politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » The Chief Whip who failed to stop LAB’s tricky Brexit motion l

System · November 2017

politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » The Chief Whip who failed to stop LAB’s tricky Brexit motion last night gets promoted

The main job of the Chief Whip is, of course, to ensure that the government’s business gets through the Commons – a job made much more challenging following TMay’s failure to hold onto enough seats on June 8th to maintain the Tory majority.

Read the full story here

TheScreamingEagles · November 2017

Bizarre.

TheScreamingEagles · November 2017

We used to laugh at Corbyn’s reshuffles.

MarkHopkins · November 2017

"has moved into 10/1 with dome bookies"

Pong · November 2017

fpt;

DavidL said:

rottenborough said:

DavidL said:
Interest rate decision welcome. Its a long way back to 5% but every journey starts with a single step. 10 years of ultra low interest rates have massively distorted our economy. A heavy price to pay for keeping some zombie firms alive, many of which in the retail sector then failed anyway.
About bloody time. When will we see this reflected in savings rates?
Not for a while I suspect. Too much money washing about looking for a home at the moment and the market is not competitive.

Yeah.

Retail banks don't want your savings.

They can't lend it out and make much/any money on it.

So we have a kind of absurd situ where retail banks are trying to attract savings customers in order to make money out of them with fees/other products/marketing kickbacks etc, rather than out of their savings.

Should have let the banks go bust and protected savings only at a basic level. Those without assets should have defaulted on those with assets - that was the outcome the free market was trying to force.

Instead, the young and assetless now exist in a zombie economy condemned to pay rent to the asset class.

The bailouts were socialism for the rich.

AndyJS · November 2017

He got 70% of the vote at the general election, the highest of any Conservative candidate.

williamglenn · November 2017

DO SOMETHING!
https://twitter.com/iainmartin1/status/926062727428280320

TonyE · November 2017

Pong said:
fpt;

DavidL said:

rottenborough said:

DavidL said:
Interest rate decision welcome. Its a long way back to 5% but every journey starts with a single step. 10 years of ultra low interest rates have massively distorted our economy. A heavy price to pay for keeping some zombie firms alive, many of which in the retail sector then failed anyway.
About bloody time. When will we see this reflected in savings rates?
Not for a while I suspect. Too much money washing about looking for a home at the moment and the market is not competitive.
Yeah.

Retail banks don't want your savings.

They can't lend it out and make much/any money on it.

So we have a kind of absurd situ where retail banks are trying to attract savings customers in order to make money out of them with fees/other products/marketing kickbacks etc, rather than out of their savings.

Should have let the banks go bust and protected savings only at a basic level. Those without assets should have defaulted on those with assets - that was the outcome the free market was trying to force.

Instead, the young and assetless now exist in a zombie economy condemned to pay rent to the asset class.

The bailouts were socialism for the rich.

Absolutely - if the banks had been allowed to fail, in the main part we'd be well past this now. It's encouraged zombie banks with Zombie debtors, propped up on QE to stop the wheels falling off politically.

Richard_Nabavi · November 2017

Pong said:
Should have let the banks go bust and protected savings only at a basic level. Those without assets should have defaulted on those with assets - that was the outcome the free market was trying to force.

Instead, the young and assetless now exist in a zombie economy condemned to pay rent to the asset class.

The bailouts were socialism for the rich.

Utterly bonkers. If the banks had been allowed to go bust, the cashpoints would have stopped paying out, salaries would not have been paid, and almost every single company in the UK would have gone bust with them (directors are committing a criminal offence if they continue trading when they can't meet liabilities, which would have immediately been the case if company accounts were frozen). It was a bailout of the banks' customers, and ultimately the UK economy, not the banks. As any fule should no.

dr_spyn · November 2017

Ron Davies offered a bizarre excuse of badger watching as his reason to stand down, Fallon tried to trump him in the implausibility stakes, and failed.

Richard_Tyndall · November 2017

TonyE said:

Pong said:
fpt;

DavidL said:

rottenborough said:

DavidL said:
Interest rate decision welcome. Its a long way back to 5% but every journey starts with a single step. 10 years of ultra low interest rates have massively distorted our economy. A heavy price to pay for keeping some zombie firms alive, many of which in the retail sector then failed anyway.
About bloody time. When will we see this reflected in savings rates?
Not for a while I suspect. Too much money washing about looking for a home at the moment and the market is not competitive.
Yeah.

Retail banks don't want your savings.

They can't lend it out and make much/any money on it.

So we have a kind of absurd situ where retail banks are trying to attract savings customers in order to make money out of them with fees/other products/marketing kickbacks etc, rather than out of their savings.

Should have let the banks go bust and protected savings only at a basic level. Those without assets should have defaulted on those with assets - that was the outcome the free market was trying to force.

Instead, the young and assetless now exist in a zombie economy condemned to pay rent to the asset class.

The bailouts were socialism for the rich.
Absolutely - if the banks had been allowed to fail, in the main part we'd be well past this now. It's encouraged zombie banks with Zombie debtors, propped up on QE to stop the wheels falling off politically.

And hundreds of thousands of small and medium sized companies which had always operated at a profit with no need to borrow money would have gone bust straight away, unable to pay wages, taxes or suppliers. In your scenario we would have destroyed the whole economic base of the country in one go.

dr_spyn · November 2017

https://twitter.com/NigelDoddsDUP/status/926081291291852800 May needs to keep Arelene on side.

Sandpit · November 2017

Or, alternatively, the Chief Whip responsible for getting the crucial A50 Bill through both Houses unamended given well-deserved promotion.

RobD · November 2017

Richard_Tyndall said:

TonyE said:

Pong said:
fpt;

DavidL said:

rottenborough said:

DavidL said:
Interest rate decision welcome. Its a long way back to 5% but every journey starts with a single step. 10 years of ultra low interest rates have massively distorted our economy. A heavy price to pay for keeping some zombie firms alive, many of which in the retail sector then failed anyway.
About bloody time. When will we see this reflected in savings rates?
Not for a while I suspect. Too much money washing about looking for a home at the moment and the market is not competitive.
Yeah.

Retail banks don't want your savings.

They can't lend it out and make much/any money on it.

So we have a kind of absurd situ where retail banks are trying to attract savings customers in order to make money out of them with fees/other products/marketing kickbacks etc, rather than out of their savings.

Should have let the banks go bust and protected savings only at a basic level. Those without assets should have defaulted on those with assets - that was the outcome the free market was trying to force.

Instead, the young and assetless now exist in a zombie economy condemned to pay rent to the asset class.

The bailouts were socialism for the rich.
Absolutely - if the banks had been allowed to fail, in the main part we'd be well past this now. It's encouraged zombie banks with Zombie debtors, propped up on QE to stop the wheels falling off politically.
And hundreds of thousands of small and medium sized companies which had always operated at a profit with no need to borrow money would have gone bust straight away, unable to pay wages, taxes or suppliers. In your scenario we would have destroyed the whole economic base of the country in one go.

I think that's the idea.. to destroy capitalism.

MikeSmithson · November 2017

Sandpit said:
Or, alternatively, the Chief Whip responsible for getting the crucial A50 Bill through both Houses unamended given well-deserved promotion.

That was last season. This is now.

Norm · November 2017

Richard_Tyndall said:

TonyE said:

Pong said:
fpt;

DavidL said:

rottenborough said:

DavidL said:
Interest rate decision welcome. Its a long way back to 5% but every journey starts with a single step. 10 years of ultra low interest rates have massively distorted our economy. A heavy price to pay for keeping some zombie firms alive, many of which in the retail sector then failed anyway.
About bloody time. When will we see this reflected in savings rates?
Not for a while I suspect. Too much money washing about looking for a home at the moment and the market is not competitive.
Yeah.

Retail banks don't want your savings.

They can't lend it out and make much/any money on it.

So we have a kind of absurd situ where retail banks are trying to attract savings customers in order to make money out of them with fees/other products/marketing kickbacks etc, rather than out of their savings.

Should have let the banks go bust and protected savings only at a basic level. Those without assets should have defaulted on those with assets - that was the outcome the free market was trying to force.

Instead, the young and assetless now exist in a zombie economy condemned to pay rent to the asset class.

