Bolitics The New Condem Government

[tonyh29]

He'll certainly grow into the role over the next few years

will he actually be given that long ? accept he may need time but he's way out of his depth and doesn't have his parties backing .. I suspect the only people that want Ed as labour leader are the Tories and Lib Dems

[drat01]

I don't really use the trains since I stopped working in London , but I was under the impression trains had improved .. possibly not the over crowding issue but the trains I see now are a vast improvement on the ones I used to see

As someone who has recently "come back" to the trains, I can say that they are now a whole lot worse than they used to be. Vastly overpriced, awful service, constantly overcrowded (and I would argue unsafe). The extra set of rises that the Gvmt are seemingly so happy to inflict on the public, again show that the pandering to shareholders is more important than providing a decent set of public transport. The train systems on the continent are a mix of public and private ownership and I would say that nearly all are significantly better than the poor one we have to suffer here in the UK

As for Ed Milliband, a lot at the moment comes down to "what he says" compared to how people see "what he says". Cameron is a marketing man, someone trained in PR, often though he fails miserably at it, but the politics of today should be more about the doing rather than apearing to do. Look at PMQ, Cameron avoids any questions from the opposition, while playing the old puppy dog eyes to pre arranged questions from the Tory and the Lib/Tory MP's. Its a con, and often if you actually get to see a transcript of the politicians you can get to understand a whole lot more of what is being said.

[PauloBarnesi]

I don't really use the trains since I stopped working in London , but I was under the impression trains had improved .. possibly not the over crowding issue but the trains I see now are a vast improvement on the ones I used to see

They really haven’t in the majority of cases; the ones that have improved and offered innovation are run by Deutsche Bahn! The West Coast Main line run by Virgin is actually slower than under BR (The APT in the 80s on slower track could do the Glasgow route 18 minutes quicker than the Virgin train). The seats are smaller, less toilets (if they have any working ones).

Yes most of the old trains under BR were dreadful, but now the government gives much more money to the railways when it was nationalised, which seems to make no sense.

[tonyh29]

i accept peoples own opinions may differ , but they do seem to be at odds with the overall consensus

"Money invested through fares has helped to bring about the record levels of customer satisfaction and punctuality on the railways today."

I'm also curious as to how the train fare increases are being used as another stick to beat the Tories with though , all i could find was a statement from the chief exec of Atoc that said

"The government is sticking with the previous administration's policy to cut the taxpayers' contribution to the overall cost of running the railways.

So I assume it's another case of Labour good , Tory bad ?

Saw this earlier , might be of interest ?

48p in every £1 goes to Network Rail, which charges operators to access tracks and other infrastructure costs

17p on staff

17p on miscellaneous costs including train maintenance, administration, contractors

11p on leasing trains

4p on fuel/energy

3p to train company profit

[tonyh29]

Look at PMQ, Cameron avoids any questions from the opposition

Oh Ian .. you just know the Hypocrisy of that post don't you ..

a lot at the moment comes down to "what he says" compared to how people see "what he says"

Sadly that isn't unique to Ed .. As students have recently proved to the country , people only see what they want to see and don't actually want to listen

[tonyh29]

25-29% reduction:

Burnley BC (21); Bolsover DC (55); South Tyneside MBC (3; Hartlepool BC (23); Blackburn with Darwen BC (17); Copeland BC (7; Liverpool City Council (1); Sefton MBC (83); Doncaster MBC (41); North East Lincolnshire Council (49); Sunderland City Council (35); Hull City Council (11);Blackpool BC (12); Wolverhampton City Council (2

And yet your post seems to suggest you think the cuts are cool :-)

bugger attempted humour didn't work on the quoted version , see Drats original post

[blandy]

Ever since the railways were privatised use has massively increased, yet prices and services haven’t improved. The Tories, Labour and now the Tories again have failed the railways. Interesting that we are ordering all these new things for railways yet we can’t seem to build the things anymore, bar Bombadier in Derby.

