madpenguin

"European Commission proposals would force employers to pay in huge extra sums to reduce the risk of pension funds collapsing. The plans are designed to protect workers from rogue and negligent employers." Oh dear the EU's taken away the pension industries little ray of sunshine, now they won't be able to justify scamming funds to pay their extortionate fees, when you look at the recent reports that the average 60 year old Brit has a pension pot of just 10k and that in some EU countries someone paying the same amount as a Brit will end up with up to 50% bigger pension pot you can only conclude this is yet another example of rip off Britain (How else did we get to a situation where "my house is my pension"). What with the recent Panorama report revealing high fees, I can only hope we get more EU legislation that our Government are too scared to bring in (probably couldn't get permission from the pension industry :angry: ) High fees in UK pension plans can cost thousands: we need to look to Europe to find better ways of managing pensions http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/?p=5198 "In October, the BBC’s Panorama highlighted how high fees among UK individual pension plans may significantly decrease workers’ pension pots, leading to future pension benefits that will not be enough to cover their basic needs once retired. These fees may represent up to 80 per cent of the total money paid into a fund. "

I'm getting more and more wary of the media/politicians lauding countries experiencing "economic miracles" as time goes on. We had Japan in the Thatcher years held up as an example of how to run a thriving economy, and more recently we've had "tiger economies" like Ireland, but it always seems their "miracles" are built on land/property inflation every time.

"The company, owned by India's Tata Motors" Can't say I'm in any way surprised this has happened :angry:

2 word reply, 2nd word is "off"

Depends on the conditions, if it meant keeping current full UK salary and a good benefits package I'd take it, most countries have international schools of some kind or other, and I suspect fees wouldn't be a problem

Yeah me too, had a couple of interviews in Dublin, nice city but bloody expensive

Nah while the various economies in the West look less than perfect through absorbing the banks mistakes it make this easier for the currency speculators to make a killing, ever notice how the US, UK and various European countries never have their problems at exactly the same time? I used to work on the trading floor of a large bank , when the UK pulled out of the ERM the currency guys got up on their desks and did a victory dance because they had bet that way and stood to make a bundle, on tv it was doom gloom and despondency while these guys were high fiving each other and heading for the pub, kind of lost my faith in the financial system after that. :angry:

4-5 years ago I remember hearing that Ireland was at that time the number one country for offshore outsourcing, (bigger than India at the time), it seems the low Corporation tax which is causing some comment at the moment was used to lure big, particularly American companies, to site call centres and the like there, English speaking and in Europe, perfect location from multinationals point of view. I know whenever I've worked with companies ordering large numbers of computers (1000+) people like Dell always seem to be shipping from Ireland.

Simple, a lot of traders will make a lot of money, and when Europe's crossed off the list they just look for the next target, (you can bet the US$ is waaay down the bottom. I keep a daily watch on Euro/Sterling and you get cycles of panic/relax for both currencies, but never both at the same time, odd that seeing that these problems are happening throughout the world financial system, the US, UK and Europe all have more or less the same issues (granted different solutions, but I don't think you can say QE was an unbridled success just yet) and are all equally scary why aren't we seeing the same pressure on all three currencies at the same time, can't Wall street multitask?

Really can't understand this mentality, must be all the wars we've had through history in Europe, would you be saying "they are going to become just another American state" if they had accepted IMF money?, I really don't think you're going to see French or German troops and a puppet government installed in Ireland any time soon. They're probably going to be taking a loan, the provider of the loan (in this case probably the ECB) will ask for certain conditions to be met to give a reasonable chance of getting their money back, end of story.

Look like real bargains, any BTL forums we can send these to?

I know you meant that in fun, but if things get too bad the prospect is all too real in some areas. Every cheap tin pot banana republic's president knows he has to keep the military and police on side, if things get too bad it's not hard to see this type of thing happening again, disaffected military in particular is a very bad idea. (particularly now so many of them have actual combat experience) Didn't I hear somewhere that in the Wilson era that the army had a back up plan to take over?

Amen to that, spent a year in the Met when I was younger (early 80s), and it's exactly as you describe, from what I saw most career criminals the police deal with seem to be pretty thick, or more charitably "have been failed by society", the smart ones become businessmen, accountants, lawyers and politicians, and are therefore pretty much flameproof unless they screw up badly (even then how many MP's on the expenses scandal ended up inside, regardless of the fact that some of them conned more than a medium sized bank heist would gross?). Myself I think with all the cuts they are making elsewhere they probably need to double the manpower of the police rather than cut it, to cope with the increased crime that will surely take place, what with the benefits clampdown and inflation generally; I think you can also guarantee plenty of demonstrations, some peaceful others like the students demo the other day which all need some presence.

Probably more than them, likely to be less self interest!

This published today by Telegraph: Ireland debt crisis: European banks' exposure http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/financialcrisis/8133669/Ireland-debt-crisis-European-banks-exposure.html The table is based on data supplied to regulators under a stress test conducted in July. It is the net exposure of banks to central and local government debt at the end of March in euros, based on current exchange rates. BANK NET EXPOSURE (NET OF IMPAIRMENTS) Hypo Real Estate* €10,3bn Royal Bank of Scotland €5bn (£4.2bn) Allied Irish Bank €4,2bn Bank of Ireland €1,2bn Credit Agricole €929bn Danske Bank €655m HSBC €593m BNP Paribas €571m Group BPCE €491m Societe Generale €453m KBC Group €446 mln** * Nationalised HRE said since assets have been transferred to a German government-backed "bad bank", its exposure to Ireland has been reduced to a negligible amount, according to a presentation of Oct. 5.

