Tuesday 5 August 2014

ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER PHOTO OPPORTUNITY... GONE WRONG or NICK CLEGG SIGNED ANOTHER PLEDGE FOLKS!!!!!

It all seemed to start out well.
(OK, the fake parchment is a bit tacky, but it's Lamont, Rennie and Ruthie.
 What were you expecting? Class?)
Still the sun was shining.
On the day of "the debate" they  launch their
campaign that may deliver possible new
powers maybe perhaps
, for the Scottish parliament.
This despite Mr Carmichael, their Secretary for Scotland, saying
that the Uk must never again allow its predominance in
 Scottish affairs to be forgotten. Or sidelined.
But it wasn't long before it all started to look a little less smart.
People noted that BT volunteers often have to be bussed in from England
and paid for working for the cause.
This is what it said. It's a pledge. Nick Clegg has signed it.
Doesn't that make you want to laugh till you fall down.
It fails to say what the new powers are.
(Each party's is all different.)

It says it will put them to the Scottish people at the general Election.
It doesn't mention that they will also have to be approved by
 the people of Wales, NI and England. And if they say no, then no it is.
The NO Thanks badge is particularly appropriate at the bottom of that.
BTW, are they Not Better Together any more?
This is the reality.
Or this, more colourfully.

66 comments:

  1. TwoPandasOneToryAugust 05, 2014 2:25 pm

    The wee girl third from the right, holding her flag at chest level is a popular bussed in figure, and some of the other faces are familiar.

    http://wingsoverscotland.com/they-are-legion/

    I'm not even going to comment on the other drivel.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Seems like they have a chorus line to support the principle actors in the farce.

      Delete
  2. A basic explanation of this rag roll, vote no and we promise to give you powers that are , well useless, erm! never mind reading the details look at the fancy signatures from Wee Willie Rennie, oh look Nick Clegg can write, how nice Ed has underlined his name, he's got style, and the gospel scripture( it must be they wouldn't lie to us would they) those signatures are written is a lovely shade of well browny greyish thingy, never mind the Dead Sea Scrolls, this is the Dead UK Scroll.

    A wee birdy told me that next week Better Together are going to roll out the Ark of Covenant, and inside the Ten Commandments, will begin with thou Shalt have more................at Holyrood.

    ReplyDelete
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    1. I've said all along powers to vary income tax are utterly useless, unless you can lower VAT or business tax, or whatever to balance this out. The Labour and Liberal coalition didn't use the tax powers we already have. The SNO minority and majority governments haven't used it.

      No one will ever use it.

      More power over social security is fine, but not if we still have to find the money to find the third biggest military spend in the world.

      What we need is the power to say. No more WMDs; no more going to war in the middle east; no more pretending to help America run the world.

      Let's feed people; let's educate them; let's keep them healthy.

      Let's stop playing the Empire Game. It went out of style 90 years ago.

      ... So I wonder what Moses said about Scottish independence. I dare say we shall soon find out.

      Delete
  3. Interesting use of the Saltire in the background. Can't tell if they are the double sided saltires or the spare stock of the ones given out at the Games with Saltire on one side and Union flag on the other.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I think they are trying to tell us that they are Scottish, while what they are preaching is that they are brit nats through and through.

      Maybe they have the comforting reassuring union flag on the reverse, to stop them getting jittery...

      Delete
  4. Tris

    They are a bunch of fuds, who stands with a sign saying' there shall be more powers for the Scottish parliament' fuck me they must have brought that down from up yon mountains. These people make me sick nd the language they use demonstrates to everyone they think we are as thick as shit, I have never loathed a bunch of politicians more than this bunch of nay Sayers. Wanker.

    Sorry for the language.

    Bruce

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oh dear Bruce,

      You sound angry.

      The use of SHALL is interesting. Maybe they don;t realise it, but "shall" used with anything except first person, singular or plural, means that there is absolutely no doubt. It MUST happen.

      That's something they cannot guarantee, even if all six of them firmly believe it.

      For it to be anything that benefits Scotland and lets it have more of its own money, then 9it will mean a smaller share for Wales, NI and England.

      How many marginal seat MPs will risk telling their constituents that they have just voted for more to go to Scotland, which they have been told already gets more than its share?