I blame Beardie

I blame everyone, but mostly the Tories for the effing shambles.

[Awol]

So we can "loan" money to Ireland, but not to Forgemasters? - I wonder which one will payback?

The Irish loan is an(other) indirect bailout to our banks. If we are not going to let some of our banks go bust then the loan is absolutely necessary to maintain the stability of our banking sector. Loaning money to Forgemasters is not a critical issue to national stability, is it?

Perhaps we should let banks go bust....

I agree completely and a successful model to follow already exists in Islamic banking, although we should be looking at 0% interest rates for social rather than religious reasons.

In terms of letting the insolvent banks go bust it would need to be a Europe wide solution in order not to undermine individual countries, but in principle it seems like the way to go. We should never have bailed them out in the first place and instead used (some of) the money to insulate British savers and businesses when RBS and HBOS went down.

Chances of the above happening? 0%.

[TrentVilla]

In terms of letting the insolvent banks go bust it would need to be a Europe wide solution in order not to undermine individual countries, but in principle it seems like the way to go. We should never have bailed them out in the first place and instead used (some of) the money to insulate British savers and businesses when RBS and HBOS went down.

Chances of the above happening? 0%.

Do you not think though this is unrealistic? As you say this would have to the a European solution and as such in reality was never going to happen.

It might be okay in theory but so are lots of things including communism but the reality is often very different.

I'm not saying I think bailing out the banks was the right thing but that faced with the choices available it was perhaps the best available because better options such as the one you suggest weren't really ever an option.

[Awol]

In terms of letting the insolvent banks go bust it would need to be a Europe wide solution in order not to undermine individual countries, but in principle it seems like the way to go. We should never have bailed them out in the first place and instead used (some of) the money to insulate British savers and businesses when RBS and HBOS went down.

Chances of the above happening? 0%.

Do you not think though this is unrealistic? As you say this would have to the a European solution and as such in reality was never going to happen.

It might be okay in theory but so are lots of things including communism but the reality is often very different.

I'm not saying I think bailing out the banks was the right thing but that faced with the choices available it was perhaps the best available because better options such as the one you suggest weren't really ever an option.

Okay let's say that the UK alone had done this with its insolvent banks, the chain reaction would probably have forced others to follow anyway. My suggestion of a Europe wide solution was to try and limit the collatoral damage but that doesn't mean we couldn't have pulled it off anyway, or indeed that we couldn't do it now.

One problem we still have (other than UK bank exposure in Euro using countries) is the continuing false valuation of assets, specifically houses and land. Now that new mortgages are being issued at more realistic levels house prices will eventually have to fall to reflect their true value. The only reason our banks balance sheets don't look even worse currently is because they are still based on arificial valuations. When the arse drops out of that - as it must eventually - then they'll be back for more cash.

Even if we wanted to, can UKPlc pay for that AND all of their other bad debt? I honestly think that in the long run we're better off managing the failure of several large banks, it will hurt but at least what is left will be 'honest' and we can begin to rebuild with a clean slate. The alternative is greater and greater debt for the tax payer while the people responsible walk away laughing.

[peterms]

In terms of letting the insolvent banks go bust it would need to be a Europe wide solution in order not to undermine individual countries, but in principle it seems like the way to go. We should never have bailed them out in the first place and instead used (some of) the money to insulate British savers and businesses when RBS and HBOS went down.

Chances of the above happening? 0%.

Do you not think though this is unrealistic? As you say this would have to the a European solution and as such in reality was never going to happen.

It might be okay in theory but so are lots of things including communism but the reality is often very different.

I'm not saying I think bailing out the banks was the right thing but that faced with the choices available it was perhaps the best available because better options such as the one you suggest weren't really ever an option.

We were told there was no option, but there was, though it would certainly have been messy.

The banks stopped lending to each other because they knew that the assets they were lending against were in many cases virtually worthless. Since they knew that about other banks' assets, of course they were fully aware of the extent of their own toxic debt.