The bailouts were socialism for the rich.
Absolutely - if the banks had been allowed to fail, in the main part we'd be well past this now. It's encouraged zombie banks with Zombie debtors, propped up on QE to stop the wheels falling off politically.
And hundreds of thousands of small and medium sized companies which had always operated at a profit with no need to borrow money would have gone bust straight away, unable to pay wages, taxes or suppliers. In your scenario we would have destroyed the whole economic base of the country in one go.

This is true although maybe RBS could have been treated as a special case - a bad bank and broken up.

TonyE · November 2017

RobD said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

TonyE said:

Pong said:
fpt;

DavidL said:

rottenborough said:

DavidL said:
Interest rate decision welcome. Its a long way back to 5% but every journey starts with a single step. 10 years of ultra low interest rates have massively distorted our economy. A heavy price to pay for keeping some zombie firms alive, many of which in the retail sector then failed anyway.
About bloody time. When will we see this reflected in savings rates?
Not for a while I suspect. Too much money washing about looking for a home at the moment and the market is not competitive.
Yeah.

Retail banks don't want your savings.

They can't lend it out and make much/any money on it.

So we have a kind of absurd situ where retail banks are trying to attract savings customers in order to make money out of them with fees/other products/marketing kickbacks etc, rather than out of their savings.

Should have let the banks go bust and protected savings only at a basic level. Those without assets should have defaulted on those with assets - that was the outcome the free market was trying to force.

Instead, the young and assetless now exist in a zombie economy condemned to pay rent to the asset class.

The bailouts were socialism for the rich.
Absolutely - if the banks had been allowed to fail, in the main part we'd be well past this now. It's encouraged zombie banks with Zombie debtors, propped up on QE to stop the wheels falling off politically.
And hundreds of thousands of small and medium sized companies which had always operated at a profit with no need to borrow money would have gone bust straight away, unable to pay wages, taxes or suppliers. In your scenario we would have destroyed the whole economic base of the country in one go.
I think that's the idea.. to destroy capitalism.

No, the idea of protecting depositors as against the casino operations was a poor tactical choice. The packaged 'timebombs' are still washing around the system from what I'm told. Nothing has really changed and the can has been kicked down the road.

Richard_Nabavi · November 2017

It is staggering that even, nearly a decade later, some people still have no understanding that the bank bailouts saved them from complete disaster. How on earth do they think salaries and suppliers get paid?

MikeSmithson · November 2017

https://twitter.com/ShippersUnbound/status/926037849790656512

woody662 · November 2017

It's about picking your battles and last night was not a battle to pick.

This whole scenario is looking very House of Cards like.

Danny565 · November 2017

AndyJS said:
He got 70% of the vote at the general election, the highest of any Conservative candidate.

Staffordshire has had a weirdly strong drift to the Tories in recent elections, over and above the swings to them generally in that part of the Midlands.

Sandpit · November 2017

MikeSmithson said:

Sandpit said:
Or, alternatively, the Chief Whip responsible for getting the crucial A50 Bill through both Houses unamended given well-deserved promotion.
That was last season. This is now.

The most important piece of legislation in decades, representing the will of the People against the Establishment, vs an opposition day game to mess up our negotiations.

AnExileinD4 · November 2017

TonyE said:

RobD said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

TonyE said:

Pong said:
fpt;

DavidL said:

rottenborough said:

DavidL said:
Interest rate decision welcome. Its a long way back to 5% but every journey starts with a single step. 10 years of ultra low interest rates have massively distorted our economy. A heavy price to pay for keeping some zombie firms alive, many of which in the retail sector then failed anyway.
About bloody time. When will we see this reflected in savings rates?
Not for a while I suspect. Too much money washing about looking for a home at the moment and the market is not competitive.
Yeah.

Retail banks don't want your savings.

They can't lend it out and make much/any money on it.

So we have a kind of absurd situ where retail banks are trying to attract savings customers in order to make money out of them with fees/other products/marketing kickbacks etc, rather than out of their savings.

Should have let the banks go bust and protected savings only at a basic level. Those without assets should have defaulted on those with assets - that was the outcome the free market was trying to force.

Instead, the young and assetless now exist in a zombie economy condemned to pay rent to the asset class.

The bailouts were socialism for the rich.
Absolutely - if the banks had been allowed to fail, in the main part we'd be well past this now. It's encouraged zombie banks with Zombie debtors, propped up on QE to stop the wheels falling off politically.
And hundreds of thousands of small and medium sized companies which had always operated at a profit with no need to borrow money would have gone bust straight away, unable to pay wages, taxes or suppliers. In your scenario we would have destroyed the whole economic base of the country in one go.
I think that's the idea.. to destroy capitalism.
No, the idea of protecting depositors as against the casino operations was a poor tactical choice. The packaged 'timebombs' are still washing around the system from what I'm told. Nothing has really changed and the can has been kicked down the road.

Could you explain which packaged timebombs you’re talking about?

kyf_100 · November 2017

Richard_Nabavi said:
It is staggering that even, nearly a decade later, some people still have no understanding that the bank bailouts saved them from complete disaster. How on earth do they think salaries and suppliers get paid?

Seen the price of bitcoin today? Good money eventually crowds out bad, and QE has been very, very bad money.

MikeSmithson · November 2017

Sandpit said:

MikeSmithson said:

Sandpit said:
Or, alternatively, the Chief Whip responsible for getting the crucial A50 Bill through both Houses unamended given well-deserved promotion.
That was last season. This is now.
The most important piece of legislation in decades, representing the will of the People against the Establishment, vs an opposition day game to mess up our negotiations.

Former glories won't keep you in your job - just ask the ex-Everton manager

williamglenn · November 2017

MikeSmithson said:

Sandpit said:

MikeSmithson said:

Sandpit said:
Or, alternatively, the Chief Whip responsible for getting the crucial A50 Bill through both Houses unamended given well-deserved promotion.
That was last season. This is now.
The most important piece of legislation in decades, representing the will of the People against the Establishment, vs an opposition day game to mess up our negotiations.
Former glories won't keep you in your job - just ask the ex-Everton manager

If your aim is promotion, being indispensable in your job is a handicap.

TheScreamingEagles · November 2017

Sandpit said:

MikeSmithson said:

Sandpit said:
Or, alternatively, the Chief Whip responsible for getting the crucial A50 Bill through both Houses unamended given well-deserved promotion.
That was last season. This is now.
The most important piece of legislation in decades, representing the will of the People against the Establishment, vs an opposition day game to mess up our negotiations.

The EU Withdrawal Bill is yet to come.

Richard_Nabavi · November 2017

kyf_100 said:

Richard_Nabavi said:
It is staggering that even, nearly a decade later, some people still have no understanding that the bank bailouts saved them from complete disaster. How on earth do they think salaries and suppliers get paid?
Seen the price of bitcoin today? Good money eventually crowds out bad, and QE has been very, very bad money.

Yeah, inflation has been like the Weimar Republic, so misjudged was QE. But QE has nothing much to do with whether bank customers should have been bailed out.

archer101au · November 2017

Richard_Nabavi said:

Pong said:
Should have let the banks go bust and protected savings only at a basic level. Those without assets should have defaulted on those with assets - that was the outcome the free market was trying to force.

Instead, the young and assetless now exist in a zombie economy condemned to pay rent to the asset class.

The bailouts were socialism for the rich.
Utterly bonkers. If the banks had been allowed to go bust, the cashpoints would have stopped paying out, salaries would not have been paid, and almost every single company in the UK would have gone bust with them (directors are committing a criminal offence if they continue trading when they can't meet liabilities, which would have immediately been the case if company accounts were frozen). It was a bailout of the banks' customers, and ultimately the UK economy, not the banks. As any fule should no.

This is really not true. If a bank is insolvent, it can be treated as any insolvent company - the assets of the company are realised to pay its liabilities. The Government could have allowed the banks to declare themselves insolvent, then purchased the assets and the business and carried on trading. They could have guaranteed liquidity and the guaranteed that any shortfall in the eventual realisation of assets would be plugged to allow depositors to be protected. Critically, ALL shareholder equity would have become worthless, as would any creditors who were not depositors - eg bondholders and interbank lenders. The banks should have been run down and new banks invited to take their place. This is how the free market would handle the event. People should have also been reminded that bank deposits are not guaranteed in the future above the set limits and that people should choose less risky ways to hold their money if they do not like the risk profile (fractional reserve banks are highly risky by nature and not a safe place to put your money).

