My assessment of the "Special Relationship" has nothing to do with whether I am left, right or centre. I don't hate the Yanks, I love America. However, if you spend any time there and watch their news coverage you realise they don't spend a lot of time thinking about Britain. It's a big country, a high percentage of Americans don't even have passports and, as I said, they're very concerned with their own internal problems.
Cameron's decision had nothing to do with how the European Union works and everything to do with his banker pals in the City. The fact that we are not in the Euro is no comfort if Greece etc default as it's our banks that lend vast amounts to these countries. If our banks catch a cold will he cut them adrift or follow Brown's lead with RBS? Only one choice.
'Stunning' how Goonerhater turns everything into a Left vs Right argument. The 'special relationship' ended many years ago and he ought to recognise that. Not a question of party politics but reality. This isn't Right vs Left. Ken Clarke is pro Europe but he isn't on 'the Left'. Denis Skinner is not pro-Europe but he isn't on 'the Right'. And on what basis does GH claim that "the Left...hate everything to do with the Yanks..." Please demonstrate through empirical research the justification for such an extravagant statement.
You are so right about the way the USA thinks. What the USA now wants is a 'special relationship' with the most powerful unit in Europe. Ideally the EU. If not, then Germany. And if France is 'in' whereas the UK is "out" then the US will have more time for France than the UK.
The tragedy of people who think as Goonerhater does is that far more modern Germans, French, Dutch, Scandinavians and even Czechs feel a great affinity with the UK. in political terms, many centre-right politicians actually have sympathy with a lot of British concerns about the way the EU operates. But Cameron stuck two fingers up at them, pulled the Tories out of the EPP (centre-right bloc) and stuck them in with a bunch of lunatics from Eastern Europe. And believe me, I know of what I speak when I call them a bunch of lunatics. Or rather, totally corrupt, thieves from both the State budget and of pens at international conferences, homophobic yet closet gay, climate deniers, deniers of anything that doesnt make them personally rich. And that's just Vaclav Klaus, the Czech president.
Paddy Ashdown was right when he said that Cameron came away with nothing, not because his demands were unreasonable, but because they came from him. If you wave two fingers at people, with all your mates from europhobic newsapprs doing the same behind you, for long enough, then in the end even the most tolerant people shove two fingers back at you. Politicians are ultimately subject to normal human emotions too, you know.
How comes you're not Prime Minister then Dan as you can see what quite obviously our Government can't see.
Who says that 'clinging to America' is worse for the UK than 'clinging to Germany'?
If you don't know what the hell is going on or how it works how do you know the answer?
I'm being serious here - is what you're saying fact or opinion? Because all I seem to get is opinions and they all seem to be at odds with one another.
What is 40 + 40 x 0 + 1?
Opinion obviously. I wouldn't pretend to know whats going on. How could i? i'm not party to the facts or any of the negotiations and neither are any of us!
The house was packed for the first hour, both for his statement and the opposition response - the picture was taken about and hour and a half later after all the meaninful questions had been asked and answered - hardly contempt !
The Euro zone has now done a brilliant job in producing a masterful distraction diverting our focus to a fiscal road map for the future while failing to address the meteoric crater on whose precipice we all now stand.Such failure can only result in the likelihood of there being no recognizable road to travel but instead of focusing on their continued failure to deliver a solution to their debt crisis we wallow in a sideshow of a new EU “treaty” while they again “kick the can” down the road.
With no advance warning, no public pronouncements, no proposals for sovereign state debate just an edict of a new treaty to be signed in principal or we go without you the only relevance of the “veto” is (as Len alludes [thanks for the link]) the usual “Euro Visionary” (EV) disdain for the democratic process.
Bank A lends to Mr Smith to buy his house with 100% mortgage etc.
To understand toxic debt, you first need to realise that it hasn't arose due to the failure of traditional financial products i.e. loans mortgages etc and secondly that the real value of these transactions are determined by the value of underlying derivative asset on these problematic trades (of which there are many and varied) are in fact what is says on the tin toxic or junk and in many cases may not be assets (in the true sense of the word) at all, but in most are just simply the promise of future payments (could be an option on an exchange rate or interest payments from bonds or just insurance against promises of payment by an issuer on a default of non-payment by the underlying name and so on and so on as these products became more complex), which start off looking ok but as one or more events conspire to make them worthless or at best, of little future value and hence, toxic.