Successive bailouts with public money didn't work, because the scale of the fantasy assets they had been misvaluing was so extreme that the money pumped in was nowhere near enough.

In that situation, there are two choices. The losses can either be shouldered by the people who caused the problem, or else it can be dumped on some other poor mugs. Of course the banks prefer to dump it on us, and with compliant governments who have just rolled over, we are in a situation where we are being hit massively through increased taxes and cuts in services, increased unemployment and falling demand, years of recession and burdens for years to come, in order to protect the wealth of the already wealthy. Ireland is about to do just this, because the alternative is not being seriously discussed. It's utter madness.

Banks do go bust without the world ending. It requires protection of depositors (not bankers and owners), not the blank cheques which have been handed out to protect what is basically a corrupt system built on a black hole of enormous debt.

Let them go bust. Let the people who own the banks take what I understand is called a "haircut". Protect the depositors. Protect ourselves from the damage. Put resources into a more stable and less corrupt system.

If we bail them out, they will just carry on as before. The bonuses are just the most visible form of this, an insouciant two fingers to the rest of us. The real problem is bigger, it's the casino mentality coupled with the vast extent of the gambling losses they have run up.

I don't see a better way out than treating them like any other bankrupt business.

[TrentVilla]

Edit - the follwing was in reply to AWOL

It surely isn't that simple though is it? I mean say we had let those banks fail, what about the knock on effects of that cause of action? What about the huge job losses? What about the personal losses for customers who had more than £50k invested? What about the cost to the treasury of covering the losses upto £50k? What would such a decision mean to the wider economy? To businesses using those banks for their business accounts or using their over draft and loan facilities to function? What would it have meant to London as a financial capital? What about huge number of jobs in London that are on the back of it being such a financial capital?

Once again I'm not saying that we should have bailed the banks out, more that I don't know enough to be able to answer all these and many more questions which would enable me to say we shouldn't.

[LondonLax]

If the governments around the world had not bailed out their banks it would have lead to a great depression style fallout.

It sucks and as frustrating as it can be, socialising the banks losses is the better option for society than letting the whole system collapse.

We just have to make sure it doesn't get to that position again and learn from the mistakes.

[TrentVilla]

Successive bailouts with public money didn't work, because the scale of the fantasy assets they had been misvaluing was so extreme that the money pumped in was nowhere near enough.

Indeed but do you think Brown knew that at the time? If so why would he take the course of action that he did? Its one thing to say it didn't work, that in hindsight it was wrong, it doesn't though mean it was the incorrect course of action at the time with the facts known at the time.

I say that even though personally I think I would rather have seen the banks fail.

Banks do go bust without the world ending. It requires protection of depositors (not bankers and owners), not the blank cheques which have been handed out to protect what is basically a corrupt system built on a black hole of enormous debt.

I agree with that although as i said in response to AWOL there are many knock on things to consider.

[TrentVilla]

If the governments around the world had not bailed out their banks it would have lead to a great depression style fallout.

It sucks and as frustrating as it can be, socialising the banks losses is the better option for society than letting the whole system collapse.

We just have to make sure it doesn't get to that position again and learn from the mistakes.

I think that is my view point as well.

[peterms]

If the governments around the world had not bailed out their banks it would have lead to a great depression style fallout.

It sucks and as frustrating as it can be, socialising the banks losses is the better option for society than letting the whole system collapse.

We just have to make sure it doesn't get to that position again and learn from the mistakes.

The bailing out has not worked. That is because the extent of the problem is so vast. More money will be needed, and more on top of that, and there just isn't enough.

That's quite apart from the bigger issue, which is this: these losses are a sole and direct result of private arrangements made between different private institutions. There is no reason whatever for the rest of us to shoulder the burden of these losses, any more than if a construction company buys a dodgy piece of land or a manufacturer makes a product which doesn't sell. The effect of bailing them out via taxes and cuts in services will be to protect the wealthy from the losses which are rightfully theirs, by pushing the burden onto the poor.

