Gordon's Mea Culpa

[MeetJohnDoe]

Well...more bad news for British expats in Patters and Thailand. Gordon Brown (who for 10 years before becoming Prime Minister was the Chancellor of the Exchequer -basically the treasury/finance minister and overseer and regulator of the nations financial system - and now the guy is now in charge of rescueing the whole economy...yikes!) and his Ministers announce a second bailout of the nation's banks. They have effectively nationalized Royal Bank of Scotland. Many are saying the UK itself, through its government, is looking more and more like nothing but an over-leveraged hedge fund and may be heading towards national bankrupcty like their nearby neighbor, Iceland.

Surely to put continued pressure on the Pound...looks like a continued wild ride.

[prefabs]

Well...more bad news for British expats in Patters and Thailand. Gordon Brown (who for 10 years before becoming Prime Minister was the Chancellor of the Exchequer -basically the treasury/finance minister and overseer and regulator of the nations financial system - and now the guy is now in charge of rescueing the whole economy...yikes!) and his Ministers announce a second bailout of the nation's banks. They have effectively nationalized Royal Bank of Scotland. Many are saying the UK itself, through its government, is looking more and more like nothing but an over-leveraged hedge fund and may be heading towards national bankrupcty like their nearby neighbor, Iceland.

Surely to put continued pressure on the Pound...looks like a continued wild ride.

Knucklehead

[Thaifan2]

Well...more bad news for British expats in Patters and Thailand. Gordon Brown (who for 10 years before becoming Prime Minister was the Chancellor of the Exchequer -basically the treasury/finance minister and overseer and regulator of the nations financial system - and now the guy is now in charge of rescueing the whole economy...yikes!) and his Ministers announce a second bailout of the nation's banks. They have effectively nationalized Royal Bank of Scotland. Many are saying the UK itself, through its government, is looking more and more like nothing but an over-leveraged hedge fund and may be heading towards national bankrupcty like their nearby neighbor, Iceland.

Surely to put continued pressure on the Pound...looks like a continued wild ride.

Ireland is in the same mess as they also had a property bubble .They have just nationalised Anglo Irsh bank ( the republics 3 rd largest ) last friday .The chairman of the bank Sean Fitspatrick had also given himself 87 million euros in personal loans and hid it .Now the shit has hit the fan .Corporate greed is widespread .

Edited January 19, 2009 by Thaifan2

[sbk]

Just so you know, mentioning Pattaya in the post does not make this Pattaya related. Moving to the economy/banking forum where it probably has a bit more relevance.

[Familyonthemove]

Yep .... the guy who got us in to the mess through poor financial control when he was Chancellor is now wasting tax payers money propping up the unsustainable system he helped to create.

There's some very old sayings he should listen to ..... "throwing good money after bad" .... "when you're in a hole, stop digging" ..... and "I never voted for that miserable Scottish runt" .....

[GuestHouse]

Surely it would only be Gordon's Mea Culpa if Gordon himself confessed to the sins you have attributed to him.

[12DrinkMore]

Well...more bad news for British expats in Patters and Thailand. Gordon Brown (who for 10 years before becoming Prime Minister was the Chancellor of the Exchequer -basically the treasury/finance minister and overseer and regulator of the nations financial system - and now the guy is now in charge of rescueing the whole economy...yikes!) and his Ministers announce a second bailout of the nation's banks. They have effectively nationalized Royal Bank of Scotland. Many are saying the UK itself, through its government, is looking more and more like nothing but an over-leveraged hedge fund and may be heading towards national bankrupcty like their nearby neighbor, Iceland.

Surely to put continued pressure on the Pound...looks like a continued wild ride.

It is possibly far worse than that.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=206...&refer=home

This means that the bastard is allowing the so called "quantitative easing" to take place and that he has now authorised the printing presses to power up.

Brown is one of the most dangerous men walking the planet. Trillions, yes get that figure, are going down the drain and HE is the man responsible. The UK is NOT the USA and the currency is NOT the USD. The USA has a massive leeway in being de facto the world's reserve currency. Brown is a non elected Prime Minister well out of his depth and should resign.

"No more boom and bust" indeed, in comparison to the ensuing BUST the boom over the last ten years did not exist.

Edited January 19, 2009 by 12DrinkMore

[bartender100]

The consequence of all this is going to be hyperinflation, or so some experts are predicting

[flying]

Just out of curiosity can one of the UK expats say why he (Brown) sold all your gold back in 99 at a 20 year low price?

I mean dont go & say because he is an idiot I was just curious what led him to that event?

[Khun Jean]

A source for information past and present is gata.org. You will find a few articles about the UK selling gold.

Stories about why are very different. More liquidity, lower gold reserves as the rules for entering the euro give that freedom, to manipulation of the gold price so others could pick it up cheaply.

Best to read all of them and make your own conclusions.

In one of the articles i found on USAUGold.com this caught my attention: http://www.usagold.com/bankofenglandgold.html

The announcement by the Treasury appears to be timed to get in early, before other planned official sales take place. The Swiss National Bank is in the process of a lengthy legislative procedure which might enable it to sell 1,300 of its 2,590 tonnes of reserves, while the IMF is in the middle of protracted discussions to sell as much as 311 tonnes of its own reserves. The irony is that Gordon Brown, the UK's Chancellor of the Exchequer, is simultaneously leading the charge on behalf of IMF gold sales - purportedly to assist debt relief in poor countries - while damaging the price by proposing to sell some of the UK's reserves in advance

Edited January 19, 2009 by Khun Jean

[flying]

Thanks Khun Jean will take a look

[MeetJohnDoe]

Just so you know, mentioning Pattaya in the post does not make this Pattaya related.

I think the half of the Pattaya expat population consisting of British businessmen and retirees might beg to differ...these actions, that will effect the value of the home-country currency, might be of some interest to them.

Seems that the Spanish better watch out too...S&P is announcing a downgrade in their country's sovereign debt rating!

Good column that lays out the problem with many USA/Western banks by Krugman in Monday's NYT...basically, they are bankrupt and governments are loath to admit it...so keep shoveling "rescue plans (public money)" at them

[patsfangr]

Just so you know, mentioning Pattaya in the post does not make this Pattaya related.

I think the half of the Pattaya expat population consisting of British businessmen and retirees might beg to differ...these actions, that will effect the value of the home-country currency, might be of some interest to them.

Seems that the Spanish better watch out too...S&P is announcing a downgrade in their country's sovereign debt rating!

Good column that lays out the problem with many USA/Western banks by Krugman in Monday's NYT...basically, they are bankrupt and governments are loath to admit it...so keep shoveling "rescue plans (public money)" at them

Nevertheless, John, the fact is that even the slightest mention of American political issues and opinions has consistently been strongly chastised and bansished from this thread. According to the news programs that I watch, there's a little controversy about "rescue packages" going on the USA now, isn't there? Yet it has been made very clear that no discussion of that, or the American politician who is championing it, is permitted.

I regret that anyone must suffer economic hardship, whatever the cause. But, in the interest of fairness, either discussion of "foreign" political issues should be open to ALL, or TOTALLY FORBIDDEN here.