The trouble is, are we all living on fresh air? The government is going to increase borrowing to maintain it’s spending policies in order to stop it’s popularity declining further.

Where are the assets to back up this borrowing? We have no gold reserves. The Tories and now Labour have sold anything that wasn’t nailed down. We have only a small manufacturing base.

Basically we are bankrupt and Brown will eventually have to go cap in hand to his Bilderberg mates (the IMF) to bail us out just like Bilderberger Healy did in the seventies. Even further into the pockets of the NWO.

This, together with immigration, is the biggest issue of our time. Of course it is intimately connected with immigration because the Nabob Princes of finance require an endless stream of cheap labour serfs to pander to their every need. Their policy is to undermine and destabilise the nation at every turn. The story of the last 30 years particularly has been the asset stripping and economic ruination of our country by spivs and speculators operating out of the Square Mile. Only the BNP stands against them. We must expose them, and sharpen our policies to defeat them as a matter of utmost urgency.

They want to pull the rug from under everybody else but when they, inevitably, get into trouble they hold out a bottomless begging bowl, into which tens and tens of billions are poured. They’ve got the most lavish social security system in history. The taxpayer is expected to fund and guarantee their greed and recklessness on the basis of their sub-prime “securities” ie increasingly worthless bits of paper. It is quite monstrous. This wretched government grovels shamelessly to these hedge fund heroes because they sold out to them well before they came into office.

And good old Gordon Broon drops in on Palestine and promises to bung them about 30 million of our money, whilst this country is on its knees. Has logic completely vanished?

“For now, the £50bn scheme is being treated in the accounts as an “off-balance” sheet item because the loans will be transferred to the Treasury, which is financing them with new gilts.”

If they are in fact triple-A then how come the other banks aren’t prepared to accept them as securities? They don’t trust each for a reason; their “securities” are junk. The taxpayer is lumbered with a load of IOU’s from the skint bloke in the pub, is what it comes down to. We are all reckless money lenders now, thanks to the “wealth creators” of the Square Mile and their Nulab puppets.

I’ve always said that if ever there was a case for nationalisation, banks are it. They should be working for the country not themselves. The story this week of NatWest repossessing the lady’s home, who is desperately ill, is a point in case.

-

One such home repossession is a tragedy; the hundreds of thousands of others are likely to be no more than a statistic - Ed

Stringbag, I can’t work out if the people who think these weird accountancy schemes up are mad, stupid or just crooked.

-

How about clever and crooked, Mister J? - Ed

I don’t know why anyone is suprised!!! When you have a bunch of moronic idiots, running around like headless chickens leading our country, then you should expect the worst. The trouble is, all the bigger idiots who voted for these lying, thieving, cheats will at some point, when they are either jobless or homeless say, “Oh, how did this happen? I never seen it coming.”

This is a party that can’t even keep it’s own books straight, so what hope do we have with them running the country? People were saying Gormless Broon was a better Chancellor than a PM ….. I beg to differ. He was just a rubbish Chancellor as he is a PM, because under him we have lost everything as a nation; whether it be our Gold reserves or the rest of our Gas or North Sea Oil.

There will be countless thousands of people who will lose their jobs and homes over all this. Quite ironically, jobless people such as phoney disabled, immigrants and refugees, will be the only ones with a home or an income thanks to our inane policies.

All paid for by us who are at greatest risk of losing everything. We, the taxpayer have provided this government with all its spending money over the last 10 years and bit by bit, they have wasted it on foreign wars and foreign handouts … Do you think the foreigners will give it back or help us in our time of need?

NO CHANCE!!!!!!!

Yes, ED., clever and crooked makes sense. Definitely.

Another thing that shows how corrupt they are, is the fact that we know energy prices have been rising year on year for the last 15years and in the same time our gas reserves have obviously been going the opposite way. YET, they have not bothered as our PROTECTORS to insure our future energy needs. WHY? because they are all crooked, they get paid to turn a blind eye so the current lot can maximise their profit out of what they have left.

If the government actually cared or give a damn about its people and the enviroment, why have we not got more wind turbines? and solar panels to give us our energy? Because calculations show that if you build just 9500 turbines and only 2 nuclear power plants … then our energy needs will be met for the next 50yrs at no extra cost to what we pay as consumers now … at £350yr approx.

And isn’t true that these square mile crooks are mainly from well to do families?

Thank goodness there are still a few honest people working in that place who blow the whistle on these greedy little toe rags.

Mister J. They just follow orders. Chaos is the cement that keeps their house in order. Confuse the plebs with figures and they will think that their “masters” are in control.

The more that this site can dispel the myths of Brown’s economic prudence, the more followers we can get. With people like Nick Griffin, Stringbag, Noel, The Sherrif and others who comment on this site we can get more to see the light.

Money, since it is no longer backed by gold is essentially worthless paper, a £20 notes costs pennies to print.
Credit is simply thin air.
People think that when they deposit money with a bank it gets locked in a vault for safekeeping, actually for every £1000 deposited the banks have worked out they can lend this £1000 to ten other people at around 8% each, essentially they are lending thin air and demanding interest on it.

This is why Bank runs must be stopped & why Gordon had to rescue northern Rock, so the depositors did not start asking where their money was.

esseliott’s post above, while short and sweet, is succinct and bang on target. Where, indeed, are the assets to back up MacBroon’s proposed breach of his own borrowing limits when even those were against assets which were long ago sold off to foreign companies or, in the case of the all-important manufacturing industries, simply destroyed. As esselliott says bluntly, we are indeed bankrupt.

