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stabreim

Listed below are comments made by stabreim between Wednesday, 4th February 2009 and Sunday, 20th September 2009.

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Lloyds: Mind the GAPS 8:29pm on 20 Sep 2009 I would like the banks to be required to write a living will before being allowed off the hook. Government should publicly tell Lloyds, HBOS et al that once they are free of GAPS any future failure would result in bond holders not being reimbursed. Keep the protection for small depositors (less than £50,000). If they should fail again, then ONLY small depositors would be covered. If this were the public position it would be interesting to see what interest rate the banks would have to offer on their bonds.
What was HBOS doing? 6:57pm on 05 Aug 2009 How about prosecuting for theft all those who operate unauthorised overdrafts and fail to pay the minimum on their credit cards? Quite right the banks should never have let them get away with it but that's not the point. If I unwisely lend someone the key to my house and they steal from me, my foolishness in trusting them is not an acceptable plea of mitigation.
Why men are to blame for the crunch 4:56pm on 29 Jul 2009 Almost everything done in the world is done by men. Women mostly choose to define as unimportant anything that requires energy and competitiveness. Those who do participate in such activities do so half-heartedly and then attribute their lack of success to prejudice. If they do succeed, their weaknesses are similar to those of men. In politics, consider Margaret Thatcher, Golda Meir, Indira Ghandi. What desirable feminine qualities did any of these bring to their work?
Fewer votes for BNP 12:29pm on 08 Jun 2009 Although tempted to abstain " a plague on all your houses" I voted for the purpose of holding down the percentage share gained by the BNP. I would happily vote Monster Raving Loony Party for that purpose.
It's the algorithm, stupid 5:32pm on 15 Apr 2009 Have a look at Nassim Nicholas Taleb's 'Black Swan'. The guy is an experienced trader and is damning about mathematical modelling of risk, and traders who use such models. He is especially damning of economists such as Merton and Scholes, whose models both won them Nobel Prizes and destroyed their company Long Term Capital Management.

Teach people the fundamentals of running successful companies, and of choosing on this basis which companies to invest in. Sack the risk analysts, and severely restrict trading in derivatives. With respect to Professor Cairns, nobody will ever know how to model business risks. Taleb's book can tell you why this is so.
Gilts and innocence 3:44pm on 26 Mar 2009 As hinted above, the important point is that purchasers of this gilt have a reasonable expectation of being able to dump it back on the treasury if they don't like the way things are going in the next few months? If I bought something I did not altogether trust, I might be reassured by a money-back guarantee! On inflation, I agree with points above.

On a personal note, I have been glad recently that my ISAs have offered a fixed rate, but when most of them mature later this year I will only re-fix for a year. I expect much higher rates in 2010 - assuming the banks/ building societies are still in business.

House prices could go like Iceland, ceasing to fall in nominal terms but falling sharply in real terms. Then again, when it comes to finance, I fear we are all losing our grip on what's real :-(
The sinister world of statistics 4:52pm on 05 Mar 2009 I would prefer to consume my statistics raw, rather than wait for them to pass through the digestive system of a government minister.

Of course popular papers and pundits will pick a figure out of context and misuse it. The best course then is full publication of all the data and wide public discussion.
Will China be strengthened by adversity? 3:35pm on 02 Mar 2009 If the Chinese fall out with USA big style, they don't need to go to war. They could just sell off their US assets, and finish off the job of destroying the US economy which Americans have already started.

Yes it would hurt China, but, I suspect, less than the USA, and certainly less than a war. Give it five years and the US dollar will be worth one Zimbabwe dollar - but still more than sterling ;-)
FSA admits huge mistakes 6:20pm on 25 Feb 2009 Civil servants are rarely rewarded for success, and often penalised for failure. Therefore they resort to box ticking and arse covering. We need the FSA to behave like private detectives. Those FSA staff who are able to produce evidence of wrong-doing by those they regulate should be well rewarded. If they start with the assumption that those they regulate are guilty of crimes unless they can prove they are not, then the FSA will not go far wrong.
'I've never joined Facebook because...' 11:50am on 04 Feb 2009 Being paranoid I joined Facebook out of curiosity and gave entirely fictional personal details. If I was who I claimed to be I would still not want to contact the acquaintances recommended. It is worth knowing that you can tell huge lies and get away with it. Maybe your 'friends' are doing this.

If you tell the truth about yourself I would recommend giving away no more than you would be happy to see on the front page of a national newspaper.

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