Thursday, May 15, 2008
Gordon Brown: the world’s best contrarian indicator
MoneyWeek: Gordon Brown: the world’s best contrarian indicator
"When Gordon Brown sold half our gold reserves all those years ago, it almost precisely marked the end of the yellow metal’s long bear market. So it’s fitting that now the UK property boom is well and truly over, he’s decided to go out and buy some houses."
Posted by damien @ 11:35 AM (958 views) Add Comment
15 Comments
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1. _woody said...
Dosen't seem as though GB fully understands how markets work! Sell at the bottom, buy at the top seems to be his approach.
His decision to sell off 60% of our gold reserves at knock down prices has cost the country many billions. Strange to think how he could survive in his job after such a monumental mis-judgement.
2. mark wadsworth said...
He also gave Glasgow Rangers the kiss of death by wishing them luck in the UEFA cup final.
3. layers said...
"The plan is to spend £200m on unsold new-build flats, which would then be rented to low income families, or sold on as shared ownership properties." All those lucky folk who have paid a premium to live in new flats will soon have a very 'cosmopolitan' bunch of neighbours - should drive their value up no doubt. Not.
4. C'mon Correction said...
Everything he touches, turns to sh!t !!!
5. inbreda said...
So basically, what he is saying, is that any property developer who donates money to the Brown and Blair drinking fund... I mean Labour party... and who is finding life a bit difficult at the moment, will get a tax payer funded bail-out.
What's the betting that some other developers might have a problem with the fairness of the bail-out.
BAIL OUT BAIL OUT BAIL OUT
6. jack c said...
I'm not sure the proposed intervention will have that much of a noticable effect - in fairness greenbay did say that the Gov would do whatever they could to stave off a property collapse
7. mark wadsworth said...
It's perfectly fair - if you want to flog off some new builds at overvalue to the Gummint you have to make a donation of 1% of that value to the Labour Party. Like Northern Rock.
8. mark wadsworth said...
Jack C, "not much of a noticeable effect"? None whatsoever, £300 million divided by £189,000 is about 1,500 homes, that's less than one day's turnover in the housing market. But of course the grateful developers will bung £5 million of that into Nulab, thus staving off Nulab's own insolvency by a few months.
9. sold 2 rent 1 said...
More debt being piled onto the taxpayer,
GBP/USD is 1.94200
It could break its 52 week low very soon.
Don't let your savings be devalued
10. Jonb said...
"[...] first-time buyers don’t need any help. The housing market is in freefall. They’ll soon be able to afford all the houses they want. For those who argue that a 20% fall “would still only take prices to 2004 levels” – well, the answer to that is, clearly house prices will fall further than 20%."
Nice to see things like this for a change.
11. jack c said...
@6. mark wadsworth - agreed, it doesnt take long to work the numbers out and more to the point those that they intend to help are probably least likely to benefit.
I have just watched the PM take Q's in his live press conference and he talked about 100% fixed rate mortgages not now being as readily available and therefore shared equity mortgages are the way forward - completely clueless and misleading. If a registered/regulated broker came out with misleading statements in public they would face ramifications from the regulator - he should leave it to a MAQ or CeMAP qualified commentator !
12. Orcusmaximus said...
"the Iron Chancellor has thrown off all pretence of fiscal competence and is now flinging money he doesn’t have at problems he can’t solve."
"For those who argue that a 20% fall “would still only take prices to 2004 levels” – well, the answer to that is, clearly house prices will fall further than 20%."
Class article!
13. monty032 said...
It has been suggested before on this site that the thousands of empty city centre flats will be the slums of the future. This is one way that it's going to happen - the Government buying them up and using them for social housing. The only silver lining is that they just don't have the spare money to throw at problems like they used to. £200m is £3.30 per inhabitant of the country, which isn't going to buy many flats, even using shared equity.
14. sold 2 rent 1 said...
Gold has just lept $20 to 883.
Still time for the NWO to take it down again. today or tomorrow.
Is this the breakout I have been looking for?
15. inbreda said...
Yeah - I thought of you when I saw the 20 jump. Annoyingly it just dipped low enough to activate a stop loss. I really hate it when that happens.