What they actually did was to ignore the rules and consequences of insolvency, provided unlimited liquidity whilst allowing shareholders and non-deposit creditors to maintain economic value which should in fact have been zero. Virtually all the management were allowed to remain and nobody was held liable for their criminal negligence. The message this sent all banks is that the moment the crisis was over they could go back to their usual passtime of creating massive debt and asset bubbles because if anything goes wrong again they will be protected. So guess what has happened?

kyf_100 · November 2017

Richard_Nabavi said:

kyf_100 said:

Richard_Nabavi said:
It is staggering that even, nearly a decade later, some people still have no understanding that the bank bailouts saved them from complete disaster. How on earth do they think salaries and suppliers get paid?
Seen the price of bitcoin today? Good money eventually crowds out bad, and QE has been very, very bad money.
Yeah, inflation has been like the Weimar Republic, so misjudged was QE. But QE has nothing much to do with whether bank customers should have been bailed out.

Probably explains why a 1 bed flat in London cost about 100k in 2008 and now you'd be lucky to get the same place for 500k. Look at the price of classic cars, valuable art. Inflation is there, if you look for it.

AlastairMeeks · November 2017

He looks less like Francis Urquhart and more like Jim Hacker.

williamglenn · November 2017

AlastairMeeks said:
He looks less like Francis Urquhart and more like Jim Hacker.

They both made it to PM...

TonyE · November 2017

AnExileinD4 said:

TonyE said:

RobD said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

TonyE said:

Pong said:
fpt;

DavidL said:

rottenborough said:

DavidL said:
Interest rate decision welcome. Its a long way back to 5% but every journey starts with a single step. 10 years of ultra low interest rates have massively distorted our economy. A heavy price to pay for keeping some zombie firms alive, many of which in the retail sector then failed anyway.
About bloody time. When will we see this reflected in savings rates?
Not for a while I suspect. Too much money washing about looking for a home at the moment and the market is not competitive.
Yeah.

Retail banks don't want your savings.

They can't lend it out and make much/any money on it.

So we have a kind of absurd situ where retail banks are trying to attract savings customers in order to make money out of them with fees/other products/marketing kickbacks etc, rather than out of their savings.

Should have let the banks go bust and protected savings only at a basic level. Those without assets should have defaulted on those with assets - that was the outcome the free market was trying to force.

Instead, the young and assetless now exist in a zombie economy condemned to pay rent to the asset class.

The bailouts were socialism for the rich.
Absolutely - if the banks had been allowed to fail, in the main part we'd be well past this now. It's encouraged zombie banks with Zombie debtors, propped up on QE to stop the wheels falling off politically.
And hundreds of thousands of small and medium sized companies which had always operated at a profit with no need to borrow money would have gone bust straight away, unable to pay wages, taxes or suppliers. In your scenario we would have destroyed the whole economic base of the country in one go.
I think that's the idea.. to destroy capitalism.
No, the idea of protecting depositors as against the casino operations was a poor tactical choice. The packaged 'timebombs' are still washing around the system from what I'm told. Nothing has really changed and the can has been kicked down the road.
Could you explain which packaged timebombs you’re talking about?

A friend who understands this better than me explained that there were huge numbers of loans, repackaged as bulk books and sold as investment devices, many of which will turn very bad if the interest rates rise or there is another downturn (jingle mail/twofers on SUVs etc.) Plus there is the credit default swap situation, which is a huge bet on things staying fairly level and would apparently be very contagious in any shock event.

Richard_Nabavi · November 2017

archer101au said:
This is really not true. If a bank is insolvent, it can be treated as any insolvent company - the assets of the company are realised to pay its liabilities. The Government could have allowed the banks to declare themselves insolvent, then purchased the assets and the business and carried on trading. They could have guaranteed liquidity and the guaranteed that any shortfall in the eventual realisation of assets would be plugged to allow depositors to be protected. Critically, ALL shareholder equity would have become worthless, as would any creditors who were not depositors - eg bondholders and interbank lenders. The banks should have been run down and new banks invited to take their place. This is how the free market would handle the event. People should have also been reminded that bank deposits are not guaranteed in the future above the set limits and that people should choose less risky ways to hold their money if they do not like the risk profile (fractional reserve banks are highly risky by nature and not a safe place to put your money).

What they actually did was to ignore the rules and consequences of insolvency, provided unlimited liquidity whilst allowing shareholders and non-deposit creditors to maintain economic value which should in fact have been zero. Virtually all the management were allowed to remain and nobody was held liable for their criminal negligence. The message this sent all banks is that the moment the crisis was over they could go back to their usual passtime of creating massive debt and asset bubbles because if anything goes wrong again they will be protected. So guess what has happened?

You seem to agree with me that the government had to bail out the banks (or more accurately the banks' customers), by guaranteeing liabilities. That's exactly what the bank bailouts were. However, it's utter nonsense to say that bondholders and interbank lenders could have been left to lose out - how on earth would that have worked? It would simply have led to the enttire financial system being frozen, and lots of knock-on bankruptcies from other banks and companies.

The only minor question is whether the shareholders should have lost 100% of their investments, or the 90+% that they did. The government of the time took the view that they didn't want to own 100%, so they left a few crumbs for shareholders. It's arguable that they were wrong to do so, but largely irrelevant anyway since the big step was guaranteeing the liabilities (which were of course massively bigger than shareholders' funds).

kyf_100 · November 2017

archer101au said:
What they actually did was to ignore the rules and consequences of insolvency, provided unlimited liquidity whilst allowing shareholders and non-deposit creditors to maintain economic value which should in fact have been zero. Virtually all the management were allowed to remain and nobody was held liable for their criminal negligence. The message this sent all banks is that the moment the crisis was over they could go back to their usual passtime of creating massive debt and asset bubbles because if anything goes wrong again they will be protected. So guess what has happened?

It's less about what has happened and more about what is about to happen. Corbyn. Even the wealthiest among my social circle feel the bankers got off scot free and need to be punished. Look at the way the middle classes moved sharply to the left at the last election. Brexit may have played a part, but I wouldn't underestimate the resentment towards the 1% even among the supposedly well to do. The decision to bail out the banks a decade ago was a decision that is still reverberating politically now, and probably will for some time.

AlastairMeeks · November 2017

The problem was not the bailout of the banks. It was the almost complete lack of consequences for those who took the decisions that led to the banks needing to be bailed out.

Richard_Nabavi · November 2017

kyf_100 said:
Probably explains why a 1 bed flat in London cost about 100k in 2008 and now you'd be lucky to get the same place for 500k. Look at the price of classic cars, valuable art. Inflation is there, if you look for it.

Yes, that is true, there has been asset-price inflation, and that is probably linked to QE (although that might not be the only cause - the glut of savings from China and other economies is also a factor).

As with everything in economics, it's a trade-off. The central banks seem to have been pretty good at that trade-off, avoiding deflation and inflation, although I do agree that they might have kept the stimulus up for a bit too long.

Tissue_Price · November 2017

Danny565 said:

AndyJS said:
He got 70% of the vote at the general election, the highest of any Conservative candidate.
Staffordshire has had a weirdly strong drift to the Tories in recent elections, over and above the swings to them generally in that part of the Midlands.

Thank you for noticing.

Nigelb · November 2017

kyf_100 said:

Richard_Nabavi said:
It is staggering that even, nearly a decade later, some people still have no understanding that the bank bailouts saved them from complete disaster. How on earth do they think salaries and suppliers get paid?
Seen the price of bitcoin today? Good money eventually crowds out bad, and QE has been very, very bad money.

I really don't think you understand what bitcoin is and isn't useful for. Replacing either national currencies or the banks falls into the latter category.

Richard_Nabavi · November 2017

AlastairMeeks said:
The problem was not the bailout of the banks. It was the almost complete lack of consequences for those who took the decisions that led to the banks needing to be bailed out.

To be fair, Gordon Brown and Ed Balls did lose their jobs.

stevef · November 2017

Theresa May has done the right thing (from the Tory point of view). She's started to promote the younger up and coming generation to key positions, installing people who could succeed her in a few years time. The old farts club who are the current front runners are uninspiring, and its a mystery how a blonde buffoon, Donald Trump lookalike who looks like a pig in a wig could be the saviour of the Tory party (who could I be describing?).

