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undiplomatic

Listed below are comments made by undiplomatic between Monday, 13th October 2008 and Saturday, 28th March 2009.

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Dunfermline deal 8:34pm on 28 Mar 2009 If you take a look at the accounts of DBS it sadly becomes obvious very quickly that it could not have survived. For reasons best known to the old management they took on hundreds of millions in securitised debts, most likely from the USA. With this now being effectively impossible to exchange for cash the writing was on the wall.

I am still a fan of mutuality however the rules are also too weak. I gather building societies can borrow up to 50% of their funding from wholesale markets, and can invest in commercial property ventures. In my view investing outside the locality and in large commercial projects is not something they should be allowed to do. They should only be allowed to take saving and loans from people who share some form of collective responsibility. A good example is Grameen Bank which lends to those with low credit ratings in poor countries, their repayment rate is in excess of 99%!

It should be noted the current CEO is not to blame, he only took over a few months ago.
Dunfunding 5:19pm on 24 Mar 2009 #30 the current management especially the CEO are not really to blame, he has been in charge for about three months I think. He inherited the mess.

The scary thing with Dunfermline is that its accounts list about 700m in debt securities and about 270m in commercial lending. I guess as the former are now next to impossible to sell it will face serious problems.

Dunfermline should receive some support but on condition it retrenches to supporting people in the areas served by its branches and stays away from buying up commercial debt etc. There is no reason for it to go bust of 60m, when it can probably survive in the long term.
Dunfunding 5:27pm on 23 Mar 2009 I think the main problem here is that Brown and Co (incl the Tories) did not understand what they dergulated. If they had any idea of the beasts they unleashed (and keep in mind the Tories want less regulation) then this would not have happened.
Dunfunding 3:00pm on 23 Mar 2009 I always enjoy the anti-Scottish rhetoric, a few facts are worth mentioning yes Scots are to blame for some of this however :

(1) HBOS was Halifax Bank of Scotland, with the main funcions carried out in Halifax indeed both the CEO and Chairman were both English, and perhaps even good honest Yorkshiremen,
(2) RBS, yes that is the fault of a Scottish Insitution getting too big for its boots.
(3) Bradford and Bingley (English)
(4) Lloyds TSB (UK mainly English). Its gearing levels while lower than HBOS were actually quite high so it is hard to see how it would have survived on its own. Why on earth they took over HBOS is still beyond me as an already weaker institution taking over an even weaker one does not make much sense?
(5) Northern Rock (England)
(6) Derbyshire BS - again is that from Scotland?
(7) Britannia BS - again not Scotland
(8) Barnsley BS - again not Scotland
(9) Scarborough BS - hmm again not Scotland
(10) Cheshire BS - again not Scotland
(11) Dunfermline, yes again Scotland
(12) Alliance and Leicester - hmm, again I don't think Leicester is in the North.

Also do not forget the secret funds now lent to major banks from the Treasury which nolonger have to be made public. I guess Barclays, Lloyds and HSBC again not very Scottish have made no use of the asset exchange offer.

While we in Scotland do have to take some of the blame, most of the crises seems to have been with English owned or atleast managed insitutions.

Sure not all of these instutions received Govt cash but all had to be bailed out either by investors from other organisations and/or by central Govt.

I would advise people to look at the facts behind the headlines and while Scotland bashing is warranted when it comes to RBS the other insitutions are either requiring tiny sums or were not actually managed by Scots.
Map of the Week: Trust and Belonging 12:11pm on 26 Jan 2009 Having lived in a few EU countries, and being from the UK I would pretty much agree with the statements made in this study. Almost every aspect of the way the UK is run is driven by fear, and often fear in the form of competition. The result is that people are unsure about their long term job prospects, don't trust their neighbours and certainly don't trust ANY foreigners (and I include EU nationals in that list). There is also thanks to media hype a fear of crime, which while partially genuine is often beyond any acceptable levels of fear which should be installed into a nation. The fault lies with the people, the Government and the media. Some examples of how fear is induced by non-fearful means include:

- Education league tables (or performance indicators for almost every aspect of everything), while healthy to a point it instills constant terror in the heart of teachers and pupils. The latter of course do not want to go to rubbish school, but by the same token measuring in absolute terms this area is notoriously difficult. It thus makes those being measured constantly worried about how they compare to others.
- Constant fear induced by the media and opposition that crime is everywhere, usually followed by some ill thought out rheotic and clamp down by the Government. In reality the UK is for the most part safe, that does not mean however that we should not clamp down on knife crime.
- A fear that those receiving social benefits, namely unemployment are spongers thus making you feel bad about paying into such a system. While no doubt partially true as the recession bites most people on benefits will be those who have paid in for decades, and require perhaps a year or two's support. This fear then manifests itself in hating those in need rather than trusting them to actually find word. Also who in their normal mind would opt to stay on benefits of around 45 quid a week for ever anyway, probably very few.
- Use of time limited contracts of employment rather than proper jobs. This means you are forever looking over your shoulder, and even if it is not your fault you can be put out the door.
- Fear of being "not wealthy". The UK is driven by what can be seen, namely wealth in the form of property (well until recently). Renting (as I did for years) is seen as being a result of you being a failure. The result, fear of everyone being better than you, so insecurity is now the major facet of many people's lives.
- Fear of strangers. We are terrified of any foreigners, and even people from other parts of the UK taking our jobs or using our public services. The result is the media and Govt feed off it making it worse.
- Fear of the EU. It's far from a perfect organisation but is about the only one which will protect your human rights!
- Fear that the UK is awful, or will become awful soon. Do not forget that we do enjoy some of the best living standards on earth, even if problems arise from time to time.
- Fear of political correctness. one of the more petty ones. It seems this is stifling debate and objective discussion. Again its not really a major issue, but is often used as a cover for nothing other than blantant racism.
- Fear of being a nobody. A recent study found that 1 in 10 school kids want to be a celebrity, no dount many others do as well. We are totally obsessed with these usually useless people who are held up as near gods. The result is that many people feel they have nothing to look forward to. I for one do not seek to be the next Beckham.

Well just a short list, but Britain is sadly a petty insular little island. I know I am from there, it's only once you get a chance to live in other countries you realise how insular it is. It's sad as most people are perfectly decent individuals!
Woolworth into administration 8:20pm on 26 Nov 2008 I stopped going in to Woolies as much after I left school and found its offerings a bit weak, its stores were also tatty and the range not very impressive. That said I feel sorry for the staff, as the few times I did visit them it was clear that their time was limited.

Its ironic that Woolies is the type of store that the UK now needs, i.e. cheap! However its total lack of management in recent years has in the end resulted in it collapsing before it could benefit from the downtrodden economy.
Citi and manic Monday 10:29am on 24 Nov 2008 The only way forward is a rethink of the economic model which has been in force for the last 30 years. Sadly though the Conservatives believe in freeer markets, which basically means more people ending up homeless and an increase in business failures as this confirms the capitalist model as being valid. Therefore for all the collapses etc we are simlpy seeing that the model works!

Makes me think, do we really want or need this model?
Irresponsible or prudent? 7:13pm on 15 Nov 2008 Osborne has a point, and he may well be right. However given the Tories love of free markets is a lot stronger than Labour I fail to see how it would have been any different if they had been in power? Indeed they favoured even less regulation of the banking sector than Labour so the situation may have been far worse.
Momentous Monday 11:33am on 13 Oct 2008 I notice the usual English Vs Scotland debate in this forum. While it is true RBS is a Scottish company, HBOS was effectively run by the Halifax HQ with Bank of Scotland as a subsidiary. In the end though this is down to greed by the stockmarkets who kept demanding every increasing returns combined with management who claimed bonuses for reckless decisions. As all banks claimed they were not seeking a rescue, and thus lied to the media and stock market is there room for a report to the police on the basis of providing false and misleading information? Thus defrauding investors across the UK?
Momentous Monday 10:17am on 13 Oct 2008 What I find amazing is that it has taken over one year for us to get to this point and for the EU leaders to actually have a summit on the issue. This shows a collective disregard for what is going on bordering on negligence, especially when you consider Angela Merkel of Germany has been warning about the chaos for the last 18 months. Indeed she is said to have reminded Brown on several occasions, only to be laughed at as she was seen as promoting a non-free market view.

Also if Sir Fred walks away with his pension and any payoff from this mess there should be nothing other than civil unrest.

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