babesagainstmachines

When will you realise that things don't get worse, you just get more intolerant.

We don't know, but these guys might : http://www.bankofengland.co.uk

When people even tried to extract themselves from 1 of its institutions, the result was we all picked up the bill. And their team aren't even top of the second division The thing about football clubs is that there are loads of them. When they screw up, they get relegated and replaced by better run clubs. It happens every season. Banks on the other hand get a tax-payer handout. Less regulation, more relegation!!

Probably not. We have a very unequal society such that your standing at birth is by far the best predictor of how your life will pan out. Which is quite clearly not meritocratic.

In the past, the banking regulations have just been changed so that the banks could create more money. In the present/short-term future, this is unlikely to happen since it is the banks who are seen as causing the problems. In actual fact, its the stupid monetary system and perpetual inflation. There really is no good reason to have the money supply growing at 5%+ per year, as the BoE seem to think is necessary.

What I don't get is that landlords seem quite happy to rent to crappy charity shops, or offer incentives which will simply see them looking for new tenants.

It won't be paid back. When they entered into QE, they maintained that the gilts would be sold when the market recovers. I think that's extremely unlikely. They will probably even be rolled over, but since that's a gradual process in the future, I'm sure nobody will notice The banks are going to need to buy all the new government debt to stay within the new rules, so the government won't have any trouble finding buyers.

In the land of the stupid, the man with the magic money tree is King.

This is the problem when the operation of markets are distorted by political intervention. We would all know damned well that we were in deflation and could plan accordingly, but the man with the printing press wants to keep us on our toes. "We won't print any more money. For now...."

What we need is to balance our trade deficit. Falling pound certainly helps this short term, until the workers realise they are being shafted. Protectionism is the only thing that will save us now, I fear.

Bit harsh to lose everything for saying some stuff and owning some books, IMO.

Let's hope the Yank's don't accuse you of being a pantomime bogeyman. You will lose all your assets before you have been convicted of anything.

The last time I checked, neither the olives, the cheese nor the fried potatoes spoke any language, or claimed any kind of national allegiance or country of birth. There is crap food everywhere, and there is good food everywhere.

I don't think, there is enough thinking.

The real problem is the people have been brainwashed into not exercising their power in our Democracy. "There's no point voting for MR XXX cos he won't get in, so I'll vote for MRS YYY who has a chance". Voting is expressing your opinion, it's not picking a winner on the geegees, you don't get a prize.

He was talking about the real rate of interest. 10 yr gilts are yielding around 3.9%.

Mud slinging would be calling you a thieving bankster gobshite. Which I didn't do. I wish I ate invisible food, or that my energy bills were a bit less liquid.

Where did I sling any mud? My specific question was concerning the hidden value to the banks of doubling the monetary base in the space of a year. Banks deal in promises to pay narrow money. If I promise someone a golden egg, I'd be in a much better position to meet my promise if there were two geese laying such eggs than if there were one.

Yeah but that's a crazy investment bank, not a good solid British household name, they are solid as a Rock

As a creditor, you would still receive a fair share of the banks assets. You wouldn't lose everything.

I'm interested... what do you do within a bank, because you don't seem to understand the difference between QE and the SLS. I wonder also if you know what effect creating £200Bn of narrow money has on the banking systems ability to meets it's liablities, and who is paying for it.

Falls in activity are rarely accompanied by stable prices. Is it "different this time"?

How will this result in stagnation? I'm interested in the mechanics.

Yes, that really is the final word on it. No more views allowed.

This illustrate the nonsense of the GDP measure. If I am a subsistence farmer, and I merely sell enough of my produce to cover my healthcare and consume the rest, I have negligible GDP footprint. If I grow only potatoes and sell them all to buy the food I want, the economy has suddenly grown by the whole amount of my productivity, even though nothing extra has been produced.