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hitthebid

Listed below are comments made by hitthebid between Friday, 12th December 2008 and Friday, 3rd April 2009.

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Changes to our blogs 11:54am on 03 Apr 2009 The revision of the blogs makes them useless to me.
I have not got the patience to watch video clips instead of reading, neither do I want to puzzle my way through the maze of vague, irrelevant and ambiguous links which are plastered everywhere.
It looks to me like a characteristic "make-work" excercise for the BBC staff and their sub-contractor pals.
Peston's blog was worth following, this new mess is not.
Total and the Wimbledon effect 10:57pm on 02 Feb 2009
Robert & #18 et al - spot on ! - BUT -

Not only do overseas owners control our industries, they seem to control our government as well!

How else can Foreign owners get our government to commit our money to support their collapsing car companies?
The long and short of banks 1:03pm on 23 Jan 2009 Robert says:
"
it's laughable to think that Landsdowne's miniscule short position could have contributed to the billions wiped off Barclays' value since last Friday. "

I'm not so sure.

A small amount of selling (long or short) can have a very big effect on pricing in a thin, volatile and nervous market.

The price change affects millions of shares so the aggregate reduction in "value" is huge but a bit misleading when used as a comparison with the small trading volume which can cause it.

This in turn can have a big effect on opinions and sentiment and contribute further to instability of prices.

In an engineering analogy I think shock-absorbers are needed.

Some friction and delays could be put into the system to reduce wild swings, possibly in the form of stiffer immediate taxes or other charges on buying and selling and more discouraging settlement conditions.

At present, with dealing costs quite negligible there is little to deter gambling.

In addition to friction and delays there might be ways to put the other component of stabilisation to work. That would be prompt, punishing counter-action to price movements by a very well-funded (government) trading organisation acting as a recoil spring.

This would make speculation duller and less attractive and could help to smooth our rocky road to stability.
A bank insurer, not a toxic bank 00:16am on 18 Jan 2009 As a simple citizen I suggest:

1.
Set up some NEW government-owned banks to do the necessary banking business in a sensible manner free of gambling-debts.

2.
Recognise that buying houses on easy credit is a mugs' game. There is no reason to continue pushing credit at people who cannot repay it.

3.
Put the bankrupt gambler-banks into administration and shut them down as fairly as possible with depositor protection the priority.

4.
Don't take over responsibility for their debts and obligations or acquire their toxic debt in a "Bad" bank?

5.
Don't push us all into penury to relaunch the spurious pretext of economic growth.
rebuild sound businesses to earn food and fuel for ourselves and our children.
Vulnerable small firms 12:47pm on 13 Jan 2009 Robert writes:

"The fastest route to long-term economic decline is to put lame ducks on life support"

- ---but aren't we doing exactly that with the Banks ?

Should we not build new ones and scrap the failures ?
Fixing the Jag 10:58pm on 18 Dec 2008
It's becoming pretty clear that our government wil sell their souls and squander our residual wealth in response to any unemployment blackmail.

Why not let Tata sell these car plants to the highest bidder, i.e for whatever they are really worth now.

How can these failed and unwanted Jaguar and Landrover outfits represent key British automotive engineering assets to be preserved at any cost? The Japanese subsidiaries are light-years ahead.

How does Mandelson suddenly have the power to splash our money around as he pleases ?
2009 is payback year 12:00pm on 15 Dec 2008 Robert writes:

"But many will urge that companies which borrowed recklessly in the good years - often to generate unsustainable growth in profits that triggered bonus payments or to finance excessive special dividends - should not be bailed out."

Yep, and I'm one of the many who urge that they go to the wall regardless of their discomfort (like Madoff).

Boost the Dole payments as necessary to save their workers.

Robert continues:

"Though in punishing imprudence we would be foolish to punish ourselves."

Keeping these variants of the Ponzi scheme in business would be the real foolishness.

Shake them out!
Made off with $50bn 00:54am on 14 Dec 2008 128 dennisjumior1

It seems he had quite a few operations going on:

" The former chairman of the Nasdaq Stock Market is best known as the founder of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, the closely-held market-making firm he launched in 1960. But he also ran a hedge fund that U.S. prosecutors said racked up $50 billion of fraudulent losses. "

That is a quote from:

http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article7769.html

which summarises a lot of the reports.

I wouldn't bet on all his other businesses being pure as the driven snow, or on his being the only ones with imperfections!
Another Black Friday 1:07pm on 12 Dec 2008 Re 115

I agree, except that Brown was more Clueless than Reckless. he is a professional Politician, not a Businessman, still less an Economist. he could not be expected to understand what was really going on.

If more money is shovelled into this economic midden it should be aimed at Industries that will help us earn Food and Fuel from the rest of the world and rebuild our own agriculture and energy production.

Even wind-farms might be a useful stop-gap until we can recreate our nuclear power industry.

Economic reconstruction will mean scrapping a lot of 'Service Industries', public and private, and redeploying human and physical resources to productive enterprise.

It would be encouraging to see some Government policies heading in this direction, the 'quick-fix' people-pleasing rhetoric doesn't fool anyone any more.
Another Black Friday 12:34pm on 12 Dec 2008 For realistic insight from the George Soros camp click:
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE4BA5CO20081211

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