Subscribe now and choose from over 30 free gifts worth up to £49 - Plus get £25 to spend in our shop
Near enough for me.
Racist.
[img] 
[/img]
Time for a N.London picture - Swaine's Lane, Highgate.
Time for a N.London picture.....
[img] 
[/img]
actually i lived in haringey which was a bit like this quite often
[img] 
[/img]
but it did have the salisbury arms!
[img] 
[/img]
now im in brentford which is a bit mleh but i like it
in other news it seems that Zeus is stepping in on the european debate
funnily enough hes not a socialist
[url= http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/may/15/eurozone-crisis-gdp-greek-government-talks ]
[/url]5.05pm: A remarkable newsflash on Reuters -- François Hollande's plane has apparently been hit by lightning on route to Berlin to meet with Angela Merkel, and is returning to Paris (attributed to a presidential source).Update: The new president of France has been swapped onto a second plane, and is even now winging his way to meet Angela Merkel. Our Paris correspondent, Angelique Chrisafis, reports that he now won't arrive until 8.30pm local time.
The Economist used the phrase Grexit to describe the process which no doubt will cause untold pain
Looks pretty exciting at the minute on the markets. EURUSD is dropping like a stone, euro financials are plummeting, CDS are blowing up everywhere....
I reckon we have a 50% chance of a Lehman style disruptive event in the next week due to the ugly interface of Greek and EU real-politik.
EURUSD is dropping like a stone
Some good news at last then. We can stop exporting jobs and importing everything else if it goes low enough. 1.17 or lower would be nice.
Yeah, (somewhat) surprisingly GBP is getting hammered too. Not sure if this is a good thing in that we will be able to export more, or a reflection that the markets have no faith in our current situation (i.e. pro-cyclical spending cuts).
On top of all that, it seems increasingly likely that the Fed will have to step in to reduce the liquidity pressure on financials and industry in the US. That should be bad for us too as the USD becomes relatively cheaper and hurts our exports/ causes price inflation in commodities and energy.
With deposit flight from the Greek banks now accelerating, the locals are starting to vote with their feet/ money.
Why is it surprising the £ is getting hammered? Economy under performing, government policies creating recession, idiots at the helm.
Yeah, (somewhat) surprisingly GBP is getting hammered too.
USD is the safe haven currency of choice when things look uncertain
and precious metals have lost their shine 😉 recently
T Bills FTW at the moment
1.2573?? Some hammering? Some indication of economy under performing etc.....!?!! Facts or fiction???
The real bizarre thing is the flight to quality into negative real yields, nice returns????
Double post
It'd be a good time to be a burglar in Greece, at the moment. Thats for sure. They reckon there's half a billion Euro's stashed under peoples mattresses. Which is hardly surprising given the circumstances, and the fact that tax is viewed as advisory, rather than mandatory
idiots at the helm.
Hardly a new thing is it? It's been that way for a long long time.
I miss Alastair Darlings comedy Bert 'n Ernie eyebrows though
[img] 
[/img]
Actually... I think I'd be more confident for the countries economic future, if it was in the hands of Bert and Ernie. I see the Bank of England have revised down the growth forecasts AGAIN
Its awful to watch this and awful to contemplate what will happen to Greece for at least a generation.
It started with cooking the books to meet the fiscal entry requirements for the Euro. They were already ****ed and sinking then. Joining the Euro was a massive stay of execution. The thing is there are alot of people who have invested in Greece failing. The banks have to pay out to them ontop of losing money loaned to Greece.
Everything will collapse in Greece, there will be an exodus of people of working age from Greece and their big money spinner- Holiday makers will stop coming for the short term.
It'll become similar to a North African economy/country for the next decade at least.
And the contagion may spread to the other PIIGS...
I don't think there's