Financial fuckery thread

[Cain]

David Cameron, economic genius:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-15171917

David Cameron is expected to tell UK households to pay off their credit and store card debts in his keynote speech to the Conservative conference later.

The prime minister will argue that the debt crisis was caused by individuals - as well as businesses, banks and government - borrowing too much.

Pay it off with what?  I'm in a privileged position here, I admit, the only debt I have to pay off is my student loan, and depending on exactly how quickly I want rid of it, I could do that in two years.  Most people, however, are not in my position.  They are suffering wage freezes, job uncertainty and rising commodity prices.  They are lucky to be breaking even, and a lot of people are living a couple of paychecks away from bankruptcy.

And the debt crisis was caused by individuals - but not the ones with too much debt on their credit cards.  More like individuals in charge of the investment arms of Barclay's Bank - who played a very worrying role in the collapse of Lehman Brothers, those who decided to offer loans without even minimal checks on ability of their customers to pay, and those who gave such loans triple A credit ratings.  Oh, and those who then bunched together those loans into CDOs and sold them far and wide, those banks who forged ahead purposefully with a policy of maximum exposure (so they would be "too big to fail") etc etc

Private, individual debt is only a problem because the banks and the government insist on using the taxpayers as lenders of first resort and there isn't enough in the coffers to keep that kind of game going on for too long.

[Scribbly]

Christ, what an asshole.

The Conservatives really are determined to prove they have no fucking clue what the situation of the vast majority of people actually is.

[Faust]

If all these awful poor people would pay off their credit cards we wouldn't be in this mess.

[Cain]

The Conservative Conference (and the media reaction to it) has been a steady source of lail for the past few days.

In Chateau Cain, many laughs were had at the Guardian writers who kept on insisting Iain Duncan-Smith was the moral, progressive and compassionate heart of the coalition government.  He of the "get on a bus" to find work and "work for free and maybe you'll get hired eventually" fame, and of constant lying on his CV does not strike us as very compassionate or moral.

Not to mention Teresa May's now infamous lying about the ECHR, deportation and cats.  Even the media could not pretend to soberly assess so utterly obvious a lie.

Praising Boris Johnson's well practised approach of public idiocy - completely missing the point that he does it precisely so the papers wont take him seriously, nor punish him unduly for his incompetence and bizarre policy choices.

But back to the economics.  There is a general strike in Greece today.  I'm not sure how that differs from the 20 or so other general strikes since 2008, but I thought you'd all like to know.

[Cain]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/oct/04/financial-crisis-welcome-to-new-normal

Panic on markets reflects a growing mood that Greece will inevitably default, triggering another Great Depression

Welcome to the new normal. Billions of pounds were wiped off the value of shares in London on Tuesday 4 October. Dexia, a bank jointly owned by the French and the Belgians, teetered on the brink of collapse. One of the main barometers of Wall Street sentiment slid into bear-market territory. An emergency press conference called by Greece's finance minister was delayed because the building was being picketed by civil servants.

The UK construction sector looked like it was heading for recession as public sector projects dry up and in Spain more than one in five are out of work. The French and Belgian governments were forced to pledge that no depositor in Dexia would lose a cent let alone a euro as they tried to avoid a Northern Rock-style run on the bank. Traders, unsurprisingly, were scrabbling for their tin hats.

The turmoil overshadowed the Conservative party conference in Manchester just as it did three years ago in Birmingham when the shock waves from the collapse of Lehman Brothers diverted attention from David Cameron's attempts to portray himself as a prime minister in waiting. Coalition ministers know now, as Gordon Brown as his team knew then, that the global economy is teetering on the brink of recession. Jean Claude-Trichet, in his last few days as president of the European Central Bank, said: "We are experiencing the worst crisis since world war two."

The man in charge of America's central bank, Ben Bernanke, said the Federal Reserve would do whatever it takes to get the US economy moving again. His comments helped lighten the mood on Wall Street and limit the fall in London's FTSE 100 to 131 points.

Even so, the FTSE closed below 5000 for the first time since July 2010.

For those who believe that history repeats itself, Dexia plays the role of Bear Stearns in this unfolding tragedy. The US government found a buyer for the Bear in the spring of 2008 but failed to do the same for Lehmans six months later. Dexia will be saved courtesy of French and Belgian taxpayers. Next up is Greece, and there the endgame is now inevitably going to be default.