I really dont think the Tories are as finished as some people think.

DavidL · November 2017

Pong said:
fpt;

DavidL said:

rottenborough said:

DavidL said:
Interest rate decision welcome. Its a long way back to 5% but every journey starts with a single step. 10 years of ultra low interest rates have massively distorted our economy. A heavy price to pay for keeping some zombie firms alive, many of which in the retail sector then failed anyway.
About bloody time. When will we see this reflected in savings rates?
Not for a while I suspect. Too much money washing about looking for a home at the moment and the market is not competitive.
Yeah.

Retail banks don't want your savings.

They can't lend it out and make much/any money on it.

So we have a kind of absurd situ where retail banks are trying to attract savings customers in order to make money out of them with fees/other products/marketing kickbacks etc, rather than out of their savings.

Should have let the banks go bust and protected savings only at a basic level. Those without assets should have defaulted on those with assets - that was the outcome the free market was trying to force.

Instead, the young and assetless now exist in a zombie economy condemned to pay rent to the asset class.

The bailouts were socialism for the rich.

Well put. I agree.

kyf_100 · November 2017

Nigelb said:

kyf_100 said:

Richard_Nabavi said:
It is staggering that even, nearly a decade later, some people still have no understanding that the bank bailouts saved them from complete disaster. How on earth do they think salaries and suppliers get paid?
Seen the price of bitcoin today? Good money eventually crowds out bad, and QE has been very, very bad money.
I really don't think you understand what bitcoin is and isn't useful for. Replacing either national currencies or the banks falls into the latter category.

I really think I do.

http://nakamotoinstitute.org/mempool/speculative-attack/

Richard_Nabavi · November 2017

So, to be clear, asset-price inflation is bad, except for Bitcoin, where the bubble is a sign that it is sound?

RochdalePioneers · November 2017

Alastair Darling's autobography details how bad things got. RBS rang one early one aternoon and said "we've run out of cash, we're closing at 4pm unless you do something". RBS got an emergency cash injection. Why?

Consider what them closing abruptly one afternoon would do. Every business who banks with RBS - either directly or indirectly - would have no access to cash or cah flowiing through them. Every customer would find not only the branches closed but the cash machines unable to dispense. And the following day? Chaos - people pulling as much cash as possible from their bank in case they go over next. Which makes them run out of cash. So they shut. And then next one. How is that a positive?

Scott_P · November 2017

https://twitter.com/alexgspence/status/926081245456617472

DecrepitJohnL · November 2017

williamglenn said:
DO SOMETHING!
https://twitter.com/iainmartin1/status/926062727428280320

The Telegraph reports "seething" at this appointment. Still it is not as if the party has any other problems that might need continuity in the whips' office.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/11/02/theresa-may-facing-tory-backlash-appointing-gavin-williamson/

RobD · November 2017

Scott_P said:
twitter.com/alexgspence/status/926081245456617472

Her biggest mistake? Hyperbole, much?

DavidL · November 2017

IANAE on Constitutional matters but is the consequence of the motion last night not that Ministers have to consider whether the papers sought should be released? They will no doubt consider that very carefully and decide it is not in the national interest (which it almost certainly isn't).

What I am less clear about is what happens then. Can Parliament challenge the Minister's decision? Express no confidence in the Minister who made the decision? Override that decision?

What I think is tolerably clear is that the Speaker is rightly (for once) unimpressed by this new tactic of ignoring Opposition motions which demeans both Parliament and democracy. He will seek to assist an Opposition doing its job and seeking to hold the government of the day to account. This is something of a crisis in the making and, just maybe, not the best time to be changing your chief and deputy whip. I think it can reasonably be said that a CW really ought to have seen the coming. In fairness he might have done but been told to do it anyway.

kyf_100 · November 2017

Richard_Nabavi said:
So, to be clear, asset-price inflation is bad, except for Bitcoin, where the bubble is a sign that it is sound?

Private money that can't be meddled with by central banks or easily confiscated, can be easily and instantly transported around the world with negligible fees, is strictly limited in supply and has proven resilient in the face of successive attempts to ban it is selling at a premium. Shocking.

Yes, it is probably in a bubble right now, but it was also in a bubble in 2013 when it sold at one fifth the current price...

HHemmelig · November 2017

kyf_100 said:

Richard_Nabavi said:

kyf_100 said:

Richard_Nabavi said:
It is staggering that even, nearly a decade later, some people still have no understanding that the bank bailouts saved them from complete disaster. How on earth do they think salaries and suppliers get paid?
Seen the price of bitcoin today? Good money eventually crowds out bad, and QE has been very, very bad money.
Yeah, inflation has been like the Weimar Republic, so misjudged was QE. But QE has nothing much to do with whether bank customers should have been bailed out.
Probably explains why a 1 bed flat in London cost about 100k in 2008 and now you'd be lucky to get the same place for 500k. Look at the price of classic cars, valuable art. Inflation is there, if you look for it.

Absolute rubbish. Show me where you could get a 1 bed flat in London for £100k in 2008. I bought a 1 bed in a rather unfashionable zone 4 suburb in 2007 and even that was £150k. And checking on Zoopla now, it's value hasn't even doubled. London house prices haven't risen anything like fivefold since 2008.

Richard_Nabavi · November 2017

kyf_100 said:
Private money that can't be meddled with by central banks or easily confiscated, can be easily and instantly transported around the world with negligible fees, is strictly limited in supply and has proven resilient in the face of successive attempts to ban it is selling at a premium. Shocking.

Yes, it is probably in a bubble right now, but it was also in a bubble in 2013 when it sold at one fifth the current price...

It will collapse when there is some big fraud scandal.

Mind you, I take my hat off to the guys who invented the scam of selling prime numbers. Genius, and not even illegal.

DavidL · November 2017

Richard_Nabavi said:

kyf_100 said:
Probably explains why a 1 bed flat in London cost about 100k in 2008 and now you'd be lucky to get the same place for 500k. Look at the price of classic cars, valuable art. Inflation is there, if you look for it.
Yes, that is true, there has been asset-price inflation, and that is probably linked to QE (although that might not be the only cause - the glut of savings from China and other economies is also a factor).

As with everything in economics, it's a trade-off. The central banks seem to have been pretty good at that trade-off, avoiding deflation and inflation, although I do agree that they might have kept the stimulus up for a bit too long.

It is not a glut of savings so much as a glut of surpluses from trade. They are making more money than they can invest in their own economies so they are buying up chunks of ours and providing credit so we can buy even more of their goods. We worked through our own money a long time ago, then our ancestors money and now, increasingly, our children's money. And we are far from alone in doing so.

Monkeys · November 2017

Funnily enough Satoshi Nakamoto encoded a message into the bitcoin Genesis Block:

"The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks"

People are buying in right now for lots of reasons, partly due to a coin split happening around November 16th. What happens after that could be a drop, might not be, who knows.

HHemmelig · November 2017

RochdalePioneers said:
Alastair Darling's autobography details how bad things got. RBS rang one early one aternoon and said "we've run out of cash, we're closing at 4pm unless you do something". RBS got an emergency cash injection. Why?

Consider what them closing abruptly one afternoon would do. Every business who banks with RBS - either directly or indirectly - would have no access to cash or cah flowiing through them. Every customer would find not only the branches closed but the cash machines unable to dispense. And the following day? Chaos - people pulling as much cash as possible from their bank in case they go over next. Which makes them run out of cash. So they shut. And then next one. How is that a positive?

This.

There's been a hell of a lot of crap written about the bank bailouts in the past 10 years.

But people don't seem to realise that not bailing out the banks would have led to every ordinary citizen losing everything they had in a UK bank. Then being unable to pay their mortgage and thus losing their house. ie for the majority of citizens their entire wealth would have disappeared overnight. It wasn't just the banks which were bailed out, we were all bailed out.

Morris_Dancer · November 2017

Good afternoon, everyone.

Is the Conservative leadership (MPs stages) public or private voting?

Edited extra bit: http://enormo-haddock.blogspot.co.uk/2017/11/early-thoughts-on-2018.html

Alistair · November 2017

RochdalePioneers said:
Alastair Darling's autobography details how bad things got. RBS rang one early one aternoon and said "we've run out of cash, we're closing at 4pm unless you do something". RBS got an emergency cash injection. Why?