A great mass of politically terrorised and desperately impoverished people, including all those who once thought themselves to be “middle class”, may well react in a way quite different from that which the Bilderbergers expect.

Yes,these people can never have enough money to keep them satisfied and would sell their own Grandmother’s down the river if they thought they could make a profit.
What gets me is when you get multi-millionaire so called celebs on the tv,(one female in particular springs to mind) urging people to take out a loan to pay off their existing debts, while the actors in the advert pretend to be an ordinary family, especially that one where the woman says over the phone “yes we do have a mortgage” and wants to borrow £25,000,then says to her husband “that was so easy”. I would say to her,”yes love it is so easy, and when you sign the contract you are now at the mercy of your creditors and if you get into trouble in the future you and yours will be out on your a***e. How can people be so gullible? Still I suppose they turn to these loan sharks out of desparation, and I should feel sorry for them really.
What a crazy country we live in.

-

Spot on, crispy. - Ed

Hey guys …. here’s a thought!!

Do you think that all the illegal immigrants, illegal refugees (the ones that lie about their situation) the economic migrants and the non-welcomed islamic muslims that hate us, will all go back home when we have no money and are in a recession????

I mean, we could at least then say that some good will come of it?? Apart from the fact tha twe will be proven right as a party for all we have said about Labour, that they would bring this country to its knees.

Then Gormless Broon will also go down as the only British PM, who could have still made a difference but because of his own greed, self worth and blindness (proably because of the one eye) allowed a country to sink in to its neck in imported crap. If he would just stop giving our money away to foreigners, taxed foreign companies making billions on our shores and letting the rich and super rich avoid taxes because they are his pals.

If you really want to see how badly we need to push for nationalisation of the banks, then watch this beast of a film. It really will open peoples eyes but its 3h 37m long.
It starts with predicting a huge recession that will hit (its an older film) then talks about the history of the banking institutions and how they work.
I really cannot recommend this film enough, if everyone was aware of this we could have a new policy of no income tax and have an abundance of money for assisting people to return home like in our manifesto pledge.

http://throwawayyourtelescreen.wordpress.com/2007/09/15/the-money-masters/

It might seem old, and the presenter boring but please try and stay with it, you will be glad you did.

I would just like to add to the foregoing that, after the catclysm which I fear is almost upon us, and with a BNP government in this country, its central (and only) bank must NEVER repeat the example of he who is probably the most evil man in all of human history, Mayer Amshel Rothschild (1743-1812)
the inventor of modern banking, that is the creation of money out of nothing, by creating debt, initally by lending money - other people’s money - and then by lending money which he did not have.

The world is now in agony from almost two centuries of eating the poisonous fruits of the Tree of Evil which Rothschild planted.

Get onto you tube, and catch a glimpse of what we are about to be faced with. Remember, Brown is a Leninist, surrounded by other Communist lunatics, and special advisers Like the alien traitor Jacobs etc. ”Gordon Brown New World Order Speech” is to be found amongst other excellent videos. Watch, listen, and learn.

…………..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Z4JteWUxRs -Ed

Hate is a very strong word …. I only ever use it in extreme cases … but I HATE Gormless Broon with a passion, he has single handedly done the majority of harm to this country since he was chancellor and in an incredibley quick year as an UNELECTED PM.

I know people were unhappy with the Tories but at least things weren’t so bad whne they had the driving seat and Labour were calling shotgun. I wonder what qualifications our government actually have? …. I don’t mean as in have they been to college or university, its just that we seem to have ministers who are in control of departments and they don’t seem to be qualified or have any experience in that field…..

They chop and change departments tha tmuch I question their ability or understanding in the field they work in … such as home office, security, chancellor and such like.

Because I know for a fact I could do a much better job than any of them cronies, who seem to relish in failing and yet are still just moved to another post and allowed to stuff tha tup as well, in real world business, you would just be sacked, they won’t even sack staff if they are caught red handed fiddling expenses or doing anything else wrong.

from: http://goldnews.bullionvault.com/UK_inflation_11_year_high_june_16_BBC_071720084
“INFLATION at 11-year high of 3.8%,” reported the BBC online this week.

Which isn’t true.

“The annual rate of inflation is at its highest level since 1997,” Auntie goes on, “when the Office for National Statistics started using its current methodology to calculate the figures.”

Which is fair enough.

“However, inflation is still way below levels seen in the early 1990s,” the Beeb concludes…

…which is just an out-and-out howler.

Mr J- “Stringbag, I can’t work out if the people who think these weird accountancy schemes up are mad, stupid or just crooked.”

Human capacity for self-delusion is pretty much infinite when attached to the receipt of very large wedges of cash. These people have developed a collective mindset that believes they actually are “wealth creators”, and that they are doing us a big favour, especially by graciously allowing a bit of “trickledown”. I believe that it is best summed up by saying that they have simply been blinded by greed. The Greeks had a word for it - “hubris”; overweening arrogance, an insolent pride towards the gods, a tempting of fate. But after hubris comes “Nemesis”, retribution and downfall.