      Will the House of Lords allow it?

      And finally Nick Clegg having the audacity to sign another PLEDGE.

      I laughed...

      Delete
    2. He's got plenty spare tins of it.

      Delete
  5. Off Topic but I found it so disgusting I had to comment on it, Google has uploaded a game called "Bomb Gaza" where your goal as a Israeli fighter pilot, is kill as many Palestinians as possible.

    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/bomb-gaza-users-call-on-google-play-to-remove-game-that-lets-users-carry-out-israeli-air-strikes-on-palestinians-9647579.html

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That is the height of bad taste, Anon. It's despicable.

      Tory backers company?

      Delete
  6. Surprised the Royal Concert Hall allowed pantomime performers to us their frontage as a backdrop for their 'On no we won't' charade. Terribly down market.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Aye that's true.

      I was there last October for a Petula Clark concert. Lovely place, very posh.

      Not at all what I'd associate with that ragbag.

      They should have done it at the bus station.

      Delete
    2. 'us' should have been 'use'.

      I'm convinced your site contains a vicious gremlin and I don't mean niko.

      Delete
    3. Yes, I sometimes think that too David. The I realise it is just Niko.

      He puts a Hex on things.

      Delete
  7. The "visions" in the scroll (it sounds like a bad fantasy novel) of the Labour party, Conservative Party and Liberal-Democrat Party all boil down to the same thing.

    Scotland will be funded to the Barnett Formula or whatever lesser amount of money replaces it and we can hit our population with big tax increases if we want to keep our public services and social security system at the same level as they are now in the face of austerity cuts to the Barnett Formula and scams like the bedroom tax. That's what they mean by "fiscal responsibility".

    If this was such an important announcement why weren't the party leaders there behind the scroll. Cameron is off sunning himself, Miliband was probably tucking into another bacon roll and Clegg was..well who cares about Clegg?

    It was so important to their future manifestos and party policies they couldn't be arsed turning up and sent in the local nonentities to stand behind the scroll.

    ReplyDelete
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    1. That's reasonable summation Doug.

      We know that Mrs Cameron likes her holidays. And nothing has to be allowed to disturb Mrs Cameron's wishes.

      Remember how cross she was when he had to head home to sort out the riots in England a few years ago.

      Idunno what Milly was doing, and I doubt anyone cares what Clegg was doing. Probably pledging something else somewhere else, equally meaninglessly.

      The understudies can easily be got out of the box for Glasgow now that the world tv cameras have gone.

      Delete
  8. I note the snp extremist supporters deride the notion of more powers
    although their master Alex Salmond with his co-conspirators tried
    for years and years to get devo max (more powers )on the ballot paper.
    Obviously Cybernat central located in a vast underground bunker
    under the snp HQ.
    Have sent out the order attack at all cost and all reason the more powers
    argument (which the snp used for years and years) in order to trick
    the Scots voters to vote for the snp.
    Otherwise the more sensible normal peace-loving and devoid of Hate
    voters of Scotland may conclude what is the point (other than financially enriching
    the snp leaders) of voting for an idea long past its day.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. 1. It isn't really more powers.
      2. Salmond didn't want devo max, but he acknowledged that if that was what the people wanted (and it showed to be so in most opinion polls) then it should be on the ballot papers.
      3. If they are so sure of this why don;t they mention WHAT POWERS and how they will be of advantage. To their credit Labour have some sort of plan for this. The Tories don't. The Liberals are not going to form the next government, so what they have or don;t have is not that important.
      4. Unfortunately, Labour's Scottish branch plans are not approved by Ed Balls. most people in Scottish Labour have a different interpretation of what the plans were about and Mrs lamont contradicted herself on numerous occasions as to what they were.
      5 Once again, they seem to centre on tax. You can only adjust taxes if you have a basket of taxes to balance. I, for example wouldn't mind incom,e tax increasing, as long as VAT came down.

      Finally, what is past its day?