Consider what them closing abruptly one afternoon would do. Every business who banks with RBS - either directly or indirectly - would have no access to cash or cah flowiing through them. Every customer would find not only the branches closed but the cash machines unable to dispense. And the following day? Chaos - people pulling as much cash as possible from their bank in case they go over next. Which makes them run out of cash. So they shut. And then next one. How is that a positive?

They should have all been Northern Rocked.

Monkeys · November 2017

Richard_Nabavi said:

kyf_100 said:
Private money that can't be meddled with by central banks or easily confiscated, can be easily and instantly transported around the world with negligible fees, is strictly limited in supply and has proven resilient in the face of successive attempts to ban it is selling at a premium. Shocking.

Yes, it is probably in a bubble right now, but it was also in a bubble in 2013 when it sold at one fifth the current price...
It will collapse when there is some big fraud scandal.

Mind you, I take my hat off to the guys who invented the scam of selling prime numbers. Genius, and not even illegal.

What kind of fraud scandal? And what would constitute a "collapse"?

I can see a bear market coming up, but two, three years from now - we're miles off the peak. Altcoins, it's different, it's nothing but fraud. But it doesn't stop them.

Alistair · November 2017

kyf_100 said:

Richard_Nabavi said:
So, to be clear, asset-price inflation is bad, except for Bitcoin, where the bubble is a sign that it is sound?
Private money that can't be meddled with by central banks or easily confiscated, can be easily and instantly transported around the world with negligible fees, is strictly limited in supply and has proven resilient in the face of successive attempts to ban it is selling at a premium. Shocking.

Yes, it is probably in a bubble right now, but it was also in a bubble in 2013 when it sold at one fifth the current price...

Bitcoin is an insane system. The Proof of Work that underlies it requires burning energy forever for Bitcoin to maintain its value.

RobD · November 2017

Alistair said:

kyf_100 said:

Richard_Nabavi said:
So, to be clear, asset-price inflation is bad, except for Bitcoin, where the bubble is a sign that it is sound?
Private money that can't be meddled with by central banks or easily confiscated, can be easily and instantly transported around the world with negligible fees, is strictly limited in supply and has proven resilient in the face of successive attempts to ban it is selling at a premium. Shocking.

Yes, it is probably in a bubble right now, but it was also in a bubble in 2013 when it sold at one fifth the current price...
Bitcoin is an insane system. The Proof of Work that underlies it requires burning energy forever for Bitcoin to maintain its value.

Doesn't the network expend more energy than a small country?

DavidL · November 2017

Alistair said:

RochdalePioneers said:
Alastair Darling's autobography details how bad things got. RBS rang one early one aternoon and said "we've run out of cash, we're closing at 4pm unless you do something". RBS got an emergency cash injection. Why?

Consider what them closing abruptly one afternoon would do. Every business who banks with RBS - either directly or indirectly - would have no access to cash or cah flowiing through them. Every customer would find not only the branches closed but the cash machines unable to dispense. And the following day? Chaos - people pulling as much cash as possible from their bank in case they go over next. Which makes them run out of cash. So they shut. And then next one. How is that a positive?
They should have all been Northern Rocked.

Yes they should. Customers protected, essential services protected but the companies themselves wound down to nothing and dissolved. It was not that they faced a credit crunch, it was their entire mode of operation that was rotten to the core and needed to be stopped with personal consequences for those who had operated that way.

Alistair · November 2017

Monkeys said:

Richard_Nabavi said:

kyf_100 said:
Private money that can't be meddled with by central banks or easily confiscated, can be easily and instantly transported around the world with negligible fees, is strictly limited in supply and has proven resilient in the face of successive attempts to ban it is selling at a premium. Shocking.

Yes, it is probably in a bubble right now, but it was also in a bubble in 2013 when it sold at one fifth the current price...
It will collapse when there is some big fraud scandal.

Mind you, I take my hat off to the guys who invented the scam of selling prime numbers. Genius, and not even illegal.
What kind of fraud scandal? And what would constitute a "collapse"?

I can see a bear market coming up, but two, three years from now - we're miles off the peak. Altcoins, it's different, it's nothing but fraud. But it doesn't stop them.

Altcoins are often just the Bitcoin software forked. What makes them scams but bitcoin not?

Alistair · November 2017

HHemmelig said:

RochdalePioneers said:
Alastair Darling's autobography details how bad things got. RBS rang one early one aternoon and said "we've run out of cash, we're closing at 4pm unless you do something". RBS got an emergency cash injection. Why?

Consider what them closing abruptly one afternoon would do. Every business who banks with RBS - either directly or indirectly - would have no access to cash or cah flowiing through them. Every customer would find not only the branches closed but the cash machines unable to dispense. And the following day? Chaos - people pulling as much cash as possible from their bank in case they go over next. Which makes them run out of cash. So they shut. And then next one. How is that a positive?
This.

There's been a hell of a lot of crap written about the bank bailouts in the past 10 years.

But people don't seem to realise that not bailing out the banks would have led to every ordinary citizen losing everything they had in a UK bank. Then being unable to pay their mortgage and thus losing their house. ie for the majority of citizens their entire wealth would have disappeared overnight. It wasn't just the banks which were bailed out, we were all bailed out.

It was the manner of the bail out and the lack of consequences not the bailout itself that is the issue.

Richard_Nabavi · November 2017

Monkeys said:
What kind of fraud scandal? And what would constitute a "collapse"?

I can see a bear market coming up, but two, three years from now - we're miles off the peak. Altcoins, it's different, it's nothing but fraud. But it doesn't stop them.

A collapse would be a loss of (say) 80% in the price. This is likely to happen at some point - my wife's hairdresser is speculating in Bitcoins, about as strong a sell signal as you can ask for. The reason for the collapse will, as always, be a sudden loss of confidence, and something like a major fraud or technical crash at a big Bitcoin broker is the kind of thing that would trigger a rush to the exits, which would then become self-fulfilling.

RobD · November 2017

Morris_Dancer said:
Good afternoon, everyone.

Is the Conservative leadership (MPs stages) public or private voting?

Edited extra bit: http://enormo-haddock.blogspot.co.uk/2017/11/early-thoughts-on-2018.html

Private, I thought.

RobD · November 2017

Richard_Nabavi said:

Monkeys said:
What kind of fraud scandal? And what would constitute a "collapse"?

I can see a bear market coming up, but two, three years from now - we're miles off the peak. Altcoins, it's different, it's nothing but fraud. But it doesn't stop them.
A collapse would be a loss of (say) 80% in the price. This is likely to happen at some point - my wife's hairdresser is speculating in Bitcoins, about as strong a sell signal as you can ask for. The reason for the collapse will, as always, be a sudden loss of confidence, and something like a major fraud or technical crash at a big Bitcoin broker is the kind of thing that would trigger a rush to the exits, which would then become self-fulfilling.

I'm holding onto my ~one bitcoin I mined a couple of years ago. It's either going to be worth loads or nothing.

Monkeys · November 2017

Alistair said:

Monkeys said:

Richard_Nabavi said:

kyf_100 said:
Private money that can't be meddled with by central banks or easily confiscated, can be easily and instantly transported around the world with negligible fees, is strictly limited in supply and has proven resilient in the face of successive attempts to ban it is selling at a premium. Shocking.

Yes, it is probably in a bubble right now, but it was also in a bubble in 2013 when it sold at one fifth the current price...
It will collapse when there is some big fraud scandal.

Mind you, I take my hat off to the guys who invented the scam of selling prime numbers. Genius, and not even illegal.
What kind of fraud scandal? And what would constitute a "collapse"?

I can see a bear market coming up, but two, three years from now - we're miles off the peak. Altcoins, it's different, it's nothing but fraud. But it doesn't stop them.
Altcoins are often just the Bitcoin software forked. What makes them scams but bitcoin not?

It's been a while since Altcoins were the Bitcoin software forked.

A lot of them are tokens running on the Ethereum blockchain. ICO's. Selling debt tokens for products that don't exist, then running off to the hills.

I'll just add here - bitcoin tanked 25% a couple of months ago when Jamie Dimon at J P Morgan started talking about it in terms of "tulip bubbles."

JP Morgan bought the dip.