In my favourite film, “Master & Commander”, Captain Jack Aubrey addressed the crew of HMS Surprise before boarding the French privateer “Acheron”, in what was bound to be a desperate and bloody action. (Incidentally “Acheron” is one of the rivers of the Underworld; the river of woe.) Aubrey said of the privateer crew, “…their greed will be their undoing.” And so it will be with these latter-day pirates. We few, we unconsidered ones that they count for less than nothing, we will be their Nemesis.

I have read with interest the comments on this thread and the depressing item that kicked them off, showing that our country’s financial heart appears about to suffer a massive coronary. The trouble for me is, I could never understand finance, apart from Mr Micawber’s dictum about being one shilling ahead instead of in arrears at the end of each year making all the difference to one’s existence. That, and the fact that balance sheets must balance.

But one thing stands out to me. In 1997, in spite of many years of corrupt Tory government, Britain had the 4th largest economy in the world, behind the US, Germany and Japan (funny how the losers in the war won so much of the peace). After 11 years of Mr Brown’s watch as chancellor and PM, we are now 6th in the world’s largest economies, behind France and China. We will probably soon be 7th, behind India as well. That to me says it all about the corrupt fruits of modern finance.

From Rory Allanson:

Hi Martin,

Re: Labour in the pockets of big business.

Here’s the full list of Gordon Brown’s guests at Chequers. No trade unionists I think, just big businessmen and celebs!!

http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-files/Politics/documents/2008/07/22/OfficialHospitalityChequers.pdf

“Sir Alan Sugar is among a string of business leaders to have been entertained by Gordon Brown at Chequers, according to a guest list for the prime minister’s country residence released yesterday.

“The list is an eclectic one, mixing investment bankers with minor royals, doyens of the arts, newspaper editors or ex-editors and assorted in-favour ministers. As well as the Amstrad founder and star of The Apprentice television show, Mr Brown in his first year as prime minister played host to Sir Richard Lambert, CBI director-general; John Studzinski and Bob Wigley, bankers; Damon Buffini, private equity boss; and the heads of the Tesco, M&S and Sainsbury’s supermarket chains. Dame Marjorie Scardino, chief executive of Pearson, which owns the FT, was also on the list.”

I know this is completely off track but its the funniest thing I have seen for a long time,
Anyway I think it is a good laugh, might cheer us all up and get us away from all the depressing news, just for a short time.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/7520149.stm
-
ok, its amusing :-) I’ll let it through this time, but stay on track - Ed

Ahh Britain, Kleptocracy at its best.

I have to agree with Liverpool Lad, when it comes to hating Gormless Broon with a passion. So much so in my case that every time I see his mug, be it in a newspaper or the TV, I get an overwhelming feeling of anger that rises inside me. He doesn’t even have to open his weird mouth! I’m sure there must be many others who feel the same!

@robstew48’s link. So we now have halalallah meat? Christianity can do much better than that:

HALLEHALLELUIAH! And what’s more in the Christian version, not a cruelly slaughtered animal in sight! Getting quickly back on topic.

These tacky adverts that crispy refers to, with Carol Vorderman fronting, are an absolute disgrace considering what is happening at the moment. Although the one I think crispy refers to asks about a mortgage, the £25,000 is not necessarily taken out against the property. Many mortgage providers forbid such a second charge on a property - with good reason. No, these loans are often unsecured and they want to know if you have a mortgage purely for credit rating purposes.

Just asking some of these ‘high risk’ loan companies for a quote can seriously affect your credit score and push up any interest rate you will be offered! They (and now everybody else) know you’re in a spot of bother. Every quote you get is logged centrally and every quote counts against you. They’ll give you a loan alright but at a price; greater risk has its greater price.

That’s how they make their money, by charging exorbitant interest rates. After all, if you can’t pay YOUR unsecured loan, who else is going to pay for it but the next chump that comes along - just like you did.

Gordon Brown should be thrown in the stocks and all the English people (and let’s face it, it’s the majority of us who get treated like something the unelected tosspot stood in whilst the rest of the world are his number one priority) should throw rotten fruit and vegetables at him. It would not make up for what he has done, but it would give us all a laugh at his expense.

Gosh! Would that be Sir Alan Sugar the famous Socialist on the menu? Nothing to do with money and debts, is it? Why bother working like a Trojan to win hearts, minds and members when you can just use bribery and a spot of business celebrity? No wait, that’d be too much like prostitution! We can’t live in a banana republic where rich people buy their way into government, now can we?

Anyone know what happened to the Labour party? Not that I care anymore - we have the BNP. New Labour didn’t even bother to reply to my emails. With the BNP, everyone cares what you think and values your contribution. And I don’t necessarily mean filthy lucre, either.

More champagne, comrade?

Here is the quote from Chapter XI of David Copperfield.

“{Mr Micawber] solemnly conjured me, I remember, to take warning by his fate; and to observe that if a man had twenty pounds a year for his income, and spent nineteen pounds nineteen shillings and six pence, he would be happy, but that if he spent twenty pounds one he would be miserable.”

A pity that isn’t the City’s charter.

Alanorei: I think that this ‘government’ have a lot of Mr Macawber in their thinking. ‘Never mind, something will turn up!’.
……..
I think they are more like Mr Bumble in their thinking - “the law is a ass - a idiot. If that’s the eye of the law, the law is a bachelor; and the worst I wish the law is that his eye may be opened by experience—by experience.” -Ed

FEEL-BAD FACTOR HITS RECORD HIGH

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=&xml=/money/2008/07/23/nfeel123.xml

@Artorius: I note on the report that they seem to have missed the general feelings and thoughts about a certain party that is stealing a lot of votes - from Liebour in particular. Yes us, the small (for the time being) but mighty BNP. I bet that they either didn’t ask any questions about us, which shows their one-track thinking and open discrimination. Or they just as equally decided to omit those statistics for the same purpose: to mislead the general public again about the general feeling in this country…that no one wants them in power, and more and more people are turning to the BNP.