      Delete
    2. Niko,
      You like the rest of your gormless ilk, fell for the 1st Ministers lure. Hook line and sinker!!!
      He knew the conceited Westminster fools would not realise until they were to late, that they had delivered his preferred option on the proverbial plate.
      I hope you realise the real provision of the true facts are about to commence.
      HOW MUCH OIL!!! HAVE THEY JUST TRIED TO CONCEAL FROM THE SCOTTISH PUBLIC PRE-REFERENDUM.
      Do they really think they can conceal the truth any longer?

      Delete
    3. Niko, We want power not this ineffectual load of tosh on offer from this lot, I should say not on offer, merely something to swing the feart. Nothing will be coming down the line from this bunch. They firstly cannot get it past their constituents in England. Oneor two little words to you Niko, what ever the vote,run off to Cyprus cause you will not like it here one little bit.

      Delete
    4. Niko.

      WoS has looked at the results of the poll, remembering that the only people that had to be impressed were the undecideds,

      This is what the figures show.

      What those numbers show is that – astoundingly – people who were Yes voters before the debate thought Salmond won, and those who were No voters before the debate thought Darling won, both by enormous margins. Colour us shocked. But the telling stats are among the people the debate was targeted at – the Don’t Knows.
      And what the poll discovered is that among voters who’d started out as undecideds, Salmond won by 55-45. Among those who remained undecided at the end the First Minister was still judged to have done best, by a thumping 74 to 26.

      He has, as ever shown the proof of his conclusions.

      http://wingsoverscotland.com/the-only-stat-that-matters/

      Delete
  9. anon
    Rude boy !!! Yeah it was all plotted by that cunning Alex he knew what they were
    thinking before they did..another win for Alex..Sad boy

    tris

    Finally, what is past its day?

    The independent nation of la ong ago yesteryear is dead
    dead dead just bury it and leave it to rot.

    ReplyDelete
  10. 14 points behind.............well lets see

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Indeed.

      What you think? We should just hang our heads, crawl under and rock and let the Tories or Blue Labour and Ukip spend our money pon Nukes and Lords and royals and all that? While more and more people go to food banks and drop dead two days after they are told they are fit for work?

      What

      Delete
    2. Crikey Niko, how do you square the fact that even if you believe these put up polls, that forty percent of the people do not agree with you. Ignore them, at your peril. This is not going away any time soon. This is not the 80's and we all remember the 80's too well to let what happened then happen again. Off with you and become a foreigner as Labour/Tory/Lib Dem would have it. If you do not understand what you are actually voting for, look ower the Border.

      Delete
  11. Oops oh dearie me !

    An instant ICM poll of viewers for the Guardian said Darling had won the debate by 56% to 44%

    ReplyDelete
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    1. Good job we aren't voting for him on the 18th then.

      Delete
    2. Aye the Tories are fair loving Darling. Ruthie over on Twitter giving it laldy.

      He lied all the way through.

      We are having an interesting discussion about the Icelandic economy over there. Alistair thinks its broke. Others provide figures to show it is growing the quickest of all the European economies. Britain second last after.

      As you are in with the Tory Together crowd Niko, maybe you can answer why if they are winning so brilliantly... nearly 60-40, they are giving more concessions.

      Don't they know you only do that when your back is against the wall. Lord they are Tories they know about that sort of thing!

      Doesn't it sicken you to see the Labour and Tory department heads standing shoulder to shoulder ?

      (Yes, I know there's a wee bloke in between them but he's just signing the pledge for his boss, because Davie's on holiday AGAIN and Nick is in charge... ewwwwww)

      Delete
  12. I'm not going to comment on any of the above,, I just watched the worst debate ever. I thought it would have been a one sided arsed kicking for the blinking flipper, but hay ho.... No one won, but no one scored a hit. I know that sounds the same but, it's not. What I found more disturbing was the after match report, after a cursory google search, ex_navy,Surrey, Entebbe and naught. Not yer typical no thank types, ffs.
    I really hoped Alex, ran that feker ragged....Still voting AYE

    ReplyDelete
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    1. I was disappointed too.

      Alex wasn't on top form.

      Flipper was much better that we thought he would be (mind he's had weeks of training and they bought him some new glasses). It must have cost him a fortune in lost speaking revenues. Still I'm sure some Tory grandee will come up with some compensation for him.