Sean_F · November 2017

Pong said:
fpt;

DavidL said:

rottenborough said:

DavidL said:
Interest rate decision welcome. Its a long way back to 5% but every journey starts with a single step. 10 years of ultra low interest rates have massively distorted our economy. A heavy price to pay for keeping some zombie firms alive, many of which in the retail sector then failed anyway.
About bloody time. When will we see this reflected in savings rates?
Not for a while I suspect. Too much money washing about looking for a home at the moment and the market is not competitive.
Yeah.

Retail banks don't want your savings.

They can't lend it out and make much/any money on it.

So we have a kind of absurd situ where retail banks are trying to attract savings customers in order to make money out of them with fees/other products/marketing kickbacks etc, rather than out of their savings.

Should have let the banks go bust and protected savings only at a basic level. Those without assets should have defaulted on those with assets - that was the outcome the free market was trying to force.

Instead, the young and assetless now exist in a zombie economy condemned to pay rent to the asset class.

The bailouts were socialism for the rich.

Good idea. Most businesses would have found themselves unable to pay wages or suppliers, as they were left making claims against banks as unsecured creditors.

My clients would have lost the sums which I hold on deposit with Barclays, and I would have gone bankrupt. My trustee in bankruptcy would also have been left to litigate against my bank for a percentage of client's funds. The loss of output would have been like Germany in the early 1930's.

HHemmelig · November 2017

DavidL said:

Alistair said:

RochdalePioneers said:
Alastair Darling's autobography details how bad things got. RBS rang one early one aternoon and said "we've run out of cash, we're closing at 4pm unless you do something". RBS got an emergency cash injection. Why?

Consider what them closing abruptly one afternoon would do. Every business who banks with RBS - either directly or indirectly - would have no access to cash or cah flowiing through them. Every customer would find not only the branches closed but the cash machines unable to dispense. And the following day? Chaos - people pulling as much cash as possible from their bank in case they go over next. Which makes them run out of cash. So they shut. And then next one. How is that a positive?
They should have all been Northern Rocked.
Yes they should. Customers protected, essential services protected but the companies themselves wound down to nothing and dissolved. It was not that they faced a credit crunch, it was their entire mode of operation that was rotten to the core and needed to be stopped with personal consequences for those who had operated that way.

And how would that not still have constitted a bailout? The government paying back the value of millions of deposits would still have cost an absolute fortune. And given the millions of accounts involved, how long do you think it would have taken people to be able to get access to any money? Years probably.

Morris_Dancer · November 2017

I think the Etruscan system of carrying a brick of bronze around and cutting off the appropriate weight to purchase goods is easier to comprehend.

Not to mention, if someone tried to rob you, the brick was a pretty hefty weapon.

Richard_Nabavi · November 2017

RobD said:

Richard_Nabavi said:

Monkeys said:
What kind of fraud scandal? And what would constitute a "collapse"?

I can see a bear market coming up, but two, three years from now - we're miles off the peak. Altcoins, it's different, it's nothing but fraud. But it doesn't stop them.
A collapse would be a loss of (say) 80% in the price. This is likely to happen at some point - my wife's hairdresser is speculating in Bitcoins, about as strong a sell signal as you can ask for. The reason for the collapse will, as always, be a sudden loss of confidence, and something like a major fraud or technical crash at a big Bitcoin broker is the kind of thing that would trigger a rush to the exits, which would then become self-fulfilling.
I'm holding onto my ~one bitcoin I mined a couple of years ago. It's either going to be worth loads or nothing.

Just make sure you back up the private key, somewhere safe!

Sean_F · November 2017

HHemmelig said:

kyf_100 said:

Richard_Nabavi said:

kyf_100 said:

Richard_Nabavi said:
It is staggering that even, nearly a decade later, some people still have no understanding that the bank bailouts saved them from complete disaster. How on earth do they think salaries and suppliers get paid?
Seen the price of bitcoin today? Good money eventually crowds out bad, and QE has been very, very bad money.
Yeah, inflation has been like the Weimar Republic, so misjudged was QE. But QE has nothing much to do with whether bank customers should have been bailed out.
Probably explains why a 1 bed flat in London cost about 100k in 2008 and now you'd be lucky to get the same place for 500k. Look at the price of classic cars, valuable art. Inflation is there, if you look for it.
Absolute rubbish. Show me where you could get a 1 bed flat in London for £100k in 2008. I bought a 1 bed in a rather unfashionable zone 4 suburb in 2007 and even that was £150k. And checking on Zoopla now, it's value hasn't even doubled. London house prices haven't risen anything like fivefold since 2008.

House prices have risen more slowly than wages over the past decade.

IanB2 · November 2017

Easy come, easy go.

Monkeys · November 2017

Richard_Nabavi said:

Monkeys said:
What kind of fraud scandal? And what would constitute a "collapse"?

I can see a bear market coming up, but two, three years from now - we're miles off the peak. Altcoins, it's different, it's nothing but fraud. But it doesn't stop them.
A collapse would be a loss of (say) 80% in the price. This is likely to happen at some point - my wife's hairdresser is speculating in Bitcoins, about as strong a sell signal as you can ask for. The reason for the collapse will, as always, be a sudden loss of confidence, and something like a major fraud or technical crash at a big Bitcoin broker is the kind of thing that would trigger a rush to the exits, which would then become self-fulfilling.

That's already happened, in 2013. There were far fewer exchanges, and a lot less liquidity. It peaked at $1000 before the crash then went down about 50%.

The exchange was called Mt Gox - you can see the coins moving about on the blockchain from time to time.

You have to bear in mind there are a fixed number of bitcoin, and a great number of them are inaccessible. 21 million total, 1 million at least mined by Satoshi, and he's not touching them. Other ones lost on hard drives, forgotten about, and sent to landfill.

A black swan event would be a movement of Satoshi's coins rather than an exchange going under. They go under all the time, truth be told.

Yorkcity · November 2017

stevef said:
Theresa May has done the right thing (from the Tory point of view). She's started to promote the younger up and coming generation to key positions, installing people who could succeed her in a few years time. The old farts club who are the current front runners are uninspiring, and its a mystery how a blonde buffoon, Donald Trump lookalike who looks like a pig in a wig could be the saviour of the Tory party (who could I be describing?).

I really dont think the Tories are as finished as some people think.

The Tories are and never will be finished Just sleeping as Blair said when they were facing his 179 majority.

HHemmelig · November 2017

Sean_F said:

Pong said:
fpt;

DavidL said:

rottenborough said:

DavidL said:
Interest rate decision welcome. Its a long way back to 5% but every journey starts with a single step. 10 years of ultra low interest rates have massively distorted our economy. A heavy price to pay for keeping some zombie firms alive, many of which in the retail sector then failed anyway.
About bloody time. When will we see this reflected in savings rates?
Not for a while I suspect. Too much money washing about looking for a home at the moment and the market is not competitive.
Yeah.

Retail banks don't want your savings.

They can't lend it out and make much/any money on it.

So we have a kind of absurd situ where retail banks are trying to attract savings customers in order to make money out of them with fees/other products/marketing kickbacks etc, rather than out of their savings.

Should have let the banks go bust and protected savings only at a basic level. Those without assets should have defaulted on those with assets - that was the outcome the free market was trying to force.

Instead, the young and assetless now exist in a zombie economy condemned to pay rent to the asset class.

The bailouts were socialism for the rich.
Good idea. Most businesses would have found themselves unable to pay wages or suppliers, as they were left making claims against banks as unsecured creditors.

My clients would have lost the sums which I hold on deposit with Barclays, and I would have gone bankrupt. My trustee in bankruptcy would also have been left to litigate against my bank for a percentage of client's funds. The loss of output would have been like Germany in the early 1930's.

Exactly

Society would have absolutely disintegrated with ownership of a huge swathe of assets disputed, including a large percentage of residential property, over 50% unemployment, nobody able to access any money aside from cash notes which would have been inflated to worthlessness.

DavidL · November 2017

Monkeys said:

Alistair said:

Monkeys said:

Richard_Nabavi said:

kyf_100 said:
Private money that can't be meddled with by central banks or easily confiscated, can be easily and instantly transported around the world with negligible fees, is strictly limited in supply and has proven resilient in the face of successive attempts to ban it is selling at a premium. Shocking.

Yes, it is probably in a bubble right now, but it was also in a bubble in 2013 when it sold at one fifth the current price...
It will collapse when there is some big fraud scandal.

