Another AAA ratings downgrade for the UK

[I1L2T3]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2013/apr/19/eurozone-crisis-imf-g20-emerging-nations-austerity-growth

 

Another blow for Osborne. He's not fit for the job. What a week for him:

 

- Another downgrade

 

- Unemployment up

 

- Warnings from the IMF

 

- The academic work underpinning his ideas discredited

 

No wonder he was crying the other day

[SBCY]

Well if we really were a free country and not owned and controlled by the international banking cartel , this would mean diddly squat .

[Crosser]

Maybe we could sell off some of the countries assets to tide us over?

 

 

........... Oh, hang on ...........

[geared]

Yea, what did happen to all the gold reserves we used to have.....................

[Mister M]

Or indeed North Sea Oil?

[SevenRivers]

Lets borrow a load more money we can't pay back, that will make it all better.

[SpikeMac]

Or indeed North Sea Oil?

 

Or water, gas, telecoms or anything else sold in the 80s to fund the Thatcher project.

[Tradescanthia]

Lets sell Osborn, any bids over 25p ??????

 

I thought not.

He wont take any heed of warnings or advice, he's too busy bleeding and abusing the vulnerable. He blames the poor for their own predicament. A really sad man........

[Mister M]

Lets sell Osborn, any bids over 25p ??????

 

I thought not.

He wont take any heed of warnings or advice, he's too busy bleeding and abusing the vulnerable. He blames the poor for their own predicament. A really sad man........

 

A very sad man. Did you see squeezing out a tear at Mrs Thatcher's funeral?

[Vague_Boy]

Warnings from the IMF

 

Gordon Brown used to get those all the time.

 

For example, in 2000

 

IMF Warns Brown over Pre-Election Spending

 

in 2001

 

IMF warns Brown to cut spending

 

in 2002

 

IMF warns Brown over spending

 

in 2003

 

IMF gives Brown borrowing warning

 

in 2004

 

Spend less or tax more, Brown told

 

in 2005

 

Irate Brown rejects IMF's warning over deficit

 

in 2006

 

IMF sounds a warning on Britain's housing market

 

in 2007

 

IMF warns Brown over inflation

 

(You get the picture.)

 

Wow, warning Gordon Brown about spending and borrowing too much? It's like they could see the future man!

 

 

Yea, what did happen to all the gold reserves we used to have.....................

 

Sold off and the sale announced in advance (so that the sold price would be as low as possible).

 

For years "conspiracy theorists" said that he had an ulterior motive for the sale.

 

Well, the so-called "nutters" were finally proved right.

 

Revealed: why Gordon Brown sold Britain's gold at a knock-down price

 

One of the most popular trading plays of the late 1990s was the carry trade, particularly the gold carry trade.

 

In this a bank would borrow gold from another financial institution for a set period, and pay a token sum relative to the overall value of that gold for the privilege.

 

Once control of the gold had been passed over, the bank would then immediately sell it for its full market value. The proceeds would be invested in an alternative product which was predicted to generate a better return over the period than gold which was enduring a spell of relative price stability, even decline.

 

At the end of the allotted period, the bank would sell its investment and use the proceeds to buy back the amount of gold it had originally borrowed. This gold would be returned to the lender. The borrowing bank would trouser the difference between the two prices.

 

This plan worked brilliantly when gold fell and the other asset – for the bank at the heart of this case, yen-backed securities – rose. When the prices moved the other way, the banks were in trouble.

 

This is what had happened on an enormous scale by early 1999. One globally significant US bank in particular is understood to have been heavily short on two tonnes of gold, enough to call into question its solvency if redemption occurred at the prevailing price.

 

Goldman Sachs, which is not understood to have been significantly short on gold itself, is rumoured to have approached the Treasury to explain the situation through its then head of commodities Gavyn Davies, later chairman of the BBC and married to Sue Nye who ran Brown’s private office.

 

While the market manipulation which occurred when the gold reserves were sold was not illegal as the abuse at Barclays may have been, the moral atmosphere in which it took place was identical.

LINK

Gordon Brown Dumped Britain’s Gold to Save Goldman Sachs & JP Morgan

 

Goldman Sachs are known as the "Vampire Squid", a reference to a comment by Matt Taibbi who described them as: "a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money."

 

Now remind me, which political party is supposed to be in thrall to big business and the banks?

 

 

Lets borrow a load more money we can't pay back, that will make it all better.

 

 

Better still, why not create it out of thin air? I mean, it's only money after all, it's not like it's supposed to have value or something.

 

 

Anyhoo, back to the subject of this thread, the loss of the UK's AAA rating.

 

Before the "spend, spend, spend" brigade wet their knickers in righteous fury, they should look at the reasons given for the downgrade:

 

Moodys

 

The agency said the government's debt reduction programme faced significant "challenges".

 

Fitch

 

""The downgrade of the UK's sovereign ratings primarily reflects a weaker economic and fiscal outlook and hence the upward revision to Fitch's medium-term projections for UK budget deficits and government debt."

 

Fitch Strips UK Of AAA Rating On Debt Outlook

 

Clearly the so-called "austerity" program has had all the impact of a kitten fart. We need real cuts to our excess spending.