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King_Athelstan

Listed below are comments made by King_Athelstan between Thursday, 12th February 2009 and Monday, 2nd November 2009.

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Not one but two major rows 5:15pm on 02 Nov 2009 Re: DistantTraveller and Peter_Sym

Gents, please re-read my post @34.

Just in case you missed the point (and I did put the sentence on its own line), I will say it again...

Ignorance killed Leah Betts.

She didn't know any better, and didn't have the right information to make an informed decision about taking a known risk.

My indignation is really about how the story is covered, the poor girl has(literally)become the anti drug poster girl when simple information could have saved her life.

The papers whipped up storm of moral outrage without once giving any potentially LIFESAVING advice.

Ignorance kills more people than drugs ever could.

Just saying "Drugs are bad.....mmmm K", in your best South Park accent isn't helping, in fact it never helped.
Not one but two major rows 1:29pm on 02 Nov 2009 @12 DistantTraveller

Sorry I am going to have to call your bluff in the Leah Betts story.

She actually died of water intoxication, if she had taken the ecstasy alone she may have survived. Drinking 7 litres of water in 90 minutes killed her.

Ignorance killed this poor girl.

What people need is information, and the best people to give us this information are the Advisory Council on Misuse of Drugs, not the Home Secretary.
Corus, jobs and electricity usage 9:12pm on 25 Jun 2009 I work in a factory and what RP is saying is quite true. Orders are down by 40%, so we just make what we can then shut the place down at the end of the month, or (as we are doing this month), roll two months together and then shut for two weeks.

The target for this year is to break even. Ha! We should be so lucky...

We have already shed 11% of the workforce and are onto our third change in shift pattern this year.

I think its a little premature to say that the recession is "over", or that we have seen the worst.

While I think inflation is under control, unemployment is rising. The biggest problem is demand for goods, its simply not there. Buyers have become conservative (small c) with their purchasing requirements. On top of that the more people out of work the less spending power the public have to fuel the demand for goods.

Ask any SME about their prospects for this year and they are grim.

(Actually that's not completely true I have a friend who works for a company making niche consumables. They were nearly bust 18 months ago, now there are not enough hours in the day to make things. The product? Paper for money printing!)
Should the banks back Britain? 7:52pm on 07 Apr 2009 Seems to me there are three problems:

1. The only business the Banks care about is themselves. I have done some work for the Co-Op, an ethical bank and all the same banking rules apply to them as the others, it's just they have a more limited portfolio to invest in, and therefore less of a chance to stuff up. They are all cut from the same cloth. They are at their most basic money shops.

2. The banks know there will be a change of government in 12/18 months and you can be as sure as you can be that the manifestos will be full of new laws and regulation. The rules of the game will shortly change, and probably not in the banks favour. The banks have to claw back what they can while the going is good (and I use the term loosely you understand).

3. Politicians. Sigh - where to start. None of the three main parties (yes Liberals you too) are really suitable for forming a Government. Maybe one or two individuals, but not as body of men and women. They just don't represent us any more, they have stayed still and we have moved on. Other nations seem to invent political parties every other week, elected on a strict set of pledges, to REPRESENT particular people and causes. Why oh why can't we do that? I think I could be pretty principled for the kind of wage these people are on (Hey I will be anything you want for the kind of money the current lot get paid!). And limit the term they serve to four years, if a government goes bad after three years, they are unlikely turn things around after another couple of years. Governments are like fresh vegetables, they go off if they are left out too long.

So accept the banks are crummy money grabbers, that new laws and regulations are on their way (look we all know the Conservative Manifesto is sitting in Cameron's desk draw) and that most politicians are part of the problem. But they are all we have to work with, so lets get on with it.

(And BBC please fix the bloomin' pound sign problem. This is a Finance blog and we can't even write the currency symbol!!!)

£ = Pound
$ = Dollar
€ = Euro
¥ = Yen
G20: Sticking plaster not cure 1:45pm on 01 Apr 2009 @31 Zootmac

You and me both. I have cut my spending down to essential food purchases, utility bills, housing and travel to work.