Mind you, I take my hat off to the guys who invented the scam of selling prime numbers. Genius, and not even illegal.
What kind of fraud scandal? And what would constitute a "collapse"?

I can see a bear market coming up, but two, three years from now - we're miles off the peak. Altcoins, it's different, it's nothing but fraud. But it doesn't stop them.
Altcoins are often just the Bitcoin software forked. What makes them scams but bitcoin not?
It's been a while since Altcoins were the Bitcoin software forked.

A lot of them are tokens running on the Ethereum blockchain. ICO's. Selling debt tokens for products that don't exist, then running off to the hills.

I'll just add here - bitcoin tanked 25% a couple of months ago when Jamie Dimon at J P Morgan started talking about it in terms of "tulip bubbles."

JP Morgan bought the dip.

Snort. Quote from the Big Apple https://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/we_have_to_dance_until_the_music_stops/

Citigroup CEO Chuck Prince told the Financial Times in July 2007: “When the music stops, in terms of liquidity, things will be complicated. But as long as the music is playing, you’ve got to get up and dance. We’re still dancing.” Prince didn’t “dance” for much longer—in November 2007, he retired from Citigroup.

kyf_100 · November 2017

Richard_Nabavi said:

Monkeys said:
What kind of fraud scandal? And what would constitute a "collapse"?

I can see a bear market coming up, but two, three years from now - we're miles off the peak. Altcoins, it's different, it's nothing but fraud. But it doesn't stop them.
A collapse would be a loss of (say) 80% in the price. This is likely to happen at some point - my wife's hairdresser is speculating in Bitcoins, about as strong a sell signal as you can ask for. The reason for the collapse will, as always, be a sudden loss of confidence, and something like a major fraud or technical crash at a big Bitcoin broker is the kind of thing that would trigger a rush to the exits, which would then become self-fulfilling.

I don't disagree with you there. It is exactly what happened in the 2013 bubble, when Gox collapsed. However, as I say, we are now trading at over five times that price...

From a strictly political viewpoint, I find the idea of a speculative attack on a country's currency via hyperbitcoinization fascinating. As I have said often and to anyone who will listen, crypto has never been a financial instrument, but rather a political one, cooked up by kooky libertarians as a way of stripping power from governments.

Frankly I am shocked it has been allowed to get this far, but as Monkeys says, it appears that institutional money has decided it's better to join it than to fight it.

IanB2 · November 2017

Scott_P said:
https://twitter.com/alexgspence/status/926081245456617472

Very harsh. What if he is the most senior person left who is able to swear that he hasn't spent his past years fondling female journalists' legs?

kyf_100 · November 2017

Richard_Nabavi said:

RobD said:

Richard_Nabavi said:

Monkeys said:
What kind of fraud scandal? And what would constitute a "collapse"?

I can see a bear market coming up, but two, three years from now - we're miles off the peak. Altcoins, it's different, it's nothing but fraud. But it doesn't stop them.
A collapse would be a loss of (say) 80% in the price. This is likely to happen at some point - my wife's hairdresser is speculating in Bitcoins, about as strong a sell signal as you can ask for. The reason for the collapse will, as always, be a sudden loss of confidence, and something like a major fraud or technical crash at a big Bitcoin broker is the kind of thing that would trigger a rush to the exits, which would then become self-fulfilling.
I'm holding onto my ~one bitcoin I mined a couple of years ago. It's either going to be worth loads or nothing.
Just make sure you back up the private key, somewhere safe!

Quite. I would recommend a Trezor, or a Ledger, placed in a safety deposit box not on your property or person. Nobody wants to get five-dollar-wrenched.

https://xkcd.com/538/

rottenborough · November 2017

IanB2 said:

Scott_P said:
https://twitter.com/alexgspence/status/926081245456617472
Very harsh. What if he is the most senior person left who is able to swear that he hasn't spent his past years fondling female journalists' legs?

Who is Justin Smith? Isn't Julian Smith?

TheScreamingEagles · November 2017

A bit harsh, I don't think Gavin Williamson has the warmth or the depth to be a c***

https://twitter.com/georgeeaton/status/926097277093113856

Richard_Nabavi · November 2017

kyf_100 said:
I don't disagree with you there. It is exactly what happened in the 2013 bubble, when Gox collapsed. However, as I say, we are now trading at over five times that price...

From a strictly political viewpoint, I find the idea of a speculative attack on a country's currency via hyperbitcoinization fascinating. As I have said often and to anyone who will listen, crypto has never been a financial instrument, but rather a political one, cooked up by kooky libertarians as a way of stripping power from governments.

Frankly I am shocked it has been allowed to get this far, but as Monkeys says, it appears that institutional money has decided it's better to join it than to fight it.

It's odd, though, because far from anonymising transactions, it actually provides a complete audit trail since time immemorial for every unit of currency. Admittedly you don't usually know who is behind the public keys in the chain, but there are all sorts of implications of the existence of that audit trail, such as potentially being able to show that the crypto funds were used for money laundering. The question then is whether any respectable financial institution would take them; can you really know that your particular Bitcoins are clean and therefore worth something? With no proper regulatory framework, organised crime heavily involved, and US and other regulators potentially interested, personally I'd steer well clear.

Morris_Dancer · November 2017

As an aside, I'm surprised Williamson's so hated given I've never heard of him before.

DavidL · November 2017

HHemmelig said:

DavidL said:

Alistair said:

RochdalePioneers said:
They should have all been Northern Rocked.
Yes they should. Customers protected, essential services protected but the companies themselves wound down to nothing and dissolved. It was not that they faced a credit crunch, it was their entire mode of operation that was rotten to the core and needed to be stopped with personal consequences for those who had operated that way.
And how would that not still have constitted a bailout? The government paying back the value of millions of deposits would still have cost an absolute fortune. And given the millions of accounts involved, how long do you think it would have taken people to be able to get access to any money? Years probably.

It would still have cost a lot of money, there's no denying that. Banks had in fact lost far more money than they had ever made. But administrators could have kept them operating on a day to day basis as they do with other businesses whilst winding down and disposing of the assets. By entering into a Faustian bargain we still have these banks dominating our economy and organisations who thought it was ok to fix the LIBOR rate, force companies into insolvency so they could buy their assets on the cheap, exploit companies by appointing what were shadow directors acting for the interests of the Bank and not the customer at enormous cost, mis-sell loans, insurance and anything else they could think of, continue to thrive.

TOPPING · November 2017

HHemmelig said:

RochdalePioneers said:
Alastair Darling's autobography details how bad things got. RBS rang one early one aternoon and said "we've run out of cash, we're closing at 4pm unless you do something". RBS got an emergency cash injection. Why?

Consider what them closing abruptly one afternoon would do. Every business who banks with RBS - either directly or indirectly - would have no access to cash or cah flowiing through them. Every customer would find not only the branches closed but the cash machines unable to dispense. And the following day? Chaos - people pulling as much cash as possible from their bank in case they go over next. Which makes them run out of cash. So they shut. And then next one. How is that a positive?
This.

There's been a hell of a lot of crap written about the bank bailouts in the past 10 years.

But people don't seem to realise that not bailing out the banks would have led to every ordinary citizen losing everything they had in a UK bank. Then being unable to pay their mortgage and thus losing their house. ie for the majority of citizens their entire wealth would have disappeared overnight. It wasn't just the banks which were bailed out, we were all bailed out.

That it needs explaining on here is embarrassing. CiF maybe (to deaf ears, obvs), but not on PB for heaven's sake!!!

Cyclefree · November 2017

williamglenn said:
DO SOMETHING!
https://twitter.com/iainmartin1/status/926062727428280320

Are we sure he's not an intern? He looks young enough.

DavidL · November 2017

Morris_Dancer said:
As an aside, I'm surprised Williamson's so hated given I've never heard of him before.

Likewise. Feeling a bit behind the curve today. Perhaps, FU style, he has been putting a bit of stick about behind the scenes.

