Gringo

The main lesson one can learn from the current EURO issues is that currency can not be unified if economies are not unified. Economies can not be unified without political unification. Which would seem to contradict this. You either have unified political structures or different currencies - the middle ground, the compromises cannot work.

Mostly investing them in fillies at newmarket. My asset holdings are in property (market still looking at a 20% correction of 5 years stagflation ) and my only equity investments are in ozzie mining shares which could fall 30-50% when the commodity bubble pops, and so are looking for a new home. So come on LL - I've shown you mine, fair's fair - what's your picks - where are your savings going? Well the money I have is just sitting in a bank account earning less interest than the rate of inflation so I'm looking for suggestions but everything seems like it could be risky whilst the Greece issue is not sorted. I'm interested if people in the Eurozone are worried that their currency will take a hit. Buy greek bonds - some of the hedge funds have been piling the stuff over the last couple of months in anticipation of the next bail out - could double your money if you time it right.

Which metals? If it's gold, I don't think we're going to see the gold bubble pop any time soon. While I wouldn't rule out a 50% plus drop in gold prices, I don't see confidence in the central banks of the world increasing to the point that gold comes anywhere near its industrial price (which is probably somewhere on the order of $100 an ounce). Non-monetized commodities are another story, though. Gold's a funny, anti-cyclical investment - I just don't like it at the moment. There is more gold flowing around the exchanges than being mined - it seems a little bubblistic itself (though I've said that whilst the price has gone up 20%). My main exposure though is probably copper and steel which will (could) halve in value if we see a major disruption to the major economies.

Mostly investing them in fillies at newmarket. My asset holdings are in property (market still looking at a 20% correction of 5 years stagflation ) and my only equity investments are in ozzie mining shares which could fall 30-50% when the commodity bubble pops, and so are looking for a new home. So come on LL - I've shown you mine, fair's fair - what's your picks - where are your savings going?

The reason they are in debt is because the EU mismanaged it's currency. Selling eurobonds gave the banks a riskfree way of printing money, knowing that the EU wouldn't let greece break the currency. And so the ECB and national banks have been buying the bonds off the bankers either directly or via the bailouts. 3 years ago, 90% of this debt was held by corporate bodies - now thanks to the generosity of the EU taxpayers, that is below 50%. So when lending goes well, the bank takes the profit - when lending goes badly, the sovereign funds take the hit. The politicians screw up and line their pockets, the bankers post profits and collect bonuses and the taxpayers gets to pay for it all. Trebles all around.

Mostly investing them in fillies at newmarket. My asset holdings are in property (market still looking at a 20% correction of 5 years stagflation ) and my only equity investments are in ozzie mining shares which could fall 30-50% when the commodity bubble pops, and so are looking for a new home.

Well that's the only place the money could have gone - it's not like the billions have been spent improving the country's infrastructure and helping the economy become more efficient. But even the politico leaders in the old established economies are not above the odd back hander to ensure the banks continue to thrive.

Because like most govt structures, the place is full of crooks lining their own pockets. Banks know this.

The money that was lent was lent in good faith and was squandered by the Greek government. You don't think the Greek government has any responsibility to pay it back? The Greek government has let its people down, it is not the fault of the banks who lent them the money. Banks don't lend money outy of the goodness of their hearts - it's a profit driven business. Indeed, they will tell you that they only make money by pricing the risk correctly. When they get it right they get paid brilliant bonuses, when they get it wrong they should get their fingers (and toes) burnt. The banks have let the people down by mispricing the loans, it is not the fault of the people who are offered the choice of tweedle dee or tweedle dum at the elections.

The markets are pricing a haircut of c70% on greek debt, so that's why there won't be a lehman's style "the day after tomorrow" panic where the world was full of unknown unknowns. There is still a serious settlement issue around the CDS trades and the capitalisation of some banks (french-belgian, german) will take big hits and probably lead to more govt (taxpayer) support. This could well lead to banks having to sell up stocks and shares to shore up their base. The QE fuelled equity bubble may then pop which would see a further hemorrhaging of confidence in the ponzi economy. The large investment banks are all increasing their trading in commodities as an alternative to the bond and equity markets that have been the staple of their revenues - and as a result, the commodities business is also beginning to show bubble like properties.

It's not the hanging on that makes it worse, it's the fact that during that period you have the IMF forcing the greeks to flog the family silver to the IMF's mates (banks, corporates) and then default anyway - so you have less family silver left with which to rebuild. It's a nasty con job by the IMF and political elites. How can they all lessen their exposure - they can only shuffle it around - like the plan to accept bondholders due for repayment in a fortnight to roll over their bonds for another 3 or 5 or 7 years. Of course they can't force them - but they can coerce them - banks are used to buying the occassional dog off a dealer to keep him happy in order to keep the good profitable stuff flowing - so the RBS of this world will have their arms twisted in order to save the belgian banks. The only strategy the EU and IMF have is to force them to privatise their water supply as pubishment for doing what the EU and IMF wanted (join the EURO) and let inflation take care of the debt. And we've seen how well that worked for Japan.

that's the same scare stories that were parlayed a few years back during the last lot of bank bailouts. Banks & Bankers screwed up; banks & bankers should pay. The collusion of people like goldman sachs in the falsification of budgets for the greek entry into the euro directly implicates them. Yes, but also about whether default follows another couple of rounds of "bailouts" ... that's what I meant about timing. the franco german pact seem desperate to hang on til 2013.

Default is inevitable. It's all about the timing now.

Economic commentator on R$ today this morning saying how much worse the crisis would have been if europe had had to deal with 17 differenet currencies during the crisis and that the euro had actually enhanced economic management capabilities. It's amazing that in these difficult times such fools can still find employment.

Mike's view on appropriate use of flowers. Instead of flowers. howabout a nice online petition to get one of the stands renamed after Witton Lane, and maybe invite Joe CalSlappy to do the opening. RIP WL HITS

Unlike the protests in all main towns and cities across Spain - that gets a least a paragraph every other day in either the indie or the grauniad.

Was Roy Aitken sacked with DOL in April - well there's half of 'ecks backroom staff available for no compo.

This morning I had forgotten they had been relegated. It's like christmas all over again.

So it wasn't Gordon Brown nor Gordon Gekko, it was Bin Laden (or maybe Hu Jintao)

I would have thought that very fact alone would have put Randy Lerner off hiring Hughes. He was Hughes' agent last year and apparently top of the shopping list.

I may have missed those - but I thought the only real effective change was closing the loophole of employee benefit trusts - and as Risso has pointed out the ingenius offshore accountants have simply replaced these with alternative trusts or remuneration schemes.

I presume the forum would prefer you spoke for yourself and not on their behalf. I could answer your question but there's no point, is there? You don't want to hear it. I would guess the number at the top of the page indicates he expresses the opinion of most of the forum contributors, that number saying rafacts -2%.

And what have they said?

Why?