The one thing we can be sure of, is that with the goings-on in the square mile, seeing daylight any time soon is definitely a no-no. Since the year dot we have been told that the City of London is a bastion of honesty in international money trading and stock transfers. The fact that the City seems to make loads of taxable money is the excuse to not interfere in their trading skills. But the important issue is what do the government and the people know about it. NOTHING, REALLY. This is a market that polices itself. No one from outside is allowed into their marbled halls without vigorous checks. This is the ultimate secret society. Old money prevails, new money is not trusted but used anyhow. Even a BNP government would find it almost impossible to get in. So we tend to believe the legend. The fact that it swims in these troubled times is an indication that it isn’t what is written on the tin. It is something entirely different.

The same old story. When hard pressed Joe Public gets into financial difficulty because of soaring interest rates, fuel costs and food prices, he ends up with repossessions, County Court Judgments, bankruptcy and a naff credit rating for years. When a bank gets into financial difficulty the directors are allowed to keep all the bonuses that their shoddy dealings earned them. Meanwhile, the taxpayers (including the poor sod fending off the bailiffs because of said shoddy practices) have to fork out billions to keep them afloat! That’s international financiers for you - a complete bunch of two-faced bankers!

-

Watch your p’s and q’s Heimdall - and those b’s and w’s :-) - Ed

We must remember that the Labour Party, with its reported £24 million of debt, have to wander round with their collection box. Also, with throwing money at all and sundry and probably having to borrow £100 BILLION in the coming year, they may hope for a few dribs and drabs for the Labour Party debt. Take for example the £30 million of aid to Palestine. They have the Intifada which ruins their economy; they send suicide bombers to Israel so a big wall results. So, we give them £30 million for being silly. Typical Labour logic!

Liverpool Lad, your first posting is as accurate as it can get.There will be thousands who will say that they didn’t see it coming but were stupid enough to vote for the incompetent lying thugs called Labour, in fact the other parties are not much different. I can’t believe that there are some six million idiots out there who belong to a mainstream trade union, which helps by way of thier subs in keeping this undemocratic, treacherous dictatorship called a government in power. Liverpool Lad is also spot on in what he says about job losses.

Have you ever wondered about all of those Muslims that you see walking about at all times of the day wearing long skirt-type clothing sporting those long scruffy beards do for a living? Imagine working on a buiding site or as a polceman or fireman, wearing that clothing. The answer is that they don’t work at all; they are just parasites living off the backs of the indigenous population, claiming benefits.The one thing that Liverpool Lad missed was that once the job losses seriously kick in,the people who will be losing everything will look over the fence and see thier neighbour on benefits still holding on to thier house and good income with no outgoings like council tax etc,then pure hell could be let loose.

I for one am glad that I don’t live in a big city or town, although I will be taking steps to protect my own property. Liverpool Lad, I too hate Brown with a passion, and have done for over ten years. Both he and Blair should be tried for war crimes. I honestly just can’t believe that people have for one second, been conned that Brown has been a ‘good chancellor’, when it has been so obvious that he was buiding the economy on debt, mostly from those poor people who do not understand basic finance.

Good Golly! What a wonderful crock of cr*p all these politicians are.
Young folk in Britain need to know that if they plan to set up home they will have at least 5 millstones around their necks before the mortgage.
1 Gas
2 Electric
3 Water
4 Telephone
5 Council tax
Oh! Mercy me, I forgot PFI.
I am the only one I ever heard call it by its proper name: Pawnbroking Finance Initiative. My children and grandchildren will be paying for this lunacy for another 50 years.
And has no-one noticed that thousands of Council slums have been demolished in the last 20 years or so that were only 15 to 40 years old, and does no-one know that a huge proportion of those slums were erected on 60 year mortgages from HM government? I think its called a shortfall. It never gets discussed.
Britain is afloat, but only just, in an ocean of debt.

And that ‘beef’ looks like pork to me…

I support capitalism because capitalism works. It consists of tradesmen, shopkeepers, consultants, the professions and companies which support local and national economies. What we see exemplified by the City and its spivs, but which also includes the likes of banks, superstores and big oil, is corporatism which has loyalty to no nation and to no people but is greed and avarice refined and up-dated to the era of the computer.

City boys, the modern day idle rich!
I think we should not be referring to the situation in this country as the ‘credit crunch’.
We would be falling into the governments hands, they simply don’t want to be associated with the proper term which would look worse on them.
We should use that good old fashioned word that comes round and round again, as surely as capitalism is allowed to excel to it’s worse excesses.
RECESSION plain and simple.

-

jao7, please see my response to your query re: RWB. Thanks. - Ed

This is interesting. It is a forum thread which has a post that explains about bank loan multiplier effect and a link to a video about the fractional reserve monetary system.

http://forums.military.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/409192893/m/8780036191001

Rather than bemoan the current financial state of affairs -one, as a Distributist, I’ve naturally seen coming for a long time as the Capitalist cycle completes its course- I’ll offer solutions.

