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Ian G-B

Listed below are comments made by Ian G-B between Thursday, 7th May 2009 and Friday, 18th December 2009.

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Obama's hard sell on climate change 11:00pm on 18 Dec 2009 I vote we all stick our heads in the sand, allow the vaste polar caps to melt and set this beautiful planet further down the road to extinction.
The fact of the matter is that we live on a planet which the governing powers are all motivated by short term greed, with their blinkers firmly on.
They all say "We can't afford to right now." The truth is we can't afford not to, but the cobbled together compromise they have come up with is not worth the paper it is written on if it is not legally binding.
A hung parliament and the City 1:15pm on 03 Dec 2009 Hi Stephanie,
With all due respect, I disagree with Morgan Stanley and your opinion about a hung parliament.
I think it would be a brilliant thing. It would mean that any coalition government would not be able ram thought unfriendly, reactionary legislation - something the current regime is inclined to do with alarming alacrity - and it means the wheels of government would slow down dramatically.
In one respect you may be right - we need a strong government to reduce the amount of red tape the current regime has entangled business in - but overall, the less interfering government is, the more private enterprise can thrive.
Bring on the hung parliament. Make all laws concentual and well thought out as opposed to intolerant and reactionary. UK Plc will thrive again.
Public servants on $20m a year 12:08pm on 03 Dec 2009 Hi Robert,
You're (and the directors) whole premis is based on one rather large flaw. If the taxpayer had not generously stepped in and saved the banks (and that includes Goldman Sachs were greed it would appear has returned in a rather excessive, rampant and distasteful fashion) then even the top forex traders would not have have a company to work for. So even though they have had a good year, they would have had a very bad year signing up on the unemployment lines, if their backsides had not been covered by our largess. So I think it is time for the 'Big Swinging D**ks' to eat a bit of humble pie and accept a cap on their pay until such time as their companies have paid back all the debt they racked up
Tories tweaking their message 7:12pm on 23 Nov 2009 At 2:39pm on 23 Nov 2009, rhinos25 wrote:

Once again the main opposition party engages in twists and turns in their economic and political arguments without having to worry about real consequences.
I fear the proof of the pudding (or mess of potage!) will occur if / when they are elected
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Rhinos25 - I fear even more if enough of the population choose to vote for the current morons again. The fact that 25% of the population would choose to vote Labour even after the mess which the current government have got us into (and it is not the greedy bankers, as nuLabour would have you believe, it is virtuallt entirely the incompetence of the current government) speaks volumes for the sheer pig-headed ignorance of conventional Labour supporters.
A sombre warning 7:34pm on 21 Oct 2009 I must say that these comments of Mervyn King are incredibly rich, coming from a man, who I consider to have as much an understanding of the laws of economics as 'George W's dog Millie.'

Wake up and smell the coffee Mr King. The banks only did what they were allowed to do. They were aided and abetted by your very own monetary committee and it's commitment to keep repo rates far too low for far too long. As the committee in charge of making sure monetary policy adequate and rates were maintained at the correct level you failed miserably.

In my experience most people follow their leaders. If their leaders are irresponsible so are they. If you want to stop recklessness then you need to act with a modicum of responsibility yourself. Printing money (or a knee jerk, hair-of-the-dog response to a crisis which was largely your making) and maintaining the repo rate at a ludicrously low level are hardly the acts of a responsible governor.