      There are those who would say that the cards were stacked against Eck, but I just think he wasn't that good. Wasted loads of precious time on trying to embarrass Flipper about Project Fear. He should have been hitting him with economics. Why during labour's 13 year rule did the gap between rich and poor widen dramatically? And what an incredibly crap chancellor he was.

      Anyway, Alistair is the toast of the Tory Twitter world. Wee Ruthie is frothing at the mouth over him. Dave will get a report in Portugal and I'm sure that Sir Alistair will be born. If Mrs Cameron lets him out of her sight.

      In the meantime, if they are doing so well, why on earth are they telling us we can have devo max when they explicitly ruled it out a year ago?

      When you are winning you don't offer concessions, do you... or is it that the Tories and their mates just really love us, and although they KNOW we are going to lose badly, they are going to roll out concessions ... to persuade who to do what>

      That's the first time I've seen the Dugdale woman on tv... God I don't like her at all.

      Nothing would make me not vote Yes. Nothing at all.

      Delete
    2. It is possible that as AS was playing to the Don't knows/Older Generation and Women, he will change tak for the next meeting and show he has teeth and go for the jugular - possibly not personally to AD but expose the lies/misinformation/the hidden facts and the rotten media.
      It is then possible a number of the soft Naysayers may also move over to YES - especially if those committed Yes supporters on the ground have softened them up already.
      Maybe we can then be more confident of getting the game-changing percentage on the 18th

      Delete
  13. I think the idea that Alistair Darling was going to collapse in front of the cameras in the middle of the debate was just happy-clappy thinking from some of the Yes supporters. Alistair Darling is a professional politician who's been in front of cameras and speaking in front of audiences for donkey's years.

    All he had to do with stay fairly calm and say no currency union, no pound, EU problems and Bank Bailout repeatedly until the end which is what he pretty much did.

    I thought Alex Salmond could have done better but then again it's easy to say that when you're not the one up behind the podium.

    The one thing I did pick up on which Alex should have challenged is when Alistair Darling implied that pensions would be coming out of Scottish Taxation in an independent Scotland because all pensions currently come out of taxation in the UK as there isn't any money in the National Insurance Fund.

    Here's the funny fact. After Scottish independence all those in Scotland will still be British citizens. All those who are currently getting their pensions from the UK will still get them from the rUK. All those who have paid enough NI contributions into the current NI fund will get a pension from the rUK when they reach retiring age.

    In an independent Scotland on day one the Scottish taxpayer will be paying nothing for pensions because the taxpayers in Wales, England and Northern Ireland will be still paying for them and will continue to pay for at least part of them until all those who have contributed to the current UK national insurance fund die off several decades hence.

    ReplyDelete
  14. All he had to do was stay fairly calm

    Sorry typo second para.

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    1. Did not watch it Doug, I would have probably put my foot through the Television. I believe that Alex took the part as a Statesman, a bad idea, trouble with that is you need to street fight the likes of Darling. I also understand the rest was the normal fit up job with YES being excluded. If we wanted a fair fight we were not going to get it. We haven't so far and we won't because there is too much money riding on it.

      Delete
    2. Yes Doug, I'm aware i would have been a pile of mince up there.

      I just don't understand why he, in a debate about our future, got stuck on the idiotic twitterings of Burnham, and Hammond.

      If he wanted to do this Project Fear thing there are other stories that they have come up with that people would have believed.

      Borders with barbed wire that Tessy May was on about; people becoming "foreigners" like Stairheid worries herself about...

      You make a good point about pensions. The rUK will be lumbered with at least part of the pension debt of Scotland, because they used the pension money for other stuff. Of course the whole UK used it, so Scotland would take its share of that debt along with any other debt.

      But it is a start off situation where 9/10ths of all retirees pensions for the first 10 years or so would be paid by EWNI on the basis that they wasted the money for the pensions on wars and weapons and self aggrandisement.

      It was hard going, Helena, not to kick the tv.

      Especially when Dugdale came on. As I'm not a tv watcher, I'd never seen her perform before.

      She is a snearly bitch.



      Delete
    3. Hi Tris. I think the idea with the "alien invasion" claims and all that was to try and show up all the fear-mongering from BT but what it did was give Alistair a chance to claim he was there for a "serious" debate.