Here is a link to Green Arrow’s forum. In this forum there is a whole section - entitled “Local Economic and Community Activism - that focuses on many issues from health, housing, and social issues to community activity.

Here you will find in-depth advice on many helpful issues ranging from home-brewing, bee-keeping, farming, managing allotments, avoiding supermarkets, homemade bio-diesel, purchase and networking groups, and financial community cohesion.

In order to view this invaluable wealth of information you have to firstly register on the forum (a simple undertaking).

http://thegreenarrow.proboards83.com/index.cgi?board=gdletalk

People, the time has now come for a whole new way of thinking and living. We can no longer be slaves to the system. Lose your chains now, join together, and reject the system you have “lived pleasantly under” when in effect you have not “lived” but only existed, oppressed.

I’m sorry to be bold about this, and I don’t mean to offend, but I’m sure I’m right in saying that a lot on this website (and most of the public) rejoiced in the alleged benefits of Capitalism and only now are they questioning it because they might have to sell that second car or put on the back-burner that house extension or conservatory.

Like Pinocchio led astray to Pleasure Land, the people have been duped to believe that Capitalism is somehow its friend. Escape the constraints of filthy lucre and avarice before –like Honest John, Gideon and Lampwick– you are reduced to the purpose of a donkey and sold off to work a life of toil, misery and dispossession.

There is another way. Free your minds and yourselves. Read on: http://www.distributist.blogspot.com/2007/01/distributism-defined.html

I’d be interested in hearing what the BNP plans to do about financial institutions. On the one hand insider dealing and speculation seems to help no-one, but is it really practical to nationalize the banks?

baz (4.37 p.m):”Even a BNP government would find it impossible to get in”. Absolutely NOTHING would stop a BNP government from turning over “the City” and exposing all its nasty, slimy, creepy-crawlies to the rude and vulgar gaze of the scoffing multitude, should it so wish.

In practice, we will probably go for isolating it, much as one would isolate a potentially lethal contagious disease. With all movements of the nation’s money controlled by the British National Bank and all speculative dealings in it prohibited, the wheeler dealers would have to use their dealing rooms for something harmless and appropriate to their usefulness, such as knitting or embroidery.

–
:) !! ?! - Ed.

ANGLO-AUSTRALIAN ALLIANCE, I would have loved to have read The Greenarrow link but unfortunately I can’t log on to it, it just does not like me. I don’t think it liked my name Green, can’t do anything about that as that is my name and quite proud of it. Just liked to have read it especially as we keep bees and grow for a living.

“I’d be interested in hearing what the BNP plans to do about financial institutions.”

There are the sort of considerations which need to be fleshed out, and it is good to have this sort of debate - nobody else is doing it; they’re all bowing down to liberal economics. IMO as a bare minimum very tight controls on lending and the creation of credit are going to be required; there will have to be strict reserve asset ratios, up to the late sixties banks were required to hold 25% of their assets in liquid form. All these exotic and esoteric financial instruments, which led directly to the Northern Wreck fiasco, will have to be the subject of very close inspection, quite possibly outlawed. Taxes on the likes of hedge fund speculators will have to be punitive. Breaking up large financial entities will have to be considered.

These are all tactical considerations - strategically we need to oblige them to invest in the capital development of our country, and particularly in manufacturing industry, for a change. What a culture shock it will be for them.

There are only five ways of producing wealth:

(1) Catching wild animals (including fishing)

(2) Gathering wild plants (including cutting virgin forests)

(3) Agriculture (including managed forestry)

(4) Extracting minerals.

(5) Manufacturing products from the raw materials provided by (1) to (4).

All other economic activities are simply provision of services for the people who work in (1) to (5), and provision of services to the people who provide services etc etc.

But what will happen to a small crowded country top heavy with a huge service sector whose fishing industry has been lost, which can’t produce enough food to feed its population, where coal mines have been shut down, metalliferous mines exhausted, petroleum reserves plundered and manufacturing industry decimated? What will happen to the bloated service sector once its last means of support - plentiful credit - has disappeared?

…….
We will then be dependent on the benevolent Big Brother in EUrope - that’s their plan, anyway! -Ed

Mike Shedlock has an apparently fact based analysis of the current financial situation, from an American perspective; for example You Know The Banking System Is Unsound When ….. There are many other illuminating articles as well.

Ok, I need to comment on this.

I am the son of a blue collar builder and work in the square mile.

Dignity honour and everything else is not specific to the so called class YOU place yourself in, to blame city institutions for anything is just escapist clap trap.

Why has the market gone AWOL? Well, the government bails out everyone and anything that may create negative economic consequences (Northern Rock et al) so why not take as much risk as possible? Especially if the level of you bonus is measured on winning that short run “bet”.

Institution managers (Fund Managers) get assessed on short run achievements and not risk mitigation hence you will always get these economic cycles. (Economic cycles are just a reflection of greed anyway) Governments play political cycles.. It’s no different.

This author is just trying to sell books, believe the rhetoric if it backs your view of the world and you’re prepared to pay for the ego stroke.

Artorius - I think you’re being a bit restrictive. Some wealth is generated by channeling and controlling forces of nature; eg if windfarms exist they redirect energy for human uses. And water purification equipment and reservoirs direct water to pipes for human use. With luck this may increase if ways are found to process energy. Liquid oxygen/ nitrogen/ ammonia etc are made from air and water. What I’m saying is some things are free (but need ingenuity to make use of them). Also, once stuff is built, it may cost less to maintain than to build from scratch; one of the reasons for immigration is that people can shoehorn themselves into houses and use roads, water taps that our ancestors thoughtfully provided. And the reason why the third world may be in evenmore desperate straits.