The panic-stricken reaction of the markets over the past few days reflects a growing mood in the financial markets that the default will not be managed and orderly but messy, with knock-on effects not just for the rest of the eurozone but for the entire world economy.

Banks will go bust, credit will dry up, trade will wither, jobs will be shed. Greece, Lehman Brothers 2.0, will be the prelude to the second Great Depression, something policy-makers were congratulating themselves on avoiding only a few months ago.

http://www.dsnews.com/articles/job-loss-could-put-one-in-three-homeowners-out-of-their-home-2011-09-30

Despite being more affluent, the poll found that even those with higher annual household incomes indicate they are not guaranteed to make their next housing payment if they lost their source of income.

Ten percent of survey respondents earning $100K or more a year say they would immediately miss a payment....

Sixty-one percent of those surveyed said if they were handed a pink slip, they would not be able to continue to make their mortgage or rent payment longer than five months.

http://idealab.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/09/the-federal-reserve-seeks-social-media-monitoring-program.php?ref=fpc

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York wants to know what you are Tweeting, Facebooking and YouTubing. Apparently, a simple Google search for posts about the Fed doesn't suffice, as the bank has issued a request for proposal soliciting the creation of a "Sentiment Analysis And Social Media Monitoring Solution," which would allow it to gather all of the comments posted about it online and distinguish between positive and negative commentary.

The RFP, uncovered by the blog Zero Hedge on Sunday, calls for a far-reaching, customizable social dashboard that "must be able to gather data from the primary social media platforms -Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, Forums and YouTube. It should also be able to aggregate data from various media outlets such as: CNN, WSJ, Factiva etc."

It also specifies that the solution should "monitor billions of conversations and generate text analytics based on predefined criteria...also determine the sentiment of a speaker or writer with respect to some topic or document."

Fuck

[Faust]

Is there any good way to brace for impact for whats coming? In a panic people dive on gold but over the last couple of weeks I'm not so sure as to its saftey.
people are diving on the Swiss franc but they devalued it to stop people raising it.
Canada and australia seemed to do ok in 2008, would there currancies be stable enough to keep a nest egg in either of them?

[Cain]

Australia is looking more unsteady now than it was in 2008 - unsure as to exactly why, however.  Canada...well, there I have no clue, though I have some ideas of where to look to get one.

I'll try and get back to you on that, though I may need to sleep before doing so.

[Scribbly]

Australia is tied to China economically IIRC - they have massive trade links, so where the Chinese market goes, so too goes the Australian market.

As it looks like the demand for Chinese exports is going to plummet through the floor, the Chinese are likely to drag Australia down with them.

[Faust]

Australia is looking more unsteady now than it was in 2008 - unsure as to exactly why, however.  Canada...well, there I have no clue, though I have some ideas of where to look to get one.

I'll try and get back to you on that, though I may need to sleep before doing so.

Sorry Cain, I just assumed you'd know, didn't mean to send you off on a research mission.

Squid, that sounds about right.

[Cain]

Australia is looking more unsteady now than it was in 2008 - unsure as to exactly why, however.  Canada...well, there I have no clue, though I have some ideas of where to look to get one.

I'll try and get back to you on that, though I may need to sleep before doing so.

Sorry Cain, I just assumed you'd know, didn't mean to send you off on a research mission.

Squid, that sounds about right.

It's alright.  I had heard the Canadian banks fared better than most in the financial crisis, so I am interested as well.  I suspect lack of demand may be hitting them hard though, as well as reduced energy prices.

And DS has the money on Australia's main trading partner.  Japan is also a very big market for Australia, too.  Bigger than the whole Eurozone, for example.  After that, it's India and South Korea.

Australia still exports more than it imports, which is a good sign.  However, Australian imports have gone up from last year, by 7%.  That doesn't look too healthy.

[Rumckle]

Australia is looking more unsteady now than it was in 2008 - unsure as to exactly why, however.

At a guess I would put it to a couple of reasons:

- The possibly upcoming carbon tax, and the great deal of uncertainty surrounding it (neither the government or the opposition has complete control of the house of reps at the moment, so passing any legislation is very difficult)

- Our manufacturing industry is suffering atm, though that has been steadily decreasing for a while I believe.

- There is also shaky consumer confidence, but that is the same everywhere in the world, so I doubt that has much impact

[Scribbly]

The UK recovery has been exposed as weaker than reported, and the recession deeper - growth between April and June was 0.1 rather than 0.2, growth for the previous quarter was reduced to 0.1 per cent. GDP fell 7.1% rather than the previous 6.4% estimate, over the course of the recession. All data comes from the ONS.