      If there's another debate on the BBC they're not going to use that tactic again if the post match analysis of the debate by the Alex's advisory team is any good.

      They've also got to have a better answer for the Currency Union question beyond, "it's going to happen". Maybe some details on why losing Scotland's resources from the pound will make the rUK suffer.

      Delete
    4. Yes, I agree Doug. I just felt the atmosphere of the debate fall flat on its face when Eck started to talk about alien invasions, and I found myself agreeing with Flipper that if I was going to spend my Tuesday evening watching tv then I expected something a bit more realistic than the witterings of the deranged po-faced foreign minister of England.

      I also very much agree. There doesn't seem to be an alternative except our own currency. The € wouldn't go down well at the moment, although it may in ten years.

      The trouble is having a new currency would mean establishing it, and it is probable that, given its small population coverage, it would take some time to establish.

      (Not that I begin to understand international economics.)

      The fact that WENI would be MAD not to share the currency, given the effect it would have on sterling, didn't seem to be mentioned.

      Delete
    5. Don't rUK need our money as it is partly oil-based and thus keeps the money men a little happier about the trillions of debt incurred by Westminster?

      Delete
    6. Yep...in a word. :)

      Delete
  15. DougtheDug


    rUK is Scotland first export market. Scotland is rUK’s second export market.

    The export of Scottish farming products, meat, fish and cereals etc has as it’s greatest purchaser the r`UK and this value is smaller than the value of the import of processed foods.

    Any disemblance in this brought about by currency fluctuations within Great Britain would hit the Scottish farming sector hard. A free floating and increased Scottish Groat would mean that we would have a problem with selling these basic foodstuffs , although the resultant processed foodstuffs would be more affordable for Scots. I

    It would be an uncertainty to an area of everyday expenditure in GB and NI which would be undesirable for both parties.


    Two of the most important exports from the UK are oil and Scotch and if they were taken off the rUK’s exports the trade gap would look very sick.

    This in turn would place pressure on the rUK to fund the greater gap in foreign currency earnings. Of course the rUK could do as they are doing just and print money, quantitative easing but to get foreign investors in £ bonds, there would be an implicit relationship with the asset and resources of the rUK to cover this repayment without devaluation being involved and thus the worth of the repayments back outside the £ to be more uncertain and thus require a higher interest rate to balance off that risk.

    Thus it would be in the rUK’s best interest that Scotland was in a Currency Union with Scotland. It has already been trailed that should that be effective that rUK would insist on a very long lock-in period to stop Scotland cutting the umbilical cord at a time unfavourable to the £.

    Scotland could just adopt the Scots Groat and tie it to the rUk’s £. This would mean that Scotland would be obliged to buy and hold £ and other currencies, depending whether the export sales from Scotland have to be paid in £, $ or €, for example.

    In the upcoming years Scotland must diversify their export geographic spread away for the dominance of the rUK. If we are in the EU it would make make sense that the economic target and economic cycles should harmonise with the € bloc.


    To sum up,

    It would be more in the RUK’s interest that Scotland kept the £ and not the opposite, although in the shorter term, particularly with respect to agriculture, less turbulence would be import. Short term the £, in one form or the other, and free float followed by joining a larger currency union.

    Caveat


    I am not an economist and this is my own simple Panda interpretation.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yep... what you just said, and I understand and agree when you say it, but couldn't have said it myself. :)

      Damned clever little chappies these pandas, what...

      Delete
  16. Sorry I forgot, if the Ste Claire field is a big as is being suggested, it could be argued that, as oil is currently designated in US$ that Scotland would have become a $ based economy, and a dissociation with the £ would be just the thing to boost the Scottish Groat or $. The farmers would not be happy but maybe they could be compensated for that effect, except that this would probably contravene some EU or World Trade rule.

    It is a complicated question with no easy answer except "don't rock the boat at the start"

    Ireland ran withe £ for many years after independence and moved to a pegged Punt followed by entry into € relatively recently.

    Incidentally, Ireland left with no UK debt. as all the debt of the UK is the responsibility of the UK.

    If the rUK insists on that then Scotland could just say, stuff you, no assets split and no debt for Scotland. A clean slate?

    ReplyDelete
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    1. Jeez... just when I was catching on...