The economy is in a desperate situation for which Gordon Brown is greatly but not solely responsible. It had formerly been the case that when the country’s economic outlook was poor, the value of our currency would decline thus rendering our exported products cheaper and imports more expensive so stabilising the currency. Today there are so few products that there is no real floor to which the currency could fall. And the cumulative effect of years of trade deficits is that other countries already have enough sterling anyway. What then happens is not certain, but not favourable.
Most of my friends and colleagues could have done a better job of running the economy than Gordon Brown.

Think about it, where do we learn about money? Not much is taught about it in schools or college at all as we grow up, we are left to assume, and to do a lot of trusting when it comes to monetary issues and how the system works. It is never covered by documentaries on mainstream TV either. In fact we don’t get any solid, informative documentaries on TV at all anymore do we? Yet handling our monetary affairs is a vital aspect of our lives. It is as important as learning to cross the road safely, reading or any other lifeskill, yet we are taught virtually nothing on this subject. Why? I recommend readers educate themselves and their family/friends by going to the website of the recently deceased Dr. Edward Hamlyn at,

http://www.monetaryreform.org

and watch the following 2 documentaries:
http://www.themoneymasters.com

http://moneyasdebt.net

If you Google search for these 2 films by name you can watch them online. They literally are an education. In the final section of Money As Debt, the narrator suggests that people involve themselves in a local LETS Scheme, or consider setting one up if there is not one already in existence in their locality, because difficult times are ahead as money loses its value.
I was talking to a farmer yesterday and the police have admitted to him that the countryside is rife with a theft epidemic already right across Britain with gangs driving into the countyside to steal from our farmers whatever they can get their hands on, diesel, equipment, even digging up food crops - potatoes, strawberries, etc. You won’t hear about that on the BBC/ITV though - just the latest celebrity nonsense to keep us all quiet, and kid us everything is fine! It isn’t! Soon they will be taking livestock, as they get hungrier. This is just the beginning in my opinion.
“The Empire of the City” is another interesting film in this area.

As far back as Sumerian times, there was trouble with people getting into debt. In the Middle Ages our banking system grew up around trade and, until fairly recently, ordinary workers were excluded from the credit system because most banks refused to lend them money. In an attempt to curb loan sharking, the government put pressure on banks to make consumer loans available. In 1950 we saw the birth of the credit card and credit was aggressively marketed to people whom the creditors knew could not afford it, so much so that the first six months of losses from credit card solicitations are written off not as bad debts but as advertising expenses. Inability to repay is no longer the bar to credit it once was and once you use a credit card you are in debt. Only by paying off the full amount on your statement every month are you staying clear of debt. As debtors today are no longer imprisoned and individual consumers now have access to bankruptcy discharges, we are lulled into buying just a little more than we can actually afford and continue to pay interest month after month. Interest is no longer limited to 12%. Gradually, it is arranged that you can pay less each month over a longer timeframe and the banks have also been enabled to charge unlimited fees for various “services”. People have mortgages, car loans, credit cards plus other personal debt. More mortgages are held for longer periods. We all participate in government debt. We are victims of identity theft. Students have student loans. Most people have nothing put away for retirement. Household debt is growing faster than income as people spend more than they earn. People are going bankrupt. Monthly repayment of credit is more like 90% interest, 10% principal. British households are now more indebted than those of any other major country in recorded history, with families owing a record 173% of incomes in debt. Growth rates, consumer confidence, house prices, disposable incomes are all falling rapidly. British consumers now owe more than 1,400,000,000,000 pounds in debt. I don’t even know how to say that in words. Is that over a trillion? That’s apparently around 23,000 pounds of debt for every man, woman and child in Britain. At the end of 2007, there were 31,500,000 credit card holders. In just one month, December 2007, they spent over 11,300,000,000 pounds on their cards. However, many immigrants are getting lots of lovely dosh free thanks to our tax!

We are told that having debts is not a problem except if we cannot keep up with repayments. Some people even take out more debt to repay old debt. So we are working to repay debts instead of being paid for our work. We are already slaves. There is also a new industry in vogue called debt management advice and help with debt solutions. Initial advice is often free but fees are payable where continuing services are provided. Many people are moving abroad to escape debt in the belief that this will give them a fresh start. However, creditors and courts with access to computers have caught up with this idea and have made it more difficult for people to escape. Countries like Germany and Canada have reciprocal agreements with the UK to trace and collect debt. If there is no agreement in place, the debt can be sold to an agency in the relevant country and debt recovery then proceeds under the law of that land. If we are chipped, ID-ed and data-based, how easy that will be. This is all part of globalisation: nowhere to run to. What a bind we are in. In ancient Athens there was chaos when so many farmers were put in prison for debt there was no one left to grow corn. Some of us have been predicting similar dire consequences should this house of plastic cards fall, which now seems likelier than ever.

This is the situation we are now in, for better, for worse. Very interesting to read the comments looking to the future. However, I believe one of the main ways to conserve the economy is to limit easy access to as yet unearned income.

Tommy - “I am the son of a blue collar builder and work in the square mile. Dignity honour and everything else is not specific to the so called class YOU place yourself in, to blame city institutions for anything is just escapist clap trap.”