There are many reasons why the financial crisis is now in full swing, but the bubble has built and built over the past two decades as Investment Banks / Hedge Funds / Wealth managers etc. etc. have jumped on the gravy train of leveraged balance sheets and birth of derivative products (posh betting slips to us common folk) to build "wealth" by investing in these products, devised by quantative analysts who possess selective ability in explaining their risks, with the promise of returns far beyond the norms that traditional lending bring - greedy bar stewards you may summise !
Although there are many, many problems left to unfold in bringing this era of false wealth to an end, the catalyst was the sub-prime collapse in the States, where idiots who were sold mortgages suddenly realised that it was in their best interest to default on their payments and accept foreclosure as the costs of their mortgages became apparent and the value of their real estate reduced to well below their outstanding principle amounts. They were mugged into believing that future property price increases would always more than cover their borrowings, when they realised the truth, they bailed out on mass, causing the collapse in the mortgage business. This in itself however was only the tip of the iceberg, as the betting slips then came into play on mass which ulitmately kicked started the meltdown.
The loss to the banks on the mortgage loans against their backed assets were nothing compared to the trillions of losses that were and are (in my opinion) still to be realsied against the subsequent exposures to all of the associated derivaties. To keep it simple the bets placed against these initial products failing and also of the knock on effect to related products and hence the failure of the banks who had the most outrageous exposures or losing bets !
It can get very complicated to explain all of the knock on effects, but just to explain the some of the many which dominoed - mortgaged backed securities were issued by banks with the promise of above average returns supported by the expected returns from these mortgages, these devalued massively on the back of the failure, the monoline insurers (google that for an insight into the mess which now transpired) could not meet their obligated payouts due to the mass of forclosures, they failed, banks now had to pay more for their "protection" against the failure of guess what ? the failure of banks which they had exposures to and so on and so on it began to unravel and snowball.
Where did all the money go ? simples ! The gravy train was looted so many times, the majority of so called profit arising from the unrealistic (ignoring the true risks) and persistent over valuation of their betting slips, inadequate regulation, accounting policy and capital requirements etc. ! if only the great train robbers realised that if they waited a few years, that they could earn it legally if they could entice the cream of university grads to write as many not-so-perfect derivative models and reward them financially with a multiple of their worth to an employer who could make a more honest use of their "talent" and self regulate their own dodgy business empire.
Look at the salarys of those within the industry, no need to mention names, but at the lower end two-a-penny clerical workers to other industries commanding £100k+ salaries for updating a few spreadsheets of for matching a few economic details on transactions........ need I go on ?
Sick of reading the BBC's euro propaganda every morning, their supposed to be impartial for goodness sake. They've not once acknowledge that 60% of people have supported Camerons decision and that because of the veto Conservative have subseqeuntly caught up with Labour in the opinion polls. The only reason they want to remain a part of Europe is because of the 125 million they pick up every year. There's a lot of misguided information in this thread. We barely take any trade from Europe, they take a lot more from us than we do them!
Think i read that article as well a few weeks back, thanks SL. So, bottom line is the lifting of the regulations many years ago has turned your reliable banker into a gambler and the restrictions that the European Union wanted to place on us to get things back in order is what we are objecting to. Simple as that.
must admit I was surprised to learn that we are in deficit on European trade, interesting how much we rely on services too
membership of the EU is not all about trade deficit though of course but access to those markets must be a key incentive for us being priveleged members, its not really clear that we have much privelege however over EFTA for example.
I think the argument for being on the inside is that we are able to shape the organisation from within; French veto on our membership until the 70s prevented us being in at the start, and allowed the French to to shape things in their interests, such as Farming subsidies for small farms etc, which didn't help our far more efficient large scale farming industry
"And as for No 1 in SL, if anyone can follow this - well done!! A sentence of over 150 words - wow!!!."
I did manage to follow it, mostly, and rather wish I didn't as, what he has to say is not good news at all. Thanks anyway.
What he says about salaries in the sector is a very interesting point. Other people have pointed this out. The top salaries got out of control, and all the other salaries below have climbed with them. It is in fact a very similar phenomenon to Premier League salaries, and the cascade effect down the league. As a result, I believe Charlton's wage bill is very similar in total to that of the Czech champions, Viktoria Plzen, who just drew 2-2 with AC Milan. Which is plainly absurd.
Sick of reading the BBC's euro propaganda every morning, their supposed to be impartial for goodness sake. They've not once acknowledge that 60% of people have supported Camerons decision and that because of the veto Conservative have subseqeuntly caught up with Labour in the opinion polls. The only reason they want to remain a part of Europe is because of the 125 million they pick up every year. There's a lot of misguided information in this thread. We barely take any trade from Europe, they take a lot more from us than we do them!