      I have the impression I read somewhere that Eire traded off shared part of debt (then much smaller that currently) for it's share of the things that couldn't be divided... Buckingham Palace, London's splendour, crown jewels...

      Of course the assets are far bigger now as well as the debt. They would be keeping the nuclear arsenal, for example!

      Delete
  17. There is another option of course.

    When Alistair Darling and the rest say no currency union everyone thinks that they mean Scotland can't use the pound. What no currency union actually means is that Scotland can keep using the pound regardless but without any control of the Bank of England or access to it as a lender of last resort.

    The cash in your pocket is in pounds, the cash in your piggy bank is in pounds and the Banks in Scotland hold pounds and all their assets are denominated in pounds.

    The day after independence day we can use the pound as we like but we won't have any control over interest rates or have the Bank of England there to bail out our banks if they look like going under.

    Since we don't have control of interest rates anyway and the vast bulk of the business of RBS and BoS is in England and the rUK would have to bail them out if it came to lender of last resort time I can't see any showstoppers for this scenario. It will work but if it doesn't work that well we can shift to our own currency or make a case for direct entry to the Euro.

    ReplyDelete
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    1. I seem to remember that apart from brief changes in interest rates by governments, trying to buy the next election... or catastrophes such as Black Wednesday, when that wee chubby bloke from Shetland put up interest rates 2 or 3 times in one day... interest rates were always dictated by the interest rates of the $, Yen and Deutsche Mark.

      So before the Bof E was privatised by Labour, it was international affairs that really controlled the rates, yes?

      Delete
    2. The B of E was a private company owned by individuals. This was not unusual as HSBC was the note printing bank for Hong Kong.

      Who actually owns the B of E is worthy of a PhD thesis as it is totally obscure although the directors of the B of E say it is held by anonymous trustees.

      In fact the Fed Reserve in the USA has a similar mystery about it too.

      Delete
    3. Get Private Eye on it...

      Shouldn't we know who owns the central bank. They could all be Chinese, or Americans. They could wreck it...

      Very odd.

      Delete
  18. I can"t remember the details, but i read someplace that Scotlands banks have a sum lodged with the BoE equal to all their notes in circulation. If a deal can't be done, then the BoE will have to hand back that cash if the notes then become worthless. As the BoE doesn't have the actual money, the repercussions are very bad for the BoE.
    I'm probably talking shite.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. TwoPandasOneToryAugust 06, 2014 6:00 pm

      You are not talking shite, all printed money in Scotland must be covered by an equal value of gold (or silver)held in the BOE. As it says on the note “I promise to pay the bearer on demand £10 sterling.
      Before world war two, the gold (or sterling) was held in the mint in Edinburgh, however westminster wanted it moved to the BOE for "safe keeping" and it has never been returned.
      Personally I doubt very much whether the BOE has all the gold to return to Scotland, I would bet that most of it has been spent a long time ago.
      And it doesn’t belong to the Scottish government, the gold belongs to the banks that printed the notes.

      Delete
    2. Thanks for that explanation Two Pandas. I thought the equivalent sum had to be paid to the Bank of England in their own notes, because their promise is one made effectively by the government; Scottish banks issuing currency notes are companies. If they go broke, their promise is worth nothing.

      Didn't that actually happen in the late 20s, when there was a run on Scottish banks. After that people didn't trust banks (wise).

      Delete
    3. It was the Glasgow Saving Bank which went tits up and many people lost their entire savings.

      I had an old Great Aunt, who refused to bank after that and kept her money in a kist underneath the bed.

      I would guess that would have been before the end on the 19th Century ish

      Delete
    4. Ta Panda. I remember that some of my very elderly relative, now all dead were wary of Banks because of some crash. I assumed it had been during the last banking crisis.

      Delete
  19. I think that the requirement to hold a counterbalance of a deposit at the B of E for Scottish bank notes was relaxed to be just a fraction of the notes in circulation. Probably Crash Gordon schemed that one up.

    In other words, it is all a fekin mess and the Banks were down to 3% reserves of the money they had loaned out. Since the crash the Treasury and B of E has been trying to get them up to 5% but I think none have made it over 4. So, I would guess, with all the QE printed money, going in but not out of the Banks they must have been way below the supposed 3% mark.

