The UK debt.

[EddieM]

Because it doesn't really exist. Quantitative easing means the Government buys debt from the banks so that the banks are then free to lend money to business to kick-start the economy. It isn't just about printing free money.

Sadly, and I hate to say this, but Joe is right. QE is raised against government bonds, meaning we're simply deferring the pain. I hate grandstanding, but i see no easy way out of this.... i don't think there is one, learning the lessons of history, it has been war.

 

[Corgigrouch]

Therefore we need some hard but fair benevolant dictator to take reins and see us through this (Im with Joe here)very scary time.

Damn and Blast.... The Lybians have just shot one. So now we know why the Western governments wanted him alive..

 

[Corgigrouch]

Sadly, and I hate to say this, but Joe is right. QE is raised against government bonds, meaning we're simply deferring the pain. I hate grandstanding, but i see no easy way out of this.... i don't think there is one, learning the lessons of history, it has been war.

QE acts as a buffer (We'll have Dr Drivel ranting on about buffers in a min) and allows the government to spread things out a bit it is stricly a short term mechanisn. As long as the money is reeled in again, then no harm done... The danger starts when they keep on printing the money like Mr Mugabe did

 

[EddieM]

Sadly, and I hate to say this, but Joe is right. QE is raised against government bonds, meaning we're simply deferring the pain. I hate grandstanding, but i see no easy way out of this.... i don't think there is one, learning the lessons of history, it has been war.

QE acts as a buffer (We'll have Dr Drivel ranting on about buffers in a min) and allows the government to spread things out a bit it is stricly a short term mechanisn. As long as the money is reeled in again, then no harm done... The danger starts when they keep on printing the money like Mr Mugabe did

Well yes indeed, that short term leads to hyper inflation, still ..... I don't know where we're going with this. It is a truly horrible nightmare.

 

[EddieM]

OK. lets bung this one in, my view, is that all speculative financial trading unless it enables liquidity to the real market should be illegal.

Brave stuff... puts me outta work!!

 

[EddieM]

and its unworkable, sigh!!

 

[Corgigrouch]

...... Or we shoot all the traders (Ref our dictator) or we go back to the barter system..... How many pigs for a new Ford Mondeo?

 

[EddieM]

...... Or we shoot all the traders (Ref our dictator) or we go back to the barter system..... How many pigs for a new Ford Mondeo?

Well, that's tangible. it's a mess. You can eat a pig, you can drive a mondeo.

I have much more respect for the guy who farms pigs and the guy who builds mondeos frankly.

 

[Corgigrouch]

Well, that's tangible. it's a mess. You can eat a pig, you can drive a mondeo.

I have much more respect for the guy who farms pigs and the guy who builds mondeos frankly.

They are both comodities that we can send abroad and swap for foreign made goods... Anyone who is creative or produces items of physical use has my respect.... Even electricians!

My way of calculating worth is to imagine the total colapse of society and we all find ourselves having to survive off our own skills... Who would you want to share your pig with? a builder or a banker?

 

[Nige F]

I dont think anyone here is actually qualified and has the expertise to make rash comments on the Uk debt.

the UK will be fine.....dont listen to scaremongerers!

As long as the housing market survives - so will little britain

 

[joe-90]

Our unemployment is not as high as Greece, Spain etc, they have high no growth, high government short term borrowing, massive deficit.....the UK will be fine.....dont listen to scaremongerers!

I think you'd better tell that to the Governor of the Bank of England then - cuz he's in a right old tiz. He reckons this is worse than the 30s. I guess he's just scaremongering though eh? Got nothing better to do. He's clueless is that Mervyn King.

 

[EddieM]

Well, it's doom mongering i agree, but there are fundamentals that must be sorted out in our economy. If we don't pay bankers / execs the big money, they'll leave.... ok, goodbye, you don't contribute anything to a real economy.

Your house needs (esp in the SE) to be devalued by 66% really its not worth it, and is fantasy money.

Trouble is, no-one accepts reality. We need a big war, for a good old clear out.

 

[joe-90]

Devaluing the housing stock by 66% will leave banks exposed to the sub-prime fiasco again - and half the country in negative equity they can never repay. This will lead to total meltdown of the UK economy.

 

[joe-90]

Trouble is, no-one accepts reality. We need a big war, for a good old clear out.

The trouble is that the next war will leave us in the stone age once more. Dust off Trident folks.

 

[ladylola]

Your house needs (esp in the SE) to be devalued by 66% really its not worth it, and is fantasy money.

Trouble is, no-one accepts reality.

I was listening to a recent report on the BBC4 news and it was talking about market fear of a "slowing" of lending of money for houseing in the Chinese market, doom and gloom. However, it turns out that the Chinese government have stepped in to avoid the same pattern being repeated over there that we have in the west, that of speculation driving up house prices artifically. It's ok to borrow money to buy a house to live in but not to simply sell it on at twice what you paid for it.
As to Mervyn King saying this crisis is as bad as the 1930's I don't even see it as a seperate crisis, it's all the same sympton of a faulty economic system in the first place.
Oh and let the bankers go abroard, just make sure they go on a boat with a leak