As a wise person once said, "First remove the log from your own eye...."
When panic shapes policy 9:28pm on 13 Sep 2009 Mark,
This is the final conclusive, without any shadow of a doubt, evidence that No 10 the lunatics are running the asylum. We don't need new laws. What we need is less laws and better policing of those laws.
#96 - this law has nothing to do with child protection, because if it did nuLabour would be focused more on enforcement of existing laws than simply adding gratutious ink to the statuet books. This is an reactionary, incompetent law by a reactionary, incompetent government which does want to interfer with the running of our lives.
I am a parent and if I ever have to have a criminal check because I want to take my children and their friends to a football match then I will not take them, simple as that. This government is obsessed with interfering in the lives of it's citizens and there comes a point when enough is enough.
Surely you have to see sense. (Or it may well be the chip that nuLabour has inserted into your head whilst taking your DNA, your retinal scan and your fingerprints.)
Does size matter? 12:31pm on 23 Jul 2009 Stephanie,
In a land governed by a fiat currency, all roads lead to inflation. Historically, printing money has only ever lead to one outcome - inflation. No matter how the government tries to fudge it away, inflation is going to rear it's ugly head and we are all going to pay for it.
This crisis was caused by too much money, and the answer of the brainiacs at the top is to pore more money into the situation. Bit like fixing a hangover with more booze. (Hair of the dog approach) Not likely to lead to a lasting or sustained recovery.
I have no faith in the government or the BofE to sort the problem out largely because they have no idea why we are in the mess we are in.
Speaker's anger 8:47pm on 11 May 2009 Hi sarantium

I see others have commented on your post and you do make a fair point. I would like to make a couple of observations.

1: I don't think anyone would begrudge an MP who comes into London from his/her constituency more than 70 miles away (trains can cover the ground very quickly) a living allowance of some form. - That being said, elected MPs should be honoured that they have been chosen for the role and should be aware of the requirements of the task before making themselves electable. Putting that aside.

2: The problem which I and most people have here is the systematic abuse of the allowance system. The allowance is provided to maintain them while in London. What we have in this case is MPs changing their second home within a year so that they can have the house renovated up at the expense of the taxpayer. In the case of the honourable member for Luton, she got the house of her partner listed as a second home - 100 kms away from Westminster - and then spent 22G of public money on improving it. She has chosen this lifestyle. (One where her partner lives 100 miles away. We must not be expected to fund it. That must be out of her own pocket.)

3: We must also not be expected to fund 500GBP hotel accommodation per night. Like any good plc there has to be a cap on what can be claimed when on business. (Travelodge provides very good accomodation at 1/10th the price!)

4: In the case of flipping - this is clear abuse of the system for personal financial gain. On a second home all of us must pay capital gains tax when selling. For you and me, it is very difficult to change it. MPs have flouted the rules here and flipped the house back to primary residence before sale, thus avoiding capital gains tax. I think the rules here need to be clear. (which they are not) In that, if you live outside London (70 miles plus) then your London home can only ever be your second home for allowance purposes and CGT purposes.

5: Finally, MPs make the laws which we abide by. At all times they must be seen to abide by the spirit of the laws, not the letter. In this case they have been caught walking the very fine line of the letter of the law, which is fankly unacceptable.
Speaker's anger 7:59pm on 11 May 2009 Speaker Martin has lost an shred of integrity he may have had by not coming out and reprimanding MPs for their horrendus abuse of the allowance system in the sternest possible way.

He needs to go and go now.
Not so stressed 9:47pm on 07 May 2009 Dear Rob,
I find it very interesting that you are buying the commentary coming from the very analysts who do not get money from being bearish and who's ability to detect a change in the market is about as accurate as 10th century Christians predictions of the end of the world.
The truth is that the inflationary fiscal stimulus (aka quantative easing) is the equivalent of putting a 10 million volt shock through a patient on his/her deathbed. If he/she did not respond then we really would be up the creek without a paddle.
The problem is all this excessive voltage has to find a home, and in this case the sick patient is going to go into a hyperinflationary spiral with the morons in charge of the central banks won't know how to fix.
We're not out of the woods, not by any stretch. Analysts who are perpetually bullish are full of it and like the central bankers have no idea why we got to where we are and as a result have no idea how to get us out.
I am riding the market up and will probably take some profits in the coming weeks before people wake up, smell the coffee and finally (hopefully) see through the incompetence of these buyside morons.

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