Jesus, you managed to cram a big pile of crap into a relatively short post. Just for the record, I heard several BBC interviewers both referring to the (one) opinion poll, and using it to interrogate Lib Dem and Labour politicians. I have no idea where you get your ridiculous ideas about trade levels from. In 2009 the main export market was the EU, 57%.The US was 15%.Unfortunately, you are also wrong about the balance of trade. We are in deficit. Imports 185bn, exports 139bn in 2007. Hardly surprising is it. How many German families do you think drive a British car, have a British washing machine, oven, microwave, dishwasher, lawn mower, power drill?
And then you've got the nerve to say "there's a lot of misguided information on this thread." Jesus.
The thing that intrigues me -- and I'd love to know the answer -- is what would happen if governments agreed to declare all of those toxic derivatives, or betting slips, null and void? And obviously ban all future development or trade in such things.
And while they're at it, make the selling of shares that you don't own a criminal offence.
And make it a legal requirement to hold any share you've bought for some minimum period (a day might do).
I enjoyed Newsnight last night with Paxman on form with Paddy Ashdown . Apparently according to the 'Godfather of the Lib Dems' , any other Prime Minister could have negotiated a deal with the other countries and Cameron was 'inept' . It is ironic that this is also the first PM in living memory that Ashdown and the Lib Dems have supported.
We now have a coalition where he Lib Dems are proving to be ineffectual and are providing no protection from the Tories .Cameron and Osborne can ignore them and implement their Right Wing agenda , despite the fact that most voters explicitly voted against it .
Getting away from Party politics there was also an debate on Japan and the economist Richard Koo who spoke of 'Balance Sheet recession' , it made sense to me and I copy an explanation of it below.
The key difference between an ordinary recession and one that can produce a lost decade is that in the latter, a large portion of the private sector is actually minimizing debt instead of maximizing profits following the bursting of a nation-wide asset price bubble. When a debt-financed bubble bursts, asset prices collapse while liabilities remain, leaving millions of private sector balance sheets underwater. In order to regain their financial health and credit ratings, households and businesses are forced to repair their balance sheets by increasing savings or paying down debt. This act of deleveraging reduces aggregate demand and throws the economy into a very special type of recession.
What truly troubles me is that we now have a bunch of career politicians whose only aim in life is to get their party elected. Policy seems to be an afterthought, and having ruefully watched the Charge of the Lightweight Brigade rampaging through the corridors of the EU, I now conclude that holding a party together takes precedence over the National Interest ( which interestingly has now narrowed anyway to mean just the City of London).
We lack an effective opposition, Clegg knows he has no power left whatever so we are left with a clone PM who thinks he's found his bulldog balls, and whose Euro friends seem to prefer to sleep between silk Swatiska sheets and a Deputy PM who has disappeared trying to find where he left his spine.
So, to revive an old 60's question, I'd like to know - Who is actually governing Britain at the moment? I
I enjoyed Newsnight last night with Paxman on form with Paddy Ashdown . Apparently according to the 'Godfather of the Lib Dems' , any other Prime Minister could have negotiated a deal with the other countries and Cameron was 'inept' . It is ironic that this is also the first PM in living memory that Ashdown and the Lib Dems have supported.
We now have a coalition where he Lib Dems are proving to be ineffectual and are providing no protection from the Tories .Cameron and Osborne can ignore them and implement their Right Wing agenda , despite the fact that most voters explicitly voted against it .
Getting away from Party politics there was also an debate on Japan and the economist Richard Koo who spoke of 'Balance Sheet recession' , it made sense to me and I copy an explanation of it below.
The key difference between an ordinary recession and one that can produce a lost decade is that in the latter, a large portion of the private sector is actually minimizing debt instead of maximizing profits following the bursting of a nation-wide asset price bubble. When a debt-financed bubble bursts, asset prices collapse while liabilities remain, leaving millions of private sector balance sheets underwater. In order to regain their financial health and credit ratings, households and businesses are forced to repair their balance sheets by increasing savings or paying down debt. This act of deleveraging reduces aggregate demand and throws the economy into a very special type of recession.
My posts above should tell you that I'm no great fan of Cameron but for Ashdown of all people to call somebody 'inept' really takes the biscuit.
I cannot elaborate as I could get the site in trouble, even though I speak the truth, but I have personal experience with Mr Ashdown in the workplace before he climbed the 'greasy pole.'