This means that GDP has essentially not grown for 9 months now. Household spending has been consistently dropping along with the price of essentials - such as food and clothing - rising at a faster than expected rate. The growth has primarily been in the services sector. The Bank of England had been expecting the figures to be revised up rather than down, and the fact it went down is another blow to the government's growth strategy.

So as the rest of the world starts to decline, our growth has also been nonexistent, and the government is determined to 'stay the course' 'sail through these rough water' and other such metaphors. Whilst placing the blame on individual citizens rather than institutions and irresponsible bankers.

As an aside, it really bugs me how these forecasts are always described as 'gloomy'. As though they are upset and need cheering up. Maybe we could perk the economy up by giving the forecasters a lollipop or something.

[hirley0]

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20111005 'india-N'W5  

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[Cain]

http://rt.com/news/finance-war-usa-banks/ on 12/08/2011

Max Keiser, financial analyst and host of the Keiser Report on RT, said French banks are now loaded with toxic derivatives that were sold to them by US investment banks.

"The US investment banks and the rating agencies are now attacking these French banks. They know where the bodies are buried, and they are using the weapons they sold them to attack them," he said. "The rating will be downgraded again. This is part of a new era on Wall Street – they go after sovereign debt. Wall Street and rating agencies are working together to destabilize the sovereign debt of these countries," he added.

Today

http://www.businessinsider.com/imf-advisor-could-see-eurozone-meltdown-in-2-or-3-weeks-2011-10

In an interview on the BBC (via ZeroHedge), IMF advisor Robert Shapiro said some incredibly alarmist things.

He tells broadcasters that if eurozone leaders don't address the crisis properly we will see a meltdown as soon as later this month.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15211230

Moody's has downgraded the credit rating of 12 UK financial firms including Lloyds TSB, RBS, Nationwide and Santander UK.

Moody's said it now believed the UK government was less likely to support some firms if they got into trouble.

However, the firm emphasised that the downgrades did not "reflect a deterioration in the financial strength of the banking system".

Bank shares fell initially, with RBS 3.8% down and Lloyds 3.4% off.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15210112

Bank of England governor Mervyn King has said this financial crisis could be the worst the UK has ever seen.

His comments came after the Bank authorised the injection of a further £75bn into the economy through quantitative easing (QE).

Explaining the move Sir Mervyn told Sky News: "This is the most serious financial crisis we've seen at least since the 1930s, if not ever."

The Bank has already pumped £200bn into the economy.

It has done this by buying assets such as government bonds, in an attempt to boost lending by commercial banks.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/07/us-dexia-ratings-idUSTRE79608J20111007

(Reuters) - Standard and Poor's on Friday downgraded the core banks of Franco-Belgian financial group Dexia (DEXI.BR) by one notch, citing difficulties in securing wholesale funding and the need for increased collateral.

The ratings agency also said it could take further action, including further downgrades or even an upgrade, depending on how a proposed restructuring panned out.

The board of Dexia, whose shares are suspended, will meet in Paris on Saturday to vote on a break-up plan after Belgium and France pledged to guarantee its financing in the face of a share-price slide.

"We expect to resolve the CreditWatch placement once we have more information about what the restructuring means for Dexia's operating banks and more details about accompanying support that the French and Belgian governments could provide," S&P said in a statement.

S&P said it had lowered ratings by one notch to 'A-/A-2' on Dexia Credit Local, Dexia Bank and Dexia Banque Internationale a Luxembourg, which together represented over 90 percent of the group's consolidated assets.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-04/ocbc-reports-luring-clients-from-french-banks-amid-debt-crisis.html

Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp. said it is attracting assets from the Singapore branches of French banks as the euro region's debt crisis spooks wealthy clients.

"There's a lot of outflows from French banks because of the European debt crisis," Renato de Guzman, chief executive officer of Oversea-Chinese's private-banking unit, said in an interview. "Investors are panicking at the moment."

Defections from French banks, including BNP Paribas (BNP) SA, helped generate net new money of about $4 billion for Bank of Singapore this year, Guzman said. The private bank had $29.6 billion of assets under management at the end of June, less than 9 percent of the total at BNP Paribas's wealth management unit.

Just saying.  Keiser's delivery is typically overblown, if you ever watch his show, but it's hard to deny the analysis underpinning his assertion above.

[hirley0]

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