The issue is with the super rich string pullers who owe no allegiance to our country, but mainly to themselves. It was recently reported in the Times that: “Christopher Hohn, 41, a City hedge fund manager …..has given £235.8m in humanitarian aid(to Africa)….”. This incredible sum is simply the fruit of speculation, it was not productively earned.

“Why has the market gone AWOL? Well, the government bails out everyone and anything that may create negative economic consequences (Northern Rock et al) so why not take as much risk as possible?”

The government is certainly culpable but their cupability lies in their complicity. The market has gone “AWOL” because of years of reckless lending fraudulently tarted up as sound finance by the “securitisation” process; by which very bad loans were passed off as good ones. Unsuprisingly the financial instrument at the heart of this deception was devised by Barclay’s Capital in the City of London.

The Northern Wreck fiasco arose out of grotesque recklessness; lending very long, but borrowing very short in the money markets. When the sub-prime timebomb exploded in the United States nobody wanted the Wreck’s “securities” because all confidence had been lost, as it was put at the time “nobody knows where the bodies are buried”. The institutions refused to lend to each other because they didn’t trust each other. I can’t really see why we shouldn’t take them at their own valuation.

The gov’t was then virtually obliged to step in to avoid the collapse of the financial system(ie of the institutions which had lent to the Wreck). But all this was as a result of the Frankenstein’s monster which they had helped to create themselves by “light touch” regulation. Brown’s nasty, stick fingers are all over this; he wanted rapid financial expansion to pay for his spendthrift social programmes, and to keep him in power.

Here’s an expert view of the matter:

“It makes me believe, more than ever that the City is rotten to the core. Prove otherwise is my challenge.”

http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2007/09/17/northern-rock-the-questions-needing-answers/

Tommy 11:13pm
Why has the market gone AWOL? Well, the government bails out everyone and anything that may create negative economic consequences (Northern Rock et al) so why not take as much risk as possible? Especially if the level of you bonus is measured on winning that short run “bet”.

The “bet” was placed with taxpayers money and the horse is really just an old nag.

Of course we’re paying for all this - with the interest on our burgeoning credit bills. That’s what’s funding it. Then, on top of that, we have to pay for their reckless gambling moments. We’re also the ones paying for the ongoing beanfeast thrown for our delightful MPs (More-ish Pigs) at Troughminster. And guess who’s paying for the Freeloaders’ Festival of Gr’Eid in the welfare department? Yes, us again. What else aren’t we paying for? Oh yes, what about all the multiculti quangos, costing us more than 5 times the budget of the Ministry of Defence!! If this isn’t getting your goat and gander up, then we really are flogging a dead horse. Vote BNP for Goodness’ sake and do yourself a favour - no one else is gonna do you one.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1560697/Boom-in-quangos-costs-Britain-andpound170bn-a-year.html

May I ask a (probably stupid) question? Why are the City hedge fund managers not held to task over any of this? It was their supposed expertise that led to this pile of crap in the first place. I am still aghast as to how one individual hedge fund manager can afford to give £238.4million in humanitarian aid (to Africa, yet again more and more bad money going to a country that obviously doesn’t know how to use it … could this be because it doesn’t actually get there, draw your own conclusions?)

Was it his own money or has he used someone else’s money ie; the un-beknowing public?

The one thing that really grates on me, is that we have now for the last 50yrs been giving money to Africa to help the poor or misfortunate .. In seriously obscene amounts to the tune of countless billions, not just through our government, but also the City; as if we are not paying enough through charity.

WHERE HAS ALL THE MONEY GONE? … WHAT HAS IT BEEN USED ON? WHAT HAVE WE TO SHOW FOR IT?

I think that when bad investments are stumbled across or come to light through whatever means … Then the institutions should have the money taken from their accounts. It is their staff that are being down-and-out irresponsible with people’s money; they are the ones who falsify profits and spread rumours about share prices to illegally raise the prices.

Why should your average joe pay for their greedy mistakes or their down and out lies? … They are being paid to make sound investments and good moral decisions. Not to lie through their teeth to get that massive bonus payout at the end of the month or year.

I worked for a private bank that had investment managers and they were absolutely useless. They couldn’t predict the markets any better than me or you, they were just lucky with some of their choices; some stocks went up some went down. At the end of the day it is just gambling on a massive scale and, as some people have found out to their detriment, it would have been just as lucky to take their funds and bet on the races or some other form of gambling.

I watched Lindsey Williams “The Non Energy Crisis” recently. He states that under Alaska there is an oilfield bigger than any in the Middle East.The US government dare not produce this oil because it would be so cheap that it would ruin their economy.The Middle East oil is bought and sold in dollars and the rake off by the US, in return for making the Arabs ultra wealthy, pays the US national debt.
The higher the price of oil the more the US debt mountain gets cleared.

Williams states that a few men in London and New York set the price of oil.The Bilderberg conference in 2005 or 2006 wanted the price of oil to go above $100 per barrel. How right they were.Recently the “powers” have pushed up the oil price to new highs.I suspect that this was to see how far they could go before the world economy would fall dramatically.In the last few days the oil price has dropped which has breathed new life into stock markets.

To me this is proof that we are dangling on the end of the Bilderberger’s string being toyed with to see how much we can take.