I don't think this treaty will ever come to anything anyway. I'm not an expert but it just seems like more can kicking and everyone is just delaying putting off the major problems, probably because no-one has any answers we're all broke!
"My posts above should tell you that I'm no great fan of Cameron but for Ashdown of all people to call somebody 'inept' really takes the biscuit.
I cannot elaborate as I could get the site in trouble, even though I speak the truth, but I have personal experience with Mr Ashdown in the workplace before he climbed the 'greasy pole.' "
Interesting, Len. Can you at least say what kind of workplace it was?
And wouldn't you concede that Ashdown might nevertheless have been right? The Foreign office briefings to day lend some credance to it. The Europeans really are sick of our attitude, and personally I dont blame them. When I listened to Cameron and Osbourne lecturing them for the previous two months, while apparently arguing for more fiscal union, I found that both inept and distinctly fishy.
"My posts above should tell you that I'm no great fan of Cameron but for Ashdown of all people to call somebody 'inept' really takes the biscuit.
I cannot elaborate as I could get the site in trouble, even though I speak the truth, but I have personal experience with Mr Ashdown in the workplace before he climbed the 'greasy pole.' "
Interesting, Len. Can you at least say what kind of workplace it was?
And wouldn't you concede that Ashdown might nevertheless have been right? The Foreign office briefings to day lend some credance to it. The Europeans really are sick of our attitude, and personally I dont blame them. When I listened to Cameron and Osbourne lecturing them for the previous two months, while apparently arguing for more fiscal union, I found that both inept and distinctly fishy.
I didn't see the interview Richard J refers to so cannot comment specifically on what was said. However in my experience of politico watching 'negotiate' can often be a euphemism for 'concede.'
My dealings with PA were in Somerset many moons ago when he was involved with a sheepskin and leather products company.
Comments
My assessment of the "Special Relationship" has nothing to do with whether I am left, right or centre. I don't hate the Yanks, I love America. However, if you spend any time there and watch their news coverage you realise they don't spend a lot of time thinking about Britain. It's a big country, a high percentage of Americans don't even have passports and, as I said, they're very concerned with their own internal problems.
A bit more about what "Bulldog Dave" did (or didn't)
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2011/12/statement-from-great-leader.html
Good to see how many of our elected representatives can be arsed to turn up to such an important debate......
(Bottom picture)
Worse than our away support as ooh ah would say :-)
Perspicacity personified GrapevineThe chamber emptied because they were rushing to get their expenses claims in and then into the bar for cheap beer.
To understand toxic debt, you first need to realise that it hasn't arose due to the failure of traditional financial products i.e. loans mortgages etc and secondly that the real value of these transactions are determined by the value of underlying derivative asset on these problematic trades (of which there are many and varied) are in fact what is says on the tin toxic or junk and in many cases may not be assets (in the true sense of the word) at all, but in most are just simply the promise of future payments (could be an option on an exchange rate or interest payments from bonds or just insurance against promises of payment by an issuer on a default of non-payment by the underlying name and so on and so on as these products became more complex), which start off looking ok but as one or more events conspire to make them worthless or at best, of little future value and hence, toxic.
There are many reasons why the financial crisis is now in full swing, but the bubble has built and built over the past two decades as Investment Banks / Hedge Funds / Wealth managers etc. etc. have jumped on the gravy train of leveraged balance sheets and birth of derivative products (posh betting slips to us common folk) to build "wealth" by investing in these products, devised by quantative analysts who possess selective ability in explaining their risks, with the promise of returns far beyond the norms that traditional lending bring - greedy bar stewards you may summise !
Although there are many, many problems left to unfold in bringing this era of false wealth to an end, the catalyst was the sub-prime collapse in the States, where idiots who were sold mortgages suddenly realised that it was in their best interest to default on their payments and accept foreclosure as the costs of their mortgages became apparent and the value of their real estate reduced to well below their outstanding principle amounts. They were mugged into believing that future property price increases would always more than cover their borrowings, when they realised the truth, they bailed out on mass, causing the collapse in the mortgage business. This in itself however was only the tip of the iceberg, as the betting slips then came into play on mass which ulitmately kicked started the meltdown.
The loss to the banks on the mortgage loans against their backed assets were nothing compared to the trillions of losses that were and are (in my opinion) still to be realsied against the subsequent exposures to all of the associated derivaties. To keep it simple the bets placed against these initial products failing and also of the knock on effect to related products and hence the failure of the banks who had the most outrageous exposures or losing bets !