    Also the unaccounted and unaccountable debt, or worst case scenario of all the promisary notes whizzing round and round the World, is eye wateringly gigantic.

    I think I saw 2 or 3 years back, that Deutsche Bank, the best Bank in the best economy in Europe, had a maximum exposure on these notes of over the GDP of the World. Comfortingly they said that their best ESTIMATE was about the GDP of Germany, FFS.

    The economic crisis has not gone away and the Banks are gayly doing the same crap again and again.

    Buy land and plant carrots.

    ReplyDelete
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    1. " think I saw 2 or 3 years back, that Deutsche Bank, the best Bank in the best economy in Europe, had a maximum exposure on these notes of over the GDP of the World. Comfortingly they said that their best ESTIMATE was about the GDP of Germany, FFS."

      So in simple layman's terms they've lent out so much money on unsecured loans that they're going to go under if enough borrowers go legs in the air and can't pay back their loans. What a way to run a bank.

      Funny how all the banks and finance houses were capitalists when the profits were good but socialists when the going got tough and what was ours was theirs as we were all in it together.

      Delete
    2. That is about it DougtheDug.

      They thought they had found the magical money tree, they all did.

      The whole Western World is basically bankrupt. The Chinese are stuffed too because of their very serious property bubble.

      HSBC, despite the fact that they did not ask for a UK Gov bail in, are exposed to the two biggies.

      None of them, except the Airdrie Savings Bank are stuffed.

      The only solution is a massive World round of debt forgiveness but that will not happen until they have exhausted all the other methods of systematic looting and then they will figure out a way to make money out of debt forgiveness.

      That is unfettered capitalism for.

      Do you want to buy a rope?

      Delete
    3. The entire banking industry, everywhere, is bankrupt and entirely interconnected.

      Keep on whistling and plant carrots.

      Delete
    4. Wish I liked carrots a bit more...

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    5. Plant potatoes, we did and have some tomatoes on the windae then I agree with BlP, the banking system will collapse again and lets face it what penalty have they faced here, nada, nothing We obtained money from our so called bank for their inefficiencies. Tried to sell shares, we wanted to unload the last of them, what a kerfuffle, back and forward and ended up selling them online. Made arrangement to go and see them for something or other. They failed to keep the appointment. So after complaining about the appointment Husband told them about selling the shares and we were up £100. We were not after money merely an explanation but one hand no longer knows what the other is doing. Sometimes we need to get back to at least the Seventies when we still had a manager in charge.

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    6. I think if someone in the banks seemed to know something about banking it would be a help, Helena.

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  20. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzJmTCYmo9g

    A simple and very funny explanation about it all.

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  21. It was 1893 for the Glasgow Saving's Bank collapse

    http://tinyurl.com/p4wxn3j

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    Replies
    1. Cheers Panda...

      I'm using the George parr for a post, because by this time no t too many people will see it buried at comment number 50!

      Ands it is SOOO good.

      Thanks.

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  22. Actually Alex Salmond is repeatedly pointing out plan B by referring everyone asking about it to the Fiscal Commission paper.

    The problem is that he can't explicitly call any other option plan B

    If he named any of them as plan B the headlines in next day's press would be on the lines of:

    Nats admit defeat on currency union.
    Darling says plan to use pound without central bank will result in no control of monetary policy and no lender of last resort for banks and will be a disaster for Scotland.

    Nats admit defeat on currency union.
    Darling says plan for own currency will result in huge currency transaction costs for trade with England and will be a disaster for Scotland.

    For any other plan B you can just fill in the blanks.

    Nats admit defeat on currency union.
    Darling says [insert plan B here] will result in [insert doom and gloom here] and will be a disaster for Scotland.

    Naming plan B would be an open goal for the press/Better Together/the BBC.

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  23. Seems to me there is really no need for plan B.

    But I note that there are already plans for a new flag.

    So westminster must be planning, even if they won't discuss it.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2593781/Scot-free-Union-Jack-gets-Yes-vote-makeover-Secret-Government-papers-reveal-flag-look-Scotland-votes-independence.html

    (Accept it's the DM so it might be a pile of lies.)

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