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molieres

Listed below are comments made by molieres between Saturday, 17th January 2009 and Tuesday, 25th August 2009.

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It's the economy, clever. 7:44pm on 25 Aug 2009 Sorry Ma'am, you are asking the wrong question.
Lots of people did see it coming, and for a long time. But, as Cassandra discovered, nobody wants the punch bowl to be taken away before the party ends. Throughout history, cheap and easy credit has always given an enticing illusion of prosperity by inflating property and other asset prices and making weak investments look almost reasonable. The UK and US governments created, in effect, a vast 'Ponzi' scheme (just like Bernard Madoff) by inviting people to borrow ever more against their houses. The hope was that, somehow, Gordon Brown (a history graduate of all things!) really could build a perpetual motion machine - that this time things were different. They weren't.
In the meantime much of our productive capacity was being transferred to China (and other similarly efficient countries). Now, the underlying problems in the UK economy have simply been brushed under the carpet by low interest rates.
The recession has not yet started. It will...
Nobody can predict the future but, next time, I humbly suggest you listen to opposing views and do not take your Chancellor's and PM's views at face value. They (and their appointees) have a vested interest in glossing over the truth.
Curbing bank executives' enthusiasm 1:33pm on 16 Jul 2009 strange how the government still seem to want the banks to be more prudent in the future AND to lend more (to an over-indebted economy) at cheaper interest rates than they have in the past. Not much sign of coherent thinking there.
Survival but at what price? 10:23am on 06 Jun 2009 think there's a typo in para 3. Didn't you mean to say: 'a new role to match the reality that Gordon Brown is in effect his deputy.'?
Was Fred really 'the shred'? 4:55pm on 24 Feb 2009
#2 Jericoa says 'We need some emphasis now to debate long term solutions that do not involve any of the above attitudes or people.'

There are no such solutions - it's how people work. We tend to see what we want to see, to believe those selling positive messages and ignore the cassandras.

It only really causes a problem when those involved (politicians, business leaders, regulators and the public - their customers) all believe the same story at the same time.

That's why wise political voices are needed - in the last decade they were too few and far between to be heard.
It might not be you 5:47pm on 23 Feb 2009 Agree - if there are no losers there can be no winners.
Wish the government would stop banging on about the lack of credit being the problem - it's the lack of credit-worthiness (too much debt already) that is the log-jam.
If lending is increased now, many borrowers are going to be even more trapped by rising interest rates (if quantitative easing works) or falling income (if it doesn't work)
Either way pushing the UK economy to bear even more debt seems a tad unsound and imprudent ...
Brown's cautious bank reforms 11:05am on 22 Feb 2009 I don't think the nub of it is 'they are the servants now'.
The message is rather 'We got it wrong for the last ten years. There is far too much debt in the UK, and we have to manage it down. Quantitative easing is a nice piece of wallpaper over this process to make you all think easy credit will return. But, in fact, we will be reducing it.
The long and short of banks 10:53pm on 23 Jan 2009 Gordon Brown will bask in whatever he can find to bask in; as long as someone else suffers, he won't mind...

The danger with short selling is that it is an opportunity for selling your own book - spreading rumours the way you want the market to run. That applies to long positions as well - but unfortunately, bad news travels better, and has a longer sell-by date, than good.

That stacks the balance in favour of the short sellers. The best weapon that companies have against it is to be good, honest and open. Put another way. the threat of short selling is a strong, but valuable discipline.

Banning it would reset the balance in favour of those who want to hide their shortcomings.
Leave it be.
Insurance, not nationalisation 08:59am on 23 Jan 2009 Robert,
I don't think it follows that, because someone has built up a modest fortune in the boom years, we can take their views seriously as a policy maker. All it shows is that they took full advantage of the opportunities put in fornt of them.
Gordon Brown also built up a modest fortune (in power, if not money) by puffing the debt bubble with enthusiasm - it helped him to look good. I don't think that qualifies him to be taken seriously as a competent finance minister - quite the reverse in fact ...
Lend, lend, lend 09:36am on 19 Jan 2009 Let me get this straight. The support is needed because banks have lent irresponsibly.
Now, as the price for all this support, they must mend their ways and ... lend even more irresponsibly?
A bank insurer, not a toxic bank 6:28pm on 17 Jan 2009 @ #2 I agree.
Robert P you are being too brazen in your attempts to shelter Gordon Brown from the blame. Like him, you seem to want lots of impossible (because contradictory) things to happen.
- we cannot get back from an over- indebted economy (which G Brown promoted vigorously for ten years) by asking the banks to lend more.
- We cannot make homes more affordable if we also prop up a busting market with state subsidised lending
- it is worse than foolish to encourage people to borrow at current low rates. When inflation takes off the government will either have to put rates up (and bust all those borrowers we encouraged in to the market) or keep them low and let inflation rip (which is presumably his underlying hope - destroy sterling but deflate the debts)

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