Do you mean this report on Bloomberg? http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-11-12/pound-declines-against-the-dollar-on-g-20-talks-u-k-consumer-confidence.html Pound Declines Amid Concern Over Banking Contagion From Irish Debt Crisis “The U.K. is number one in terms of Irish exposure, so there definitely is a risk there,” said Derek Halpenny, head of European currency strategy at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ in London. “The greatest concern must be that we haven’t really hit bottom yet.” It's ok I can step in and pay the £8.50 if required If he's not talking about banks then what? bonds?, and who own's them?

I wouldn't count on it!, a couple of my workmates are gay in long term relationships, and it's not unknown to hear phone conversations along the lines of "you bought what!, how about asking me first, it is a joint account you know!! "

One of the posters on a Guardian thread posted this link: http://golemxiv-credo.blogspot.com/2010/10/who-are-bond-holders-we-are-bailing-out.html "SO.... on one side we have Ireland whose bond holders, its people, have between them a total GDP wealth of 0.207 trillion euros. Who are being FORCED, against their will, to pay Anglo Irish bank's debts to its bond holders, who between them hold 20.8 Trillion euros. The people of Ireland are paying to, and protecting the wealth and power of, people who have 100 times more wealth! So where do these wealthy bond holders live and work? Germany has the most with 15 of the bond holders. Who between them hold 5.3 trillion euros. France is next with 10 bond holders. Who have about 4 trillion to keep them warm. Britain is third with 9 who have around 3 trillion. The Swiss have 6 but who have about 8.5 trillion. America has only three and hold only a trillion. Other nations include, Spain, Belgium, Portugal, Holland Finland, Norway, Sweden, Poland, South Africa and Italy. All these figures are very rough. The figure for Switzerland is certainly under because Private Swiss banks just don't publish figures. What we can say for sure, figures or no figures, is these are not banks investing widow's pensions or orphan's pennies." If these sorts of figures are true it shows why the UK has jumped in with cash so quickly. So much for Switzerland's financial prudence , yeah ok I know, investing on behalf of customers,it's just so rare you can take a pop at them couldn't resist!

Whichever way anyone jumps, choosing between austerity whether enforced by another another or not, and high inflation seems a pretty poor choice. You can moan about control by Brussels, but it could equally be control by the IMF, again not much comfort there!, just a US spin on the same problem, at least Brussels has a vested interest in Ireland's economy not failing.

I must admit I am getting pretty fed up with AEP's column, I see the continual Euro bashing as a way to divert attention from the dollar and Sterling's weakness, yes Europe has problems but nowhere near as acute as those facing the UK/US (monetarily we seem to ape every financial scheme the US dreams up so I tend to think of both countries as being in the same camp) While living in Germany the one thing that came through loud and clear was that everyone feared the return of the hyperinflation of the 1930's, it seems to be a very strong folk memory, more of a scar even than the war and breakup. When the US and UK started QE and voiced surprise at Angela Merkels resistance I laughed out loud, if you speak to any German, asking them to inflate the economy is like asking them to put their hand in a meat grinder! I know some people (particularly AEP's followers) get very excited about the thought of the Euro failing and breaking up, however few stop to think that the collapse of our largest trading partner would pretty much push the UK into the abyss financially (I mean even more than it is already). I have had the opportunity to talk with people at work from Greece, Italy and Spain about the crisis and the possibility of withdrawing from the euro and the overwhelming response I get is "are you f@#%$*%! crazy you think we'd ever want the drachma/lira/peseta back?". Even with the German's I was out with a German friend one day and he was converting the price of something from Euro's to deutchemarks, when I asked why (thinking aha they do want the DM back) he said "a lot of German's do it, we grew up with the deutchemark so we convert back to it to check we're not being ripped off!" (a bit like a lot of people in the UK did with pounds shillings and pence for a while after decimilisation).

I agree with you about the re-possessions, in the late 80's I had a house on a new build estate in the South East. I can remember coming home to my wife and remarking how a lot of people had moved out because every other house was empty, she replied "no, they have been repossessed" pointing one by one to every empty house in our street, and relating each tale of woe relayed through the stay at home mum's telegraph In relation to slow crashes, I've seen numerous graphs on these forums showing previous crashes took about 5 years to hit bottom, from what you've pointed out how long do you think this time 6-10?

Sorry I meant old timer in the sense of "seen a lot of these kind of posts before", not chronological age

I've read here many times on this forum that you don't actually see a crash in property, as in "my word the price of property has fallen a lot this month/quarter", it's some 5 years later people observe prices have crashed, the actual change is gradual. I believe we are having a crash in prices now but the change is glacial in speed Any old timers/guru's care to confirm

Inflation is gradually reducing the buying power of the average person, with no comparable rise in wages for most people, also Governments are actively working to make the general standard of living lower with their Corporate buddies in order to "compete" with third world economies. Of course they can't come out and say that, far better to just go the "naughty people you are living beyond your means" sackcloth and ashes route, guilt trips work, the various religions have been using them for thousands of years. YOU ARE ALL MISERABLE SINNERS! (said in very best Ian Paisley voice)

Think it might of been in the recent arguments over facebook privacy, might have been Mark Zuckerberg who said "everyone has something to hide" Problem is with this type of agency once something is there it's probably extremely difficult to get it corrected, even if untrue, how many people have been refused credit as it is because of mistakes? Also alarming is the urge by both Government and Private concerns to link these databases. Information held separately isn't a huge problem, having a complete overview of everything about a person will turn out to be a tool for great evil whether the person viewing it is an individual a company or a government. When reading accounts of successful people the thing that strikes you is the number of times some of them have gone bankrupt before making it big. Guess that won't be happening in the future