It can get very complicated to explain all of the knock on effects, but just to explain the some of the many which dominoed - mortgaged backed securities were issued by banks with the promise of above average returns supported by the expected returns from these mortgages, these devalued massively on the back of the failure, the monoline insurers (google that for an insight into the mess which now transpired) could not meet their obligated payouts due to the mass of forclosures, they failed, banks now had to pay more for their "protection" against the failure of guess what ? the failure of banks which they had exposures to and so on and so on it began to unravel and snowball.
Where did all the money go ? simples ! The gravy train was looted so many times, the majority of so called profit arising from the unrealistic (ignoring the true risks) and persistent over valuation of their betting slips, inadequate regulation, accounting policy and capital requirements etc. ! if only the great train robbers realised that if they waited a few years, that they could earn it legally if they could entice the cream of university grads to write as many not-so-perfect derivative models and reward them financially with a multiple of their worth to an employer who could make a more honest use of their "talent" and self regulate their own dodgy business empire.
Look at the salarys of those within the industry, no need to mention names, but at the lower end two-a-penny clerical workers to other industries commanding £100k+ salaries for updating a few spreadsheets of for matching a few economic details on transactions........ need I go on ?
I know!! I was being ironic.
And as for No 1 in SL, if anyone can follow this - well done!! A sentence of over 150 words - wow!!!.
some trade deficit stats here
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/balance-of-trade
must admit I was surprised to learn that we are in deficit on European trade, interesting how much we rely on services too
membership of the EU is not all about trade deficit though of course but access to those markets must be a key incentive for us being priveleged members, its not really clear that we have much privelege however over EFTA for example.
I think the argument for being on the inside is that we are able to shape the organisation from within; French veto on our membership until the 70s prevented us being in at the start, and allowed the French to to shape things in their interests, such as Farming subsidies for small farms etc, which didn't help our far more efficient large scale farming industry
I enjoyed Newsnight last night with Paxman on form with Paddy Ashdown . Apparently according to the 'Godfather of the Lib Dems' , any other Prime Minister could have negotiated a deal with the other countries and Cameron was 'inept' . It is ironic that this is also the first PM in living memory that Ashdown and the Lib Dems have supported.
We now have a coalition where he Lib Dems are proving to be ineffectual and are providing no protection from the Tories .Cameron and Osborne can ignore them and implement their Right Wing agenda , despite the fact that most voters explicitly voted against it .
Getting away from Party politics there was also an debate on Japan and the economist Richard Koo who spoke of 'Balance Sheet recession' , it made sense to me and I copy an explanation of it below.
The key difference between an ordinary recession and one that can produce a lost decade is that in the latter, a large portion of the private sector is actually minimizing debt instead of maximizing profits following the bursting of a nation-wide asset price bubble. When a debt-financed bubble bursts, asset prices collapse while liabilities remain, leaving millions of private sector balance sheets underwater. In order to regain their financial health and credit ratings, households and businesses are forced to repair their balance sheets by increasing savings or paying down debt. This act of deleveraging reduces aggregate demand and throws the economy into a very special type of recession.
Thanks from me also to no 1.
What truly troubles me is that we now have a bunch of career politicians whose only aim in life is to get their party elected. Policy seems to be an afterthought, and having ruefully watched the Charge of the Lightweight Brigade rampaging through the corridors of the EU, I now conclude that holding a party together takes precedence over the National Interest ( which interestingly has now narrowed anyway to mean just the City of London).
We lack an effective opposition, Clegg knows he has no power left whatever so we are left with a clone PM who thinks he's found his bulldog balls, and whose Euro friends seem to prefer to sleep between silk Swatiska sheets and a Deputy PM who has disappeared trying to find where he left his spine.
So, to revive an old 60's question, I'd like to know - Who is actually governing Britain at the moment? I
Start here
http://www.number10.gov.uk/news/the-coalition-government-one-year-on/
My posts above should tell you that I'm no great fan of Cameron but for Ashdown of all people to call somebody 'inept' really takes the biscuit.
I cannot elaborate as I could get the site in trouble, even though I speak the truth, but I have personal experience with Mr Ashdown in the workplace before he climbed the 'greasy pole.'
I didn't see the interview Richard J refers to so cannot comment specifically on what was said. However in my experience of politico watching 'negotiate' can often be a euphemism for 'concede.'
My dealings with PA were in Somerset many moons ago when he was involved with a sheepskin and leather products company.