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Listed below are comments made by Loggy1948 between Monday, 20th October 2008 and Wednesday, 18th March 2009.

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• FSA say 'more capital, less risk' 5:34pm on 18 Mar 2009 The FSA has been caught dozing big time so now they want to act like Scrooge and stop any investment particularly in housing. They still seem to be asleep.
  
  Let's get it straight - the main problem in the UK is not mortgages. These have got a bit overheated but the reason for this is that we don't build enough houses. The problem arose in the US where uncontrolled house building coupled with dodgy mortgages of >10x income which were hived off pdq. When interest rates started to increase, defaults meant that house prices dropped and many more were caught but the original loan had been sold off as AAA rated to some mug bank that has now been bailed out by one taxpayer or another.
  
  We don't have uncontrolled house building - rather the opposite in fact - and generally house prices have not dropped that far as they are still above 2005 levels. So leave mortgages alone - yes probably 100% mortgages are a bad idea. But limiting to 3x income would lead to a housing slump, people not being able to move for jobs and prolong any recession or depression for a lot longer. It would also make it difficult to run a flexible labour market where a substantial number of people are self-employed entrepreneurs.
  
  The FSA should be concentrating on three things:
  
  a) the trading carried on in banks. Leeson showed what can be hidden. Such things should be transparent at least to all the senior management, who hopefully understand all the instruments,
  
  b) proper evaluation of risk and transparency of products sold between institutions, and
  
  c) help people to control their credit card debt by reducing the exorbitant interest charges, increasing minimum payments and allowing card holders to specify an amount between minimum and maximum automatic payments as the John Lewis card does.
  
  The FSA has a lot of egg on its face, as does the SEC particularly over the Lehman Bros collapse. Acting as if it was 1970 is not the solution. We need flexible banking that enable businesses and individuals to invest in their futures, not a return to petty bureaucracy where you have to give your P60 and inside leg measurement to buy a house.
  
  
  
• Brown's cautious bank reforms 12:49pm on 23 Feb 2009 I don't know that GB has thought this through at all.
  
  1) The reason for high house prices is the lack of supply of houses for the market demand. This has been true since the early 80s when house building was cut drastically. It has taken a long time for this simple truth to sink in.
  
  2) While 100% mortgages were never too good an idea, returning to 'old-fashioned' banking is also not too good an idea. I can remember a time when people had to queue up for mortgages and young people in particular found it very difficult to find deposits. Prices may have eased 10-30% but once (if?) confidence returns, it is very artificial to try to keep the lid on house prices by restricting the availability of mortgages. We should build more houses which will slowly bring house price inflation under control.
  
  3) Restricting credit is not the right recipe. This should be left to the market too. People will start to spend when they are confident and in the UK that is strongly linked to house prices - at least to short-term stability.
  
  The way GB is talking, it is as if he wants us all to stop spending until we have enough money saved - presumably somewhere safe. Since business depends ultimately on consumer confidence and credit, goodbye to business.
  
  Does GB want this?
  
  Mortgages are only one part of the credit problem. It would be better to regulate the credit card industry to reduce their interest rates while enabling people to repay their debts by increasing minimum payments. Then folk will start spending again.
  
  Rather than draconian solutions, the govt should enable people to earn their way out of their respective holes.
  
• Bank of China sniffs HBOS 4:08pm on 10 Nov 2008 China of course has a currency that is essentially linked to the dollar. So a Chinese bail-out is no worse or better than an American bail-out. And China has been building up massive reserves these last years.
  
  But it would mean a foreign bank owning the right to print (Scottish) bank notes. This surely cannot be allowed to happen so I would expect Acts both at Westminster and Holyrood to ensure that the currency is protected.
  
  If the Chinese are genuinely interested, it could be that they believe that the worst is over or they could be buying a pig in the poke. I think they will walk away from it - certainly if they have to roll over HBOS's £156bn in June.
  
  
• HBOS takeover challenged 4:07pm on 08 Nov 2008 Were these not the guys who have bought RBS and HBOS to their knees in the first place? And why should the UK taxpayer subsidise Scottish jobs put at risk by dodgy management in preference to any others, Mr Salmond? Methinks he doth protest too much.
  
  The inevitable consequence of a reduction in interbank lending is the merger of banks so that such lending is less necessary because there are no transparency issues.
  
  Let's get the banking system working properly first. Once the interbank trust and lending is restored, then we can think of competition. That will take some months as all the deals need to be disclosed and unraveled so we know what are the real risks.
  
