Rolling UK Economy Into The Shitbin Thread

(Question passed on from an interested foreigner)

What would you say is the safest UK bank at this point? Is that an answerable question?

What Which would you say is the safest UK bank at this point?

Any of them really. Your money will be safe as the government won't let them fail. Of the main high street clearers then Barclays has come through this the strongest, followed by HSBC. Citi is strong and has accounts available to UKers (and allows you to save and bank in Dollars on the side). I still like Nationwide for sticking to mutuality, Co-op has decided to merge with Britannia but is still a reasonable bet. Abbey and A&L look dodgy as they are Spanish owned and no-one quite knows how spain will play out yet or how well Santander has diversified. However for cast iron solidity you can't beat government owned Northern Rock, and RBS will probably majority government owned by the end of the week.

Thanks brah.

Pretty big short positions against Santander at the moment tho.

Its best to split between multiple institutions. This doesn't cost anything to do

10 people who predicted financial meltdown

An ok list I guess but no mention of faber, schiff, harrison, (taleb?)

Kind of amusing for that to appear in The Times, whose own writers still appear to be in the latter stages of denial even now

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_ozdg0g2E4Vk/SPHLunW29mI/AAAAAAAAB8w/j11d1yn4bis/s1600-h/6a00d8341c823e53ef0105356c4c25970b-400wi.jpg

thundersplurge

OK, best Sun front page ever.

Pretty big short positions against Santander at the moment tho.

where do you get this data?

http://www.afund.com/

http://gossamer.open-site.org/robodance/tri-bot-and-mini-large.jpg

hmmm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7667072.stm

Would it be unwise to open a current account with Lloyds right now?

Current account banking: you are probably be fine anywhere the government seems to be disinclined to accept any discontinuity in that sort of thing.

Falcone, the same guy that made the bet against subprime early last year, and also took a big short against wachovia

shorting still legal in Spain

but where is the data on the shorting, just santader's falling share price?

how do i shot shorts?

i like shot shorts

p.s. isn't barclays signing up for £3bn bailout?

also, another question: you know how UK and US economy are going into the shitbin, but economy must be some kind of zero sum thing, so someone's winning in all of this - who is it? China?

£3bn is small potatoes compared to RBS handing over the keys to darling and kicking out the CEO. Barclays also hope to get that £3bn from temasek, DIC or the Chinese although the government will underwrite if need be.

Economy is far from zero sum, the money didn't go anywhere the money just went, money is debt.

economy must be some kind of zero sum thing

i once asked pretty much the same question in an economics class, but in relation to national debt. i tihnk he failed me on principle 6 months later.

i think most of the 'missing' money has gone into the pockets of private individuals that are keeping very quiet now, if you can pinpoint anywhere. but probably it's just 'gone'. xposts.

but surely it's all relative. so countries/places where they didn't lose any/as much money must in a sense have earned loads of money, in the percentage of money in the whole world owned stakes? cos like, it's not like aliens just took loads of money?

ah i see so basically loads of greedy fuckers are what i said were the 'aliens' ?

i wish i was one of them greedy fuckers!

see david icke for more details.

Aren't institutions holding on to the money? Cos they don't trust anyone else to give it back. That's the whole problem: liquidity, not solvency, although that is now an issue too.

Anyway, no, the economy is not a zero-sum game, so this hurts everyone, so make it stop, please.

but surely it's all relative. so countries/places where they didn't lose any/as much money must in a sense have earned loads of money, in the percentage of money in the whole world owned stakes? cos like, it's not like aliens just took loads of money?

If this led to deflation, that would be true, I think (scratches head).

All that the producer countries have are promissory notes from consumer countries, China etc. have been lending the money they receive from America etc. back to US so we can buy more stuff. We've stopped buying stuff so all the chinese etc. have are promissory notes issued by economies that are in no position to repay them.

xpost

Everyone will get their pieces of paper back don't worry.

No one said the pieces of paper would be worth anything

i think most of the 'missing' money has gone into the pockets of private individuals that are keeping very quiet now, if you can pinpoint anywhere. but probably it's just 'gone'. xposts.

― darraghmac, Monday, 13 October 2008 13:36 (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

A lot in human terms has leaked into these people's pockets but the inhuman sums have disappeared.

Everyone will get their pieces of paper back don't worry.

No one said the pieces of paper would be worth anything

― Kondratieff, Monday, 13 October 2008 13:45 (13 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I don't know, some of the curly writing is quite attractive.

We've stopped buying stuff so all the chinese etc. have are promissory notes issued by economies that are in no position to repay them.

This kind of implies a US sovereign default, which isn't going to happen, IS IT?

For now, it can repay the interest, mainly through the issuing of more paper, the US is still allowed way more debt than typical countries.

This question of "where is the money" kind of underlines how silly the whole thing is. These fucking genius morons have invented this towering edifice of confusion that has fallen down and sucked all the money out of the world.

The US could have had a nice little housing crash and a mild or even serious recession, and the rest of the world would have taken a couple of percentage points off GDP growth and got on with it, but instead we have this confusing and serious mess. Makes me cross.

Its not 'where is the money', it is 'what is money'

money and bank credit are not the same thing. the money that has disappeared was never there in the first place.

person A deposits £10 cash in bank A. this is no longer cash. bank A lends £8 to person B to buy a car from person C. Person A has £10 in the bank, person C has £8 in Bank B, which then lends £6 of it to person D. Person A has £10 in the bank, Person C has £8 in the bank, Person D has £6 in his pocket, Person B has a car. There is £24 pounds in the economy. Person A faces a margin call and goes to withdraw his £10. Where is it?

The disappearance of money from the economy isn't really a disappearance. It was never there

But no money is ever there.

bingo

just want to illustrate the point that that first £10 is faerie gold too.

Yes but there is still a difference between notes/coins and credit. Cash in your position belongs to you. Once deposited in a bank it is no longer cash and no longer belongs to you. You now have an asset. The disappearance of money is the unwinding of the example above, most os it disappears rather than ending up in someone elses pocket. Same way as the repaying of debt destroys money

One way to avoid bank runs in general rather than on one specific bank is to introduce 'temporary emergency measures' - limiting the amount one can withdraw from the system. An attempt to preserve the illusion that your money exists. Such a move would be a final roll of dice for that country as Argentina found out in 2001

xpost

Exactly, and what Kondratieff described is on the whole, a good thing, because all those people have the money or the car or whatever. It's also good for the person who made the car.

We're just talking about different sorts of money supply here, aren't we? M0 and so on.

And even M0 (notes and coins in circulation) is a confidence trick. A fiver isn't actually worth anything, it relies on the confidence of those using it.

And none of this has that much to do with the problems we're facing, although it is part of the mechanism in which things are falling apart.

ie Bank A didn't lend Person B £8 to buy a car. Bank A bought up trillions of dollars of weird complex financial instruments that since no-one can now decide the value of, are considered worthless.

and fractional reserve banking, capital adequacy ratios, basle ii etc

Actually I think it has a lot to do with the current problems. I see the rapid expansion of money supply as directly responsible for the current situation. This has gradually accelerated since the 1970s. I also see the diminishing amounts held in reserve as directly responsible, via offbalance sheet and other trickery. You devalue the currency and accelerate the money supply and you kick off a credit expansion, devalue savings and encourage debtor status, while creating the illusion of wealth

Didn't Basel II TIGHTEN reserve ratio requirements?

Or did it just try to make them more sensitive to a with hindsight spuriously defined set of risks?