That is, plain and simple, wrong. And as well as that, it hasn't been working, and won't work.

Yes, there's going to be a mess. No way round that. Many of these banks are ****. Write them off, and get on with rebuilding.

[peterms]

Successive bailouts with public money didn't work, because the scale of the fantasy assets they had been misvaluing was so extreme that the money pumped in was nowhere near enough.

Indeed but do you think Brown knew that at the time? If so why would he take the course of action that he did? Its one thing to say it didn't work, that in hindsight it was wrong, it doesn't though mean it was the incorrect course of action at the time with the facts known at the time.

Hard to say, but my guess would be that it was known the banks were lying about the scale of the problems they had created, but the extent and depth of the lying was probably not realised.

If the proposal put to Brown had been to throw many millions at the banks, but still fall far, far short of resolving the problem, the I suppose the rationale for doing so might have been a gamble that an action like that might restore confidence so that things would pick up. That would sound like a very flimsy argument though, in the face of what the markets were doing and what was already known about the success of previous attempts to bluff the markets. I think it's more likely that the banks were continuing to lie about what was really happening, but people didn't realise at the time the full extent of their lying, and that Brown and others probably thought the intervention would have some effect, where in fact it was just pissing in the wind.

[Awol]

Considering Brown strong armed the perfectly solvent Lloyds into buying HBOS promptly causing it to go bust, I'd suggest he didn't really know what was happening.

[snowychap]

If the governments around the world had not bailed out their banks it would have lead to a great depression style fallout.

It sucks and as frustrating as it can be, socialising the banks losses is the better option for society than letting the whole system collapse.

Is it the better option? It's probably the least expensive and messy one (in the short term) but one crucial part of it being so is:

We just have to make sure it doesn't get to that position again and learn from the mistakes.

And that's where it all probably falls down.

Then again we're unlikely to learn from any previous mistakes even if 'rebuilding the system' after letting it collapse.

[peterms]

An example here from a blog, giving an illustration of how it continues to spiral down, even after intervention to "fix" the problem.

Piraeus Bank, Greece's forth largest lender, said today its profits for the first 9 months of this year were down 94%!

Earlier this year Piraeus was one of Greece's poster boys for the strength of their recovery and the certainty of growth - so much so that Piraeus was bidding to take over the government's stake in two even more ailing Banks, ATE Bank and Hellenic Postbank. Needless to say that offer has been withdrawn.

The 94% collapse in profits is due, they said, to increasing losses on bad debts. Those would be the bad debts that Greece had sorted out and the European Bail out had double sorted out. Look boys and girls 15% is an increase. 60 % is a rude shock. 94% is slamming into a concrete block.

But it's just Greece right? Like Ireland is 'just' Ireland.

Let's look at who Piraeus has close links to - it major correspondents. They are, from their own paperwork:

Germany - Deutsche Bank, Commerzbank plus two Landesbanks - the Hessen and the Beyerische. The latter should make you wince.

France - Societe General

Ireland - Bank of Ireland

GB - RBS, Nat. West, HSBC

Italy - Unicredit ( actually it is through Unicredit Austria but therein lies a sordid tale. Unicredit Austria also appears again on the list via its ZAO Unicredit Bank in Russia - you join the dots)

USA Bank of New York, JP Morgan Chase.

There are others from other countries- Danske Svensca, Sumitomo.

So will the problem at Piraeus spread or be contained? I leave you to decide. Also worth a brain cell is the question m- is it likely that Piraeus is the only Greek bank whose profits are dying?

And if you think the answer to that is 'no' then what of the epic mythology of Greek growth?

Greece is sinking. It's banks are bleeding like naked fat men rolling in rusty razor blades, its fiction of growth is in tatters and its austerity measures are not going to hold. While at the other periphery Ireland is similar trouble. And between them sit THE SAME German and French, Italian and Austrian Banks who are exposed to BOTH of them

Oh yeah sure it's all contained!