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wykhamist

Listed below are comments made by wykhamist between Wednesday, 5th August 2009 and Wednesday, 7th October 2009.

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Tories bash the rich 8:37pm on 07 Oct 2009 I just cannot believe the cynicism shown towards the tories in the comments.

Do you all really want another 10 years of new Labour?

It's so pathetic that so many people cannot admit to themselves that they made a terrible mistake by voting labour back in at the last election.

Moreover, there is such class hatred that many cannot bear the thought of the country being run by public school boys, even when the alternative is too awful to imagine.

For me Osborne may not be the finished article, but I will happily vote conservative at the next election because it represents the only realistic hope of the country avoiding bankruptcy and complete breakdown.
Can banks plug the gap? 10:51am on 01 Oct 2009 If the banks assets are tied up completely in gilts, then that is hardly a safe situation is it?

I mean, what if the world markets suddenly decide that the UK govt is not credit-worthy? As it currently stands the UK as a whole is insolvent because its liabilities exceed its assets.

So in one fell swoop we could have a complete collapse in sterling and our banking system.

It would be far safer if the banks would buy gilts issued by other states such as australia or Canada. Even better, let them buy gold.

I am amazed that anyone think's this money go-round called QE can do anything other than make things look normal until after the election.
Brown and markets 3:30pm on 30 Sep 2009 From your blog Robert I am wondering if you have had some kind of Damascene conversion yourself and finally come to realise what a complete disaster Gordon Brown and Labour have been for this country.

Brown seems to think he can win back the public by all kind of extra spending on things like hospital car-parks. However, these have to be paid for out of further taxation. Do we really want to be plunged further into debt? This is just pork-barrel politics of the worse kind.

Brown himself is becoming a laughable basket-case. He is an embarassment whenever he appears in public and is clearly suffering from some kind of advanced delusional syndrome. At least 80% of the country cannot wait to see the back of him, and the other 20% probably have no understanding of the economy whatsoever.
Labour bets on bashing bankers 12:58pm on 29 Sep 2009 Everything with Labour seems to be like this:

1. Create a massive problem through your incompetence
2. Finally cotton on to the public mood
3. In a show of pork-barrel politics annouce some ham-fisted legislation of one kind or another.
4. Drop said legislation on the quiet when it is found to be unworkable.

We all want revenge on the bankers, but much better to have avoided the problem in the first place.

Another example of pork-barrel politics is the extension of the scrappage scheme. This is just bringing next years car sales into this year. As soon as the scheme is stopped sales will fall off a cliff. But that will be after the election of course....
Brown and bonuses 01:38am on 28 Sep 2009 The extent to which Joe Public has been ripped off by the banks is quite brethtaking.

Poor old Joe - he saved hard from his post tax income and put his savings in a bank because he didnt want to risk losing it. The bank then decided to gamble with a multiple (up to 35 times) his deposit. Unfortunately their bets went bad and they lost it all. However the bankers had earned bonuses from the trades by pretending they were profitable.

So then the banks went back to Joe Public, via the government bail-out and demanded that he stump up the 35x they lost. So poor old Joe got saddled with a debt, via the government, of more than he had invested.

All of this was so that the bank could still be able to return Joe's original deposit should he ever ask for it. This is what Gordon Brown called 'saving the banking system'.

In spite of the fact that what the banks had been doing was clearly fraud on a massive scale, nobody went to prison. In fact, the bail-out money was cleverly used to make it look like the bank was still making a profit, so yet more bonuses could be paid.

What is the net effect of all of this? Joe public and his children/grandchildren are enslaved into a lifetime of debt while the bankers get off scot free with all their bonuses! What did the G20 agree to do about this? Provide further bail-outs and increase the national debt even further, while doing nothing about the bonuses!

You could not make this stuff up.
G20: History and fudge 11:02pm on 25 Sep 2009 As far as I am concerned the G20 is an irrelevance - just a chance for world leaders to promote themselves.

Hardly surprisingly they have decided to continue the fiscal stimulus - i.e. spend tomorrows money today to keep the show on the road. In Gordon Brown's case this is essential with the election coming up.

However, I believe they may all get overtaken by events. We are beginning to see the equity bubble of the last 6 months come to an end, and the major currencies are looking more and more unstable - hardly surprising since they are backed by nothing but thin air.

The fact that nobody has done anything about the bank bonuses should not be so surprising, given the close links between the politicians and the bankers.

Here again, the politicians may get overtaken by events. Once the government becomes no longer able to clothe and feed its citizens the people will take their own revenge.
What RBS's results say about QE 1:37pm on 08 Aug 2009 I think the only solution to the problem with the bankers and other fat cats is simply to put a cap on the maximum salary and benefits that can be paid to anyone who is in employment. A figure of 250K seems reasonable.

If these supposedly brilliant people want to earn more let them risk their own capital by setting up their own companies. Then they can pay themselves what they like in the form of dividends.

Don't give me any hogwash about about the best people leaving either. Let them leave and good riddance to them.
What RBS's results say about QE 11:41am on 07 Aug 2009 QE will not work. The money is effectively just helping the banks, who can make a quick buck by selling gilts at a short term profit, at the tax-payers expense.

The profits in the investment banking division which accrue as a result then get paid out in bonuses.

The only long-term solution to our problems is for Britain to make stuff that can be sold for a profit. Anything else is just creating a short-term illusion of recovery, which will only last as long as the government can print money.

As many of us have said ad nauseam, there is a massive fraud being committed against the general public here. Nobody in the BBC sees fit to even report it.
What was HBOS doing? 10:45am on 05 Aug 2009 You say Lloyds did 'due diligence' on HBOS but it wasn't as much as they would have liked.

Surely 'due' means 'sufficient' by definition. Therefore the diligence was either due or it was not. It's like being pregnant - you either are or you aren't.

Either they did due diligence or they did not!
What was HBOS doing? 10:25am on 05 Aug 2009 Seems like whatever happens the tax-payer gets shafted. We take a big loss now from all their barmy loans. If at some point in the future they make a profit they will shell out nice bonuses to their staff.

As usual with the banks it's heads they win tails we lose.

I would not be at all surprised if they even find a way to justify bonuses based on these results. Something to do with a particular division exceeding its targets or some such guff.

Robert, sometimes I wonder who's side are you on? The British public are being made fools of here. Why not more criticism of the bankers?

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