22 June 10 - 12:00Bank of England reform must go further
Last week one of the biggest financial stories was George Osbourne's effective dismantling of the FSA and returning full supervisory powers to the Bank of England.
The
problem being, of course,as has been widely pointed out, no regulator
across the world appears to have really seen the financial crisis
coming, instead living in hope that while they made hay while the sun
shined, that the sun would keep shining. The regulators were all fooled
by complex inventment instruments, and so were the rating agencies, the
sellers, and the buyers together. Only a few lone voices saw any real
danger and they were ignored until too late.
The danger is that
the change in regulatory structure is not simply too little too late,
but that it will also cause restrictions on economic growth. ...
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16 June 10 - 15:35Spanish debt frightens Eurozone markets
Concerns about the so-called PIGS - Portugal, Ireland, Greece, Spain
- continue to dominate the financial news as the likelihood of a second
wave to the financial crisis, this time a sovereign crisis, with
countries likely to default on the huge debt they carry.
Today's news is that spreads on Spanish bonds continue to rise,
with a coming meeting between Spanish leaders and the IMF speculated to
herald a call to tap into a Greek-style emergency fund for the country. ...
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02 April 10 - 19:15ISA options before early deadline
It’s that time of year again - when the deadline for last year’s
ISA’s allowance comes up and is gone forever.
To be part of this year’s
allowance, the transaction will need to be completed by 6 April 2010.
However, due to the Easter Bank Holiday, savers and investors only
have until Saturday 3 April to do this.
Therefore if you haven’t already put your ISA money away, you have
only days to get the situation addressed.
According
to CityWire, the following are the best ISA’s currently on the
market:
Leeds
Building Society ISA - five-year fixed rate paying 4.6%
Nationwide
Building Society cash ISA - five year fixed paying 4.25%
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20 October 09 - 15:22Changing broadband supplier
Well, it looks as though I'm finally moving ISP from Zen back to BT broadband, as I just called Zen for a MAC code.
It's a shame, really, as Zen has a far better reputation for service
and support than BT, but the problem of wireless interference is a
constant and annoying problem.
Plus BT are offering mobile broadband with their new broadband packages, and free BT openzone minutes, which will be very useful for business travel.
The caveat is that the pricing on the BT website is quite
misleading, as those shown only apply to certain exchanges (apparently)
plus they include ...
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20 October 09 - 14:31Economic problems continue
The more I read about the impact of the financial crisis in the UK,
the more it feels that the UK is doomed economically, and that the best
option now while you have cash in Great British Sterling is to cash out
and move aborad to somewhere more financially sound - ie, not
threatened with collapse by the weight of its own debt.
That may seem somewhat alarmist, but despite the claims of "green
shoots" earlier in the year, we have not seen any signs that the
economy is returning to normal. In fact, anything but, and that at best
we're moving into a "lost decade" similar as to what happened to Japan.
Britain's debt to GDP is spiralling out of control, and even
measures to reduce costs being mooted by Labour and the Conservatives
...
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21 August 09 - 20:30Broadband connectivity issue
I don't normally write about technical issues. Though I can use
computer technology, it all goes over my head and I don't have a clue
how it all works.
I've come across an interesting problem while setting up my home office, though - wireless interference.
I was originally with BT as my ISP for broadband, but after previous
problems with the company I decided quality of service was more
important than price, so I moved to Zen Internet.
They sold me a Thomson TG784 router with the package, and all seemed to be running fine.
Until I bought a nice cordless phone, a ...
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30 July 09 - 11:13UK economy still in danger
This spring's green shoots are being increasing shown to have
misplaced optimism,
with economic conditions continuing to worsen within the UK - GDP
continues to fall, and expectations of a recovery for next year
remain muted.
While it's easy to just look at the UK in isolation, there are a couple
of major economic pointers on the horizon that suggest the world's
economy could suffer major set backs -
even before a recovery has begun.
And this is likely to bode ill for Britain, with existing downbeat
expectations potentially proving to be optimistic if these factors play
out. ...
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11 June 09 - 16:29Recession over? Rubbish!
A lot of interesting stories coming up today, showing the continuing turmoil in the financial world.
Edmund Conway in the Telegraph
claims the recession is over, which is about as outrageously optimistic as you can get.
Much of this unfounded optimism seems focused on the fact that the
property market has seen a positive bounce over this spring - mortgage
lending is up, buyer enquiries are up, and the DCLG
reported a 1.1% rise in house prices over April.
The problem is, spring has always been prime home buying time, so to extrapolate this into some ...
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24 April 09 - 14:21UK insurance fraud up
A series of minor stories to make the news
during this economic crisis is the issue of increasing fraud and avoidance hitting the insurance industry.
While there's little call to be unduly sympathetic to insurers, it
remains a concern to all consumers because policy premiums are simply
increased to pay for the costs of fraud, which hits everybody.
In this month alone we've seen a couple of different stories come up on
this. On the one hand, is the frightening statistic that police are now
seizing
460 uninsured vehicles per day.
That's well over 150,000 vehicles per year. And the figure appears to
be increasing because some people think they can no longer afford their
car insurance, and so drive without any protection. ...
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27 February 09 - 11:11Any hope left for savings?
08 February 09 - 20:13Why we pay for the banks twice
This week’s move by the Bank of England to cut the interest rate to an all time low of 1% is a bad move for all of us, especially those trying to save money.
It is an unfortunate double whammy, because while the tax payer is subsidising the banking system via RBS and Lloyds especially though part nationalisation, plus through government guarantees and debt swaps with its special liquidity scheme, the cut in interest rates especially benefits the banks by increasing their profit margins.
A major way banks make their profit is through arbitrage between
savings rates on loan rates. In other words, the bank offers a
relatively low interest rate to savers, a relatively higher rate to
borrowers, and the ...
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08 February 09 - 19:37Starting out at MyBlogSite
Well, I've already been trying out blogging by myself at
Richmond Way as part of trying to understand the online environment, not least with the current development of my
A1 brand websites.
Even still, I have to admit it feels sometimes isolating and lonsesome to blog without any real understanding of what audience may or may not be around.
I've therefore decided to start up blogging at a few online blogging communities, where perhaps it may be easier to engage with an online audience, and that's why I've set up this blog at
MyBlogSite.
I'm not sure what to expect as yet, and perhaps lack of expectation is good. Nevertheless, it will be an interesting experiment.
MyBlogSite(more)
