Electronic banking that’s what!
Up until we had electronic banking, money was safely stashed away in vaults and bank robberies were only conducted by the exceedingly brave or astonishingly stupid 😕
When electronic banking came into being – suddenly robbing banks became easy. Any old geek could do it. And that’s what has been happening for the past 20 years or so. Gradually the level of electronic bank robbery has increased and increased until it reached a level that was no longer sustainable and couldn’t be covered up any more.
Naturally the banks have tried to keep it all under wraps – if everyone knew how much money was being robbed from the banks there would be a run on money and the banks would fail.
So the banks came "clean" to the governments and said "look – we’ve been getting robbed blind for years now and we can’t stop it – you’re gonna have to step in and shore us up until we can figure out an answer".
Electronic Phishing (bank account details) credit card cloning and so on and so forth – all these frauds have had to be written off by the banks in order that they retain credibility.
Where do you think all these Russian Billionaires suddenly got their money from? Phishing I tell ye Phishing. (hot)
I aint kiddin either 😕
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quote John Childs:Very worryingly I have on my desk, returned by my bank, a cheque from HM Customs and Excise for a VAT refund. It bounced. 👿
So that’s the explanation – Johns VAT reclaim has broken the bank!
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quote John Childs:Very worryingly I have on my desk, returned by my bank, a cheque from HM Customs and Excise for a VAT refund. It bounced. 👿John are you being serious??! 😕
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come on, joke over john?
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quote Brian Hays:John are you being serious??! 😕
Would I lie to you Brian? 😀
Absolutely serious.
I don’t have the actual cheque because my bank is re-presenting it, but they sent me a photocopy of it in with the letter saying that it had been returned unpaid.
I’ve not done anything with it yet because mistakes do happen and I believe in giving all debtors a fair chance to fulfill their obligations. If I don’t get my money soon though I bet the daily newspapers will have some fun with it. 😀
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quote Dave Rowland:come on, joke over john?
No joke Dave. 🙁
(edited to delete image now that Dave has seen it.)
As far as I can recall, a bounced cheque is sufficient grounds under the Companies Act to instigate insolvency proceedings. Maybe I’ll call my solicitor after the holiday.
At the very least I’ve got an interesting document to frame and hang on my office wall. 😀
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I would send it in to Sky News or local paper, you get some publicity from the local paper I guess.
http://news.sky.com/skynews/Static-Page … t-Sky-NewsI didn’t see image but take ur word for it lol…hehe.. its amazing.
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When I looked later you were on the board Dave, and it had been downloaded eighteen times, so I assumed one of them was you. Wrong again. 😀
PM me your email addy.
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