Rothschild proposes seriously increasing the student loan rate (and breaking the deal) with taxpayers underwriting it in a new "hedge" financial instrument. "This plot against graduates risks undermining trust in the loans system and the entire university application process, tearing a big hole in the social fabric of the UK in the process. It is time to walk away from this trainwreck of a policy and start again". Another transference of wealth from the young to bankers.

"Mark Carney, who will become Governor of the Bank on 1 July, and made the appointment, said, “I am delighted that Charlotte [Hogg] will be part of the senior team at the Bank. My tenure at the Bank will oversee a significant transition.”"

Summary of the systemic risk survey.

"The Building Societies Association has become the latest critic of the Government's Help to Buy property scheme, warning that it could inflate property prices". (anyone listening?...No, I thought not)

Posted by alan @ 12:39 PM 17 Comments

UK house prices increased by 2.6% in the 12 months to April 2013, new data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) shows. Prices in England increased 2.8% in the period, while Wales witnessed a 6.2% rise, Scotland a 1.2% increase and Northern Ireland a 0.8% rise. The increase in England was driven by a 6% growth in London and a 3.6% increase in the east Midlands.

Robbie Williams, the now-you-see-him-in-Take That, now-you-don’t bad boy, allegedly bought the 18th century country estate in 2009 after hearing about the mystical ley lines that are said to criss cross Wiltshire and act as a focus for powerful earth energies, or even as a guiding system for UFOs.

"There are three new entrants to the top seven risks: the risk of property price falls (cited by 25% of respondents, up 11 percentage points), operational risk (up 10 percentage points to 24%), where ‘cyber’ security was most frequently mentioned, and risks surrounding the low interest rate environment (the fastest growing risk, up 16 percentage points to 24%). Participants’ perceptions of an increased risk of property price falls (in particular residential property price falls) could be consistent with views of prices becoming overinflated or about to become overinflated. Responses in the low interest rate category focused on the risk that artificially low interest rates are creating distortions in asset allocation, potentially leading to overinflated risky asset prices."

"British consumer price inflation rebounded due to a record rise in air fares and higher fuel prices, raising questions about whether April's seven-month low was simply a blip. The Office for National Statistics said annual CPI rose to 2.7 percent in May from April's 2.4 percent". (Everyone else thinks their supermarket shop is up by 7 to 8% YoY too).

"There is no transparency in the shadow banking system, and systemic risk is rising. We have no idea who the borrowers are, who the lenders are, and what the quality of assets is, and this undermines signalling," she told the DT. "While the non-performing loan rate of the banks may look benign at just 1pc, this has become irrelevant as trusts, wealth-management funds, offshore vehicles and other forms of irregular lending make up over half of all new credit. "It means nothing if you can off-load any bad asset you want. A lot of the banking exposure to property is not booked as property". Long term liabilities funded by short term debts (didn't any of them study ONC economics and business studies or were they just greedy and stupid?).

"NGH now has 22 bed and chair alarms, costing just over £7,000 each, and were paid for by surplus contributions to the NGH charitable fund staff lottery during last year." That's £154K on chair alarms !!!! That is alarming :-) One of the readers point our you can buy a fall alarm of the intenet for around £200