• How much should banks cut rates? 4:24pm on 07 Nov 2008 I see these inches are populated by the glee-makers and viewers again. Ban this, punish that, put your head back in the sand. Maybe these are just really wise people but I suspect that most of them are miserable and only made happy by seeing other peoples misery! Yes schadenfreude is alive and well in the BBC blogosphere.
  
  Let's be practical about it. We are where we are. How to get to a stage where saving is worth while once again and therefore banks will have money from savers to lend to borrowers. All without leading to excessive bankruptcies and companies closing.
  
  The Libor rate has come down but is still about 1.5% about base. This differential will remain for some time, but as the base rate is historically low, we have the chance toe earn our way out of recession and debt, not foreclose ourselves out of debt. Maybe the BoE should have cut rates in August but they didn't and, as I said we are where we are.
  
  I posted yesterday here one thing that could be done to reduce personal debt.
  
  There are other things that can be done like improving lending to small businesses, promoting new housing by limited and tapered tax relief on new builds only (or genuine change of use from industrial use) for, say, the first 20 years paid via the mortgage company. This will increase the housing stock over a sensible time and ensure that we don't end up with silly values in the future, which is one of the main problems with the UK economy.
  
  But I doubt whether anyone is listening - too much wrapped up in their 'told-you-so' overcoats.:)
• Who benefits from rate cut? 4:12pm on 06 Nov 2008 Further to my earlier post #153, why not legislate so the credit card companies link the interest you pay to the amount you pay off. The more you can pay a month, the lower interest you are charged.
  
  We keep complaining about the level of personal debt in this country so why not do something to help people rather than the usual response of banks.
  
  Just a thought.
• Who benefits from rate cut? 3:44pm on 06 Nov 2008 A 33% reduction on BoE rate - and possibly a bit more to come - is a once-and-for-all opportunity not to be missed to reduce the unsecured personal debt in the UK.
  
  Apart from pushing the banks and mortgage companies into following the BoE's reduction, the BoE and govt need to ensure that credit cards are brought into reasonable line by (a) putting a cap on the interest rate and (b) increasing the minimum payments so that they are actually paid off.
  
  At the moment credit card companies = banks are making money hand over fist to plug a hole of their own making at the expense of the ordinary credit-worthy customer.
  
• HBOS: Recession Bites 11:17am on 03 Nov 2008 So what happens to Scottish bank notes issued by RBS and BOS (as well as Clydesdale of course)?
  
  What if an 'overseas' investor offers substantially more for HBOS and shareholders vote for that solution instead?
  
  RBS and HBOS having been in part nationalised (when the cash arrives of course) and taken the BoE's shilling, isn't there a case to rationalise (nationalise?) the issue of Scottish notes away from retail banks?
  
  It would make sense to ensure that the issue of notes is in independent hands, whoever owns the banks.
  
• Why the record-breaking falls 11:23am on 27 Oct 2008 Isn't it funny that the country where these problems started - the US with sub-prime scams, Lehman Bros going bust, lame-duck President who is in part responsible - is where the money is headed now! It seems that people are still buying into the American dream.
  
  But it all goes to show that markets are fundamentally unstable. This is fine for those buying and selling on an hourly basis because they make a living on second derivatives but for Joe Public and the Pension Funds who have been persuaded that the stock market is a good way to invest, it is a painful lesson. We have been hoodwinked in the past to expect them to carry on going up but that sort of exponential growth is not sustainable.
  
  Apart from gold and supposedly stable economies as safe havens, expect a return of the housing market as soon as the bottom is sensed by canny investors with the cash and by the general public when banks get to lending again.
  
• Why power prices aren't falling 10:39am on 20 Oct 2008 This all emphasises our need to become as self-reliant as possible on energy. Much is made of the regulation in France on prices but because most of their electricity is nuclear-generated, they are not so vulnerable to world fuel prices.
  
  The sooner we can make massive investment in renewables (wind, wave, tide, marine current) and nuclear the better. Renewables are not completely reliable - we need nuclear for peak load. PWRs are able to respond instantly to demand, unlike older gas-cooled reactors.
  
  North Sea gas can in the longer term also be replaced by hydrogen generated with off-peak power. This can be used both for domestic heating and transport.
  
  It is not just climate change that suggests this course of action - it is plain economic sense. The government should give >100% capital allowances to any green and domestically produced power and gas supply, much as was done to develop the North Sea oil industry. It is even more strategically important today.
  
  In the meantime we will just have to grin and bear the cost.

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