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Topic History of: The sun is out ... the sky is blue ....
Max. showing the last 5 posts - (Last post first)
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JK2006 |
Might I remind posters that the tag line for the song lyric of this thread is...
"It's raining in my heart"!!! |
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In The Know |
david wrote:
I agree and disagree with you, ITK.
Firstly, where I disagree is that I think you're giving way too much importance to the UK's role in global financial markets.
Anyway,interesting thread, ITK. You've made me do some thinking.
David,
In the Budget yesterday, Darling Alistair refered to London as "the Global Financial Centre" |
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veritas |
In The Know wrote:
and the Tory lead is restored to 40% !
All is (soon to be) well in the world.
Goodbye Brown-Noser !
your'e optimistic.  |
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The Cat |
According to a Labour insider who natters on to me regularly, many Labour MPs are expecting massive losses at the forthcoming election. One Labour MP believes that the party might be reduced to no more than 20 seats.
All hearsay of course. I would like to say that I can't see Labour winning, but I felt that way before the last couple of elections too. British voters often have very sheep-like qualities. |
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david |
I agree and disagree with you, ITK.
Firstly, where I disagree is that I think you're giving way too much importance to the UK's role in global financial markets. I think we still haven't got used to the fact that we are no longer major league players in the world and pale into insignificance when compared to the likes of China and the US.
Where I do agree with you is on Gordon Brown's management of the UK economy over the past 13 years. But I would go farther back than Brown. I would say that it goes back to the era of Thatcher and Reagan and the 'loadsa money' culture they fostered, creating a generation or two of people who were/are in it for the quick buck and sod the long term consequences.
A friend of mine who is the owner of several companies in the UK, Canada, China and the US saw it coming and his rather convincing theory is this. Since the 80s we have become more and more obsessed with investing in things that don't actually exist. People trade on 'futures', i.e. things that don't actually exist yet, they engage in spread betting upon a massive scale. The effect of this in the long run is that people end up betting money they don't have on things that don't actually exist. It's absurd.
My friend likened the whole farce to a game of musical chairs. A big proportion of the money circulating in the world today is not real money, i.e. it does not exist physically. It is virtual money, and that is the danger. When the music stops, everyone goes dashing for the chairs, but there aren't enough chairs for everyone, just as there isn't as much money in the world economy as people think.
I found the following definition of spread betting:
A bet on the outcome of an event. The ‘spread’ is a range of outcomes, and the ‘bet’ is on whether the outcome of the event will be above or below the spread. The pay out is based on the accuracy of the bet.
Does this make sense?
Anyway,interesting thread, ITK. You've made me do some thinking. |
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