Are you proud of Cameron for keeping us out of the new Euro club?

[Rupert_Baehr]

...

While all this goes on the UK will be sat on the outside looking in. The £ will continue provide tremendous bond security which in conjunction with ongoing elimination of UK state debt and reversal of deficit ...

 

I agree with some of what you've posted, but I must have missed something.

 

Who has said anything about 'eliminating UK state debt'?

 

I thought that the goal of the present government was to reduce the deficit - the amount they overspend each month. - Reducing the rate at which the state debt is increasing.

 

Nobody said anything about reducing the debt.

 

How will the £ 'provide tremendous bond security'? Whose bonds will be secured?

 

It appears that if the British government sticks to its declared policies overseas investors will see investment in British goverment bonds as being less risky in comparison to investment in bonds issued by some other governments. That should make it (comparatively) cheaper for the UK to borrow money and would thus reduce the deficit, but it will do nothing to improve the rating of anybody else's bonds.

 

I see UK news (read it, mostly) European News (in English, German and French) and American news.

 

I get a load of free 'financial advice' (junk mail) but that's often accompanied by informed comment.

 

The PIIGS are in a mess. Germany, France and anybody else daft enough to pour money into the Euro are going to be expected to bail them out.

 

the bucket which is being used to do the bailing is not bottomless and I suspect that the patience of the German and French electorate is not infinite. There will come a time when the French say 'une oeuf is une oeuf' and many Germans are already beginning to wonder why the hell they elected that bloody Ossie.

 

(The village in which I live has a traffic problem. 48000 vehicles [many of them heavy lorries] pass through the village every day. The village needs a bypass. The Bavarian government accepts that the village needs a bypass, as does the German Federal government. The route was decided and approved. Work began. Then Munich (which wasn't actually going to hold most of the winter Olympics) lost the bid and the Greeks needed the money more than we need a bit of peace and quiet and a respite from traffic stink.

 

Even if we give up our bypass (Well we didn't, but the federal government did) that won't be enough. My next door neighbour will now have to work until she is 70 (she's a hairdresser) to become entitled to a state pension.

 

She must work until she is 70 so that Merkel can send the money to Greece. so that their public servants (check out the Greek Railway system) can retire at age 50 on pensions equivalent to 95% of final salary.)

 

Some Germans are becoming more than a little disillusioned with das Merkel and perhaps she should be looking for voters in Greece? - She may not get many in Bayern or in Baden-Württemberg.

 

I'm puzzled. When the Euro was introduced there were rules for entry. Rules which required each country to adopt 'prudent' (nothing to do with the one-eyed Caledonian snake) policies. The rules were there, but certain countries ignored them - and those countries who should've shouted loudly about that ignored the problem.

 

If you want to look at the numbers - in Forum speak, 'Numerical Factual Actual Facts' - then had the UK joined the Euro when (or shortly after) it was launched, we would've made out like bandits!

 

I remember getting €1.65 for a pound. In 2007, I was getting €1.47. That was long before the Euro got into difficulties and I could only get €1.11 (the quote I got a few seconds ago.)

 

If the Pound sterling buys €1,11 Euros now, but it used to be worth €1.65 Euros and the Euro is in trouble, what does that say about the strength of the Pound?

 

You may decide not to believe everything you see and read on British news.

 

IN Jan 2007, I bought a house in Vicksburg, MS. That house cost me $235,000. I bought at the top of the market.

 

At that time, on English Money ('Sound as a Pound!') $235,000 was £117500.

 

Not a bad price for a 2500 Sq ft 4 bedroom house on half an acre.

 

House prices fell. MS had never seen the 'silly' [speculative] house price rises, but prices still fell and when I sold my house in October, I lost money.

 

I sold it for $215,000. I lost $20,000.

 

But $215,000 was worth £136,700 when I sold my house at a loss. I bought the house for £117500 and sold it for £136,700 making a significant loss.

 

That's because the British economy is doing so well and the Americans (who haven't got a clue about anything and couldn't find their arses with the help of a flashlight) are so screwed up.

 

I'm crowing about my 'loss' (and it's tax-deductible too:hihi:)

 

I suggest (and this is just my own opinion) that before people on this forum (or elsewhere) leap in - following the [questionable] 'advice' of news and financial agencies funded by governments (which might perhaps be being 'economical with the truth' ) they look elsewhere.

 

I'm not a speculator. I'm not wealthy, but nor am I hard up. I've saved (about 1-3 of my net income) every year since I started working.

 

I don't believe the crap published by governments and although I had to pay into government funds to get a pension, I doubt that the government will ever pay me one. I certainly don't believe the crap I read in the media.