This is a typical story you will now expect to see despite all the Aid given in the past 50yrs and more to the point the 100’s of millions given this year alone.

http://news.uk.msn.com/Article.aspx?cp-documentid=8993127

You will see as the story goes at the plight of the poor and how “Rising Food Prices” are effecting them …. Now don’t think of me as non-caring or insensitive … but … I DO NOT CARE at this point … I HAVE ENOUGH TO WORRY ABOUT MYSELF, WITH RISING FOOD PRICES, FUEL PRICES & MORTGAGE PAYMENTS…

They say areas of “Ethiopia” have seen wheat prices more than double in 6mths, well I know that bread over here has gone from about 79-85p a loaf to £1.35 or more now, which although is not double it is still not far from it.

Yet we are expected to ignore the plight of our own people, low income workers and pensioners who struggle to feed themselves on a daily basis. The government and these agencies do a great job in kidding the whole nation that we are not so badly off.

Why don’t the african nations all club together (excuse the pun) and instead of spending their money on wars and masses of weapons, grand palaces, cars and pointless meetings of heads of state and use this wealth they obviously have in places to buy their own food, or learn how to farm instead of just killing of white farmers (of which there wouldn’t big such a huge problem).

Instead, they think why bother? … Let our own people starve and kill each other because we know that good old whitey will pick up the bill and send food, clothing and anything else we need. We can spend ours on plush cars and stately homes, expensive suits and all the other pointless things tha twe dont need in abundance.

I repeat again …. 50 YEARS OF CHARITY COLLECTIONS, GOVERNMENT AID, OXFAM, CHRISTIAN AID, COMIC RELIEF, SPORT RELIEF,and CHILDREN IN NEED to name just a few that have given BILLIONS yes BILLIONS ove the last 50 YEARS and to what good …. ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, they are in an even worse state now due to the greediness and selfishness of their own leaders … NOT US, THEM.

Liverpool Lad.
I share all your frustrations, that you put so vividly.
We have been giving our hard earned money in the form of the high taxes that we pay to causes that are not beneficial to us in the short or long term. British taxes are flying out of our country. We have never been asked where we want the taxes of the fruits of our labours to go to.
Somewhat similar in that we were never asked if we wanted a multiculti melting pot in our country. These things are foisted on us, and the only thing we can do is vote the government out after five years and replace it with one that does exactly the same thing.
Both Labour and Tory governments tell us this money is to help the developing world. The simple fact is, that the ‘developing’ world has not been developing since I was a little child. Therefore all of this money is wasted.
The third world will never develop, it has no incentive to, so long as we throw money at it. We are told that we are one of the wealthiest nations and that we can afford it, but as we all know the top two to three percent of top earners are what dictates that we are a wealthy nation.
The vast majority of the population ‘get by’.
I don’t know if I feel sorry for the bereft adults I see milling around in places like Ethopia. I feel sorry for the babies that they are bringing into a cruel existence, but it is equally cruel that they are brought into this existence by those that should want to spare any human the indignity that they have had to suffer.
All societies develop differently, due to geographical, cultural, religous and economic reasons. We are developed, and we must strive as a nation to make our country to be a more pleasurable place to be, after all we pay enough to our governments to expect this.
The time has come to cut ourselves from the financial burdens the undeveloped and undevelopable world expect from us.

The important fact that all true nationalists must be aware of is that the City creates virtually no wealth for the nation. It just acts as a parasite on the real wealth-creating industries.

The London Stock Exchange is actually a private company and in reality is just a posh casino filled with professional gamblers - mainly hailed from snobby public schools. The BNP must shut down this house of horrors.

Noel 9.27.pm: When I said that even the BNP would have trouble I meant it. This giant monolith would see us coming years off. It takes the police years to investigate complex fraud. Now we might want to find out, but they are too clever. It would be easier to start from scratch.
Your second and more complex idea is that of The British National Bank. I’ve been around for some time now and was unaware of this. Is this BNP policy, I somehow think not. I can understand where you are coming from, but BNP policy is not negotiable or imagined. I’m sure at some future date when we maybe can influence the city we will. They will no doubt scurry for their bolt holes.

I just felt that the moral of your comment was that the BNP would smash down doors and takeover the City. If I’m wrong I apologise. but the BNP is always going to do what needs to be done through the proper channels and with due process in regard to the law. THAT’S WHAT MAKES US DIFFERENT FROM THE REST.

Well, too many comments and replies to comment on them all…

Must agree that the Government is a lap dog to the city, but the city really is just the pooling of vast resources of ordinary people. The people that act in a so called “fiduciary” capacity (Fund managers etc) seem to have an incredibly privileged position, I can’t for the life of me see why the Government hasn’t capped the management fee % they can charge to manage funds as approved “pension managers”. Every finance student knows that after fees, investment managers generally only achieve what could be achieved by randomly buying a weighting of 30 leading stocks.

The question needs to be, why does the government blindly encourage tax rebates etc to stimulate the savings market but yet not ask for a more efficient market? Fund managers like banks work on the basis if they make things complex enough they can charge you all sorts of hidden charges.

Oh yes, Globalism just means that commodities are valued internationally, so while the WTO may think that it is pareto optimal (economically efficient) to have undeveloped countries selling whatever they have… do they consider if they have to buy basic commodities at international prices they may actually be worse off (almost like a regressive tax)? Because the benefits of global trade really rest with the corrupt governments where they live. I.e Globalisation concentrates economic wealth from the vulnerable to those who control the resources…