UK Economy

[Iron]

Bank of England's QE 'hits tax revenues’ - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/pers ... enues.html

' The taxman has missed out on tens of billions of pounds thanks to an “unintended consequence” of Quantitative Easing, a group of MPs will be told on Monday.'

[Iron]

David Cameron tells porkies about Britain’s national debt - http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehous ... onal-debt/

Includes a quite shocking chart: http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehous ... bt/psnd-3/

I'm not a mathematician, but that looks a bit like an exponential curve...

Jeff

[superfrank]

David Cameron tells porkies about Britain’s national debt - http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehous ... onal-debt/

Includes a quite shocking chart: http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehous ... bt/psnd-3/

I'm not a mathematician, but that looks a bit like an exponential curve...

Jeff

yep, complete bullshit. before long the BoE will have monetised the debt, the currency will have crashed, and they'll be claiming to have cleared our debts!

Gideon Gono would be proud! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gideon_Gono

[superfrank]

Business confidence 'hits new low', says survey
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-21387493

Confidence among UK businesses hit its lowest level in at least 21 years last month, a survey suggests.

and this despite the govt spending £4 for every £3 it receives in revenue, record low base rates, massive money printing by the BoE, a trashed currency and all manner of schemes designed to "get lending going" and prop up asset prices.

the problem is that the economic model was, and is, flawed. debt based growth only works for so long, like all pyramid schemes.

[Iron]

Sterling strikes seven-month lows amid calls for further weakness - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/curr ... kness.html

I wonder how long it will be before bond holders run out of patience and interest rates are made to rise...

Jeff

[superfrank]

it's interesting how much sterling has fallen since Carney was named as Merv's replacement. he's expected do the same as King (print and let inflation rip) but on steroids to save the banks, house prices and property developers while the real economy burns.

we're always told that a weak currency is good for exports, but sterling has been devalued between 20 and 40% against most currencies since the start of the financial crisis... and how much have exports risen? Answer: they haven't risen at all.

meanwhile the price of all imported goods and energy has risen substantially (and real inflation is much higher than the official fiddled figures). King has failed on an epic scale (both pre and post-credit crunch) and they are replacing him with a bloke who is gonna pursue the same failed policies but with more vigour.

the UK is fooked and plenty of people are now speculating that we will be the first to go pop; hence sterling's renewed descent.

[steven1976]

edit to, what are the main uk exports?

[superfrank]

am not sure, i think it's a fair mix of things rather than a few key areas.

tbf we do export quite a bit of stuff, it's just that other countries have grown their exports much quicker and our imports continue to dwarf the exports.

with the decline of North Sea oil we are also now a net importer of energy. Norway had the same oil but chose to invest the proceeds for the long term rather than p1ss it up the wall as we did!

[staker72]

Britain is normally counted as the 5th largest exporter of manufactured goods, I believe we are the second largest aerospace manufacturer (USA 1st of course)
I am not sure the pound has declined quite as much as pople think. Many years ago I used to import a bit from USA and we used a rule of thumb of 1.64 dollar/pound.
I've just checked and it's currently 1.55 What I think people tend to look at is a couple of years ago the dollar fell to 2 to the pound and everybody uses this to claim big changes.
The Euros a different matter but I seem to remember when the European banking crisis spread to UK the pound was down to 1.1 and again it is now 1.15

All major currencies have had their highs and lows over the last 2-3 years for various reasons but the Pound is still within it's normal range. However journo's like headlines and 'everything normal' doesn't look as good as excited hyperbole about an odd % movement.

[Iron]

I think Jim Rogers nicely sums up the state we're in: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... 8wLlWJTh7o

[superfrank]

I am not sure the pound has declined quite as much as pople think.

http://www.google.co.uk/finance?chdnp=1 ... qj2wAP41AE

[Iron]

This says it all about where we're at as a country: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/ho ... 01329.html

Jeff

[steven1976]

Britain is normally counted as the 5th largest exporter of manufactured goods, I believe we are the second largest aerospace manufacturer (USA 1st of course)
I am not sure the pound has declined quite as much as pople think. Many years ago I used to import a bit from USA and we used a rule of thumb of 1.64 dollar/pound.
I've just checked and it's currently 1.55 What I think people tend to look at is a couple of years ago the dollar fell to 2 to the pound and everybody uses this to claim big changes.
The Euros a different matter but I seem to remember when the European banking crisis spread to UK the pound was down to 1.1 and again it is now 1.15

All major currencies have had their highs and lows over the last 2-3 years for various reasons but the Pound is still within it's normal range. However journo's like headlines and 'everything normal' doesn't look as good as excited hyperbole about an odd % movement.

Im surprised about britain being so high up the list for manufactured goods. I actually thought that finance was the main export we had these days which although many hate them, bankers are the ones bringing a lot of money into the pot.

In regards to the currency, we do all like to remember the good times when we went on holiday and it was cheap as chips getting 2-1 for example on the US dollar. I think against the dollar it actually went in to 1.36 briefly and then steadily went back to 1. 6 ish for much of the past few years.

[superfrank]

I actually thought that finance was the main export we had these days which although many hate them, bankers are the ones bringing a lot of money into the pot.

no they don't. most of that is from the insurance industry, not banking.

and the pot is very much worse than empty - thanks to banksters and their mates.

[Iron]

We've just been downgraded to AA1 by Moody's. The markets will be interesting next week...

Jeff