 

As far as I'm concerned, the UK can be 'on the outside looking in', 'on the inside looking out' or simply looking at the fluff in its navel.

 

I don't trust the government (any government) to look after me in my old age.

 

Governments can promise what they like ... they tend to do that and they tend to have a crappy record of following through on those promises.

 

I ignore governments (as much as I can) and I accept that (irrespective of what they might promise) I am responsible for me.

 

I don't give a stuff about what 'Davy boy' does. Nor do I rely on him - and I certainly don't trust him.

[Tony]

How will the £ 'provide tremendous bond security'? Whose bonds will be secured?

 

It appears that if the British government sticks to its declared policies overseas investors will see investment in British goverment bonds as being less risky in comparison to investment in bonds issued by some other governments. That should make it (comparatively) cheaper for the UK to borrow money and would thus reduce the deficit, but it will do nothing to improve the rating of anybody else's bonds.

Lots there RB but this is an area that I find interesting. The bare truth is that the UK can print it's own cash without referral to anyone else. The upcoming 'Euro fiscal union' just won't have this ability. Unless there is a real disaster of our own making the UK will always be able to service it's bonds. That in itself should avoid devaluation. Given the choice of debt / deficit elimination through inflation or devaluation, or trading our way out... well I guess we probably have similar views on that.

 

But the reason that I can forsee failure of this new union is that it doesn't actually have proper fiscal union. It's a pretence that ignores the elephant in the room that you mentioned; Greece + PIS. I just can't see German voters agreeing to bear that yoke when the day comes, and it will come.

 

Cameron has just fired the gun for the relay race to the bottom: Merkel has the first leg and will make good time, then Sarkozy will take up the baton and benefit from her lead, the slower Poles will drop the baton and fail tomake up lost time on the third leg, and finally the latest asthmatic Greek PM will collapse and die a messy public death before getting halfway around.

 

They all lose.

 

The world's spectators look on in amazement at the spectacle. Cameron is just left standing with his smoking gun, watching while the remaining runners go back to the start line to contemplate a race where they never stood a chance.

[Penistone999]

Right now Euro politicians are negotiating to give up legal sovereignty over their own nation and citizens.

 

Are you proud of David Cameron for leaving them to it?

 

Yes ,im extremley proud of Cameron standing up for British interests and for refusing to bend over and let the Frogs and Germans shaft us.

 

After 13 years of spineless Labour prime ministers ,its heaven having a prime minister with a backbone.

 

Well done Mr Cameron

[Penistone999]

I've read reports that Sarkozy needed to be physically restrained because be was so angry.

 

The French show some fight ?

 

They never had any during the war ,so it makes a refreshing change.:hihi:

[Stan Tamudo]

Yes ,im extremley proud of Cameron standing up for British interests and for refusing to bend over and let the Frogs and Germans shaft us.

 

If I remember rightly you were singing La Marseillaise after "the Frogs" banned the burka albeit under a different username.

[Bigthumb]

I have just watched Robert Peston on "The Party's Over.. How The West Went Bust"

 

He asked a financial guru whether he thought the Eurozone could survive. The answer was no, because there aren't the resources to protect everything. Germany will squander too much trying to prop up Greece and won't have the financial clout left to prop up what matters, Italy.

That to me is the problem. Internal politics won't allow Europe to cast nations like Greece aside when they cannot be saved anyhow. As a result the whole house of cards is about to come crashing down, and the further away from it that we are when it does the better.

[ricgem2002]

Yes ,im extremley proud of Cameron standing up for British interests and for refusing to bend over and let the Frogs and Germans shaft us.

 

After 13 years of spineless Labour prime ministers ,its heaven having a prime minister with a backbone.

 

Well done Mr Cameron

i think you will find that gordon brown suggested we dont join in the first place

[Penistone999]

i think you will find that gordon brown suggested we dont join in the first place

 

Trust someone to spoil my anti Labour rant . :rant::hihi:

[Bigthumb]

i think you will find that gordon brown suggested we dont join in the first place

 

But the summit wasn't about joining the Euro. It was about ratifying a treaty that was against the UKs national interest. When Brown was in a similar position he turned up late and sneakily signed up when no one was around hoping no one would notice that he had reneged on his promise to hold a referendum on the treaty.

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-501637/Brown-signs-EU-Treaty-experts-warn-UK-surrender-control-immigration.html

[TheGuy]

The French show some fight ?

 

They never had any during the war ,so it makes a refreshing change.:hihi:

 

Yawn

 

Ditch your delusions about us British being some sort of invincible warrior people; If Britain bordered with Germany instead of being an Island we'd have been screwed in WW2.