Sean_F · November 2017

DavidL said:

HHemmelig said:

DavidL said:

Alistair said:

RochdalePioneers said:
They should have all been Northern Rocked.
Yes they should. Customers protected, essential services protected but the companies themselves wound down to nothing and dissolved. It was not that they faced a credit crunch, it was their entire mode of operation that was rotten to the core and needed to be stopped with personal consequences for those who had operated that way.
And how would that not still have constitted a bailout? The government paying back the value of millions of deposits would still have cost an absolute fortune. And given the millions of accounts involved, how long do you think it would have taken people to be able to get access to any money? Years probably.
It would still have cost a lot of money, there's no denying that. Banks had in fact lost far more money than they had ever made. But administrators could have kept them operating on a day to day basis as they do with other businesses whilst winding down and disposing of the assets. By entering into a Faustian bargain we still have these banks dominating our economy and organisations who thought it was ok to fix the LIBOR rate, force companies into insolvency so they could buy their assets on the cheap, exploit companies by appointing what were shadow directors acting for the interests of the Bank and not the customer at enormous cost, mis-sell loans, insurance and anything else they could think of, continue to thrive.

People should be prosecuted for such practices.

But the shareholders in the failed banks lost, pretty much, their entire investments.

Sandpit · November 2017

TheScreamingEagles said:

Sandpit said:

MikeSmithson said:

Sandpit said:
Or, alternatively, the Chief Whip responsible for getting the crucial A50 Bill through both Houses unamended given well-deserved promotion.
That was last season. This is now.
The most important piece of legislation in decades, representing the will of the People against the Establishment, vs an opposition day game to mess up our negotiations.
The EU Withdrawal Bill is yet to come.

That will be difficult to avoid amendments too, but the bill itself will pass easily. Not even the most die-hard of Remainers want us to crash out without the necessary legislation in place.

williamglenn · November 2017

Sandpit said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Sandpit said:

MikeSmithson said:

Sandpit said:
Or, alternatively, the Chief Whip responsible for getting the crucial A50 Bill through both Houses unamended given well-deserved promotion.
That was last season. This is now.
The most important piece of legislation in decades, representing the will of the People against the Establishment, vs an opposition day game to mess up our negotiations.
The EU Withdrawal Bill is yet to come.
That will be difficult to avoid amendments too, but the bill itself will pass easily. Not even the most die-hard of Remainers want us to crash out without the necessary legislation in place.

If we entered 2019 without the necessary legislation in place and without a deal agreed with the EU, the chance of actually crashing out must be less than 1%.

Alistair · November 2017

DavidL said:

Morris_Dancer said:
As an aside, I'm surprised Williamson's so hated given I've never heard of him before.
Likewise. Feeling a bit behind the curve today. Perhaps, FU style, he has been putting a bit of stick about behind the scenes.

He was the chief whip, of course he was hated.

kyf_100 · November 2017

Richard_Nabavi said:

kyf_100 said:
I don't disagree with you there. It is exactly what happened in the 2013 bubble, when Gox collapsed. However, as I say, we are now trading at over five times that price...

From a strictly political viewpoint, I find the idea of a speculative attack on a country's currency via hyperbitcoinization fascinating. As I have said often and to anyone who will listen, crypto has never been a financial instrument, but rather a political one, cooked up by kooky libertarians as a way of stripping power from governments.

Frankly I am shocked it has been allowed to get this far, but as Monkeys says, it appears that institutional money has decided it's better to join it than to fight it.
It's odd, though, because far from anonymising transactions, it actually provides a complete audit trail since time immemorial for every unit of currency. Admittedly you don't usually know who is behind the public keys in the chain, but there are all sorts of implications of the existence of that audit trail, such as potentially being able to show that the crypto funds were used for money laundering. The question then is whether any respectable financial institution would take them; can you really know that your particular Bitcoins are clean and therefore worth something? With no proper regulatory framework, organised crime heavily involved, and US and other regulators potentially interested, personally I'd steer well clear.

Indeed, but this is rather like saying that every ten pound note has traces of cocaine on it. As with all bets on this site it is very much a case of DYOR - I wouldn't buy at this price either but I probably will when it dips.

To keep the discussion on the political side of things, I feel that the left wing backlash against the bankers, from the occupy movement all the way to the Corbyn surge, and the crypto assault on the banking system are very much the left and right cheeks of the same arse.

Both are a direct consequence in the loss of faith of banks, but more importantly a loss of faith in central governments, who have been printing money willy-nilly with predictably bad results.

oxfordsimon · November 2017

Alistair said:

DavidL said:

Morris_Dancer said:
As an aside, I'm surprised Williamson's so hated given I've never heard of him before.
Likewise. Feeling a bit behind the curve today. Perhaps, FU style, he has been putting a bit of stick about behind the scenes.
He was the chief whip, of course he was hated.

You might say that, I couldn't possibly comment

TOPPING · November 2017

DavidL said:

Morris_Dancer said:
As an aside, I'm surprised Williamson's so hated given I've never heard of him before.
Likewise. Feeling a bit behind the curve today. Perhaps, FU style, he has been putting a bit of stick about behind the scenes.

TMay has since she was HS operated a very tightly-knit coterie. She extended the idea once she was PM. Cons MPs have long been well aware of it. It didn't matter too much when she was HS but now she is PM, and is weak, Cons MPs have few qualms about voicing their concerns.

That the public didn't know about it is not at all surprising as it is wrapped up in "business of government".

rcs1000 · November 2017

Sandpit said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Sandpit said:

MikeSmithson said:

Sandpit said:
Or, alternatively, the Chief Whip responsible for getting the crucial A50 Bill through both Houses unamended given well-deserved promotion.
That was last season. This is now.
The most important piece of legislation in decades, representing the will of the People against the Establishment, vs an opposition day game to mess up our negotiations.
The EU Withdrawal Bill is yet to come.
That will be difficult to avoid amendments too, but the bill itself will pass easily. Not even the most die-hard of Remainers want us to crash out without the necessary legislation in place.

Jeremy Corbyn, though, would rather a disastrous "no deal" crash out which led to a General Election. That's the concern.

DecrepitJohnL · November 2017

TOPPING said:

HHemmelig said:

RochdalePioneers said:
Alastair Darling's autobography details how bad things got. RBS rang one early one aternoon and said "we've run out of cash, we're closing at 4pm unless you do something". RBS got an emergency cash injection. Why?

Consider what them closing abruptly one afternoon would do. Every business who banks with RBS - either directly or indirectly - would have no access to cash or cah flowiing through them. Every customer would find not only the branches closed but the cash machines unable to dispense. And the following day? Chaos - people pulling as much cash as possible from their bank in case they go over next. Which makes them run out of cash. So they shut. And then next one. How is that a positive?
This.

There's been a hell of a lot of crap written about the bank bailouts in the past 10 years.

But people don't seem to realise that not bailing out the banks would have led to every ordinary citizen losing everything they had in a UK bank. Then being unable to pay their mortgage and thus losing their house. ie for the majority of citizens their entire wealth would have disappeared overnight. It wasn't just the banks which were bailed out, we were all bailed out.
That it needs explaining on here is embarrassing. CiF maybe (to deaf ears, obvs), but not on PB for heaven's sake!!!

Part of the problem was that for understandable party political reasons it was felt necessary to deny for some time that Gordon Brown had in fact saved the world. Three general elections later, even senior Conservative figures, most notably George Osborne, can be more open about the crisis.

Alistair · November 2017

Sam Clovis has withdrawn his nomination.

Sean_F · November 2017

williamglenn said:

Sandpit said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Sandpit said:

MikeSmithson said:

Sandpit said:
Or, alternatively, the Chief Whip responsible for getting the crucial A50 Bill through both Houses unamended given well-deserved promotion.
That was last season. This is now.
The most important piece of legislation in decades, representing the will of the People against the Establishment, vs an opposition day game to mess up our negotiations.
The EU Withdrawal Bill is yet to come.
That will be difficult to avoid amendments too, but the bill itself will pass easily. Not even the most die-hard of Remainers want us to crash out without the necessary legislation in place.
If we entered 2019 without the necessary legislation in place and without a deal agreed with the EU, the chance of actually crashing out must be less than 1%.

If the 27 EU members were all willing to treat us like the prodigal son returned, then I suppose it is possible that we would avoid crashing out, in that situation, but why would they?

Alistair · November 2017

In other financial news the astronomical rise of Games Workshop shares (GAW) completely astounds me.

Morris_Dancer · November 2017

Mr. Topping, it wouldn't've mattered had Timothy and Hill not been both disliked and rammed through the worst political decision since Caracalla kept threatening to murder his own bodyguard.

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