My company made 11% of their workforce redundant three weeks ago and the outlook is gloomy.

I am just trying to get by, so saving as much as I can, like you, seems very sensible. We cannot be the only ones too.

Short term I can survive, but much beyond that I am in uncharted territory.

It seems pretty certain now that GB won't be in Number 10 after the next election, so I can't take much of what he says terribly seriously. So all I can do is save and wait until an election is called...and then see what happens. So when Robert says that Mr King (BOE) says governments have time to make their choices, I think what he really means is that the political climate will change in about 12-18 months, so everybody stop doing stupid things, and wait and see what someone else thinks.

About the only thing that GB and I have in common, is that I too am likely to loose my job in the next 12-18 months.

I am not sure the G20 will solve much, the overwhelming sense of self interest from each and every party is far too great to achieve a global and lasting agreement.

We are all going to have to take a big drop in our standard of living, work for longer, save more, borrow less and generally have a pretty miserable time of it for the next five years, whoever is in power.

No foreign holiday, no new cars, no big TVs, basic Christmas's and the biggest one of all a big fall in the price of housing. It's going to be very painful and we won't like it one bit.

Sorry to sound so gloomy, but we need a lot of the Keep Calm and Carry On spirit, perhaps they should start reprinting the old poster and get it stuck up again!

Clearly changes need to be made to the Financial System, banks cannot be allowed to endanger entire economies if they fail (and make no bones about they should be allowed to fail). When a US bank failure can be allowed to impact the US economy (as large as it is), you surely have reached the point of no return.

We need our leaders to make brave decisions, which will probably be unpopular and lead to them being voted from office. But the decisions need to be made none-the-less.

None of the choice made so far seem to be anything other than the sticking plasters. Come on politicians look beyond the end of your noses...and re-election dates.
Barclays may reject Asset Protection 9:00pm on 28 Mar 2009 Just so I'm completely clear Robert, did you say the FSA and the BOE are stress testing a bank NOW?

Don't you think it's a little late for that! Could they be more Johnny-come-lately?

Once again the stable door thuds against it housing while the horse thunders over the horizon...
Should the Bank of England buy shares? 10:04pm on 12 Mar 2009 I am not so sure that the BOE buying shares is the answer.

So many things could go wrong. The scramble to get your company inside the FTSE 100/350 would be brutal. Additionally the interference of politicians acting as "consultants", not to mention how rabid the lobby groups would become. Spend the money else where, but focus it.

Seeing as the government and the BOE seem to be able to magic money out of thin air at the moment, ask yourself where could the smallest amount be spent most effectively?

Forget buying shares, gilts and bailing out.

Why doesn't the Government return the last years income tax to everyone who earned less than £50k?

The new tax year is only round the corner, it would be a good time to do it.

Make sure everyone knows this is a one time deal and that interest rates are about to climb sharply. Then people would be encouraged to pay off debts and start saving.
QE Day (2) 6:21pm on 05 Mar 2009 No matter who, or how it is explained I can't quite shake the feeling the QE is printing money without the inconvenience of actually printing anything...
Lloyds and HBOS humbled 10:25pm on 16 Feb 2009 For crying out loud!

This is what happens when we get run by a lawyers.

What does a lawyer say when he sees a problem?

Who's fault is it?

Can't we just approach this a little differently? An engineer or a scientist when confronted by the same problem would say:

How can I fix it?

So what are we going to DO about it?
Not quite the full sorry 12:54pm on 12 Feb 2009 @232 Citygambler

You are of course quite right, The US banking institutions failures opened the taps to financial collapse in the US and elsewhere.

The point I was trying to make (and I am sorry for not making myself clearer) is we should not let banks be so big that if one fails, the economy crumbles around it.

They provide an important service, but there should always be other options if the event of failure. The era of the taxpayer riding over the hill to throw money at banks is hopefully over, although I suspect we haven't seen the end of it quite yet.

Anyhow it's all rather academic, we need to shift the whole debate onto what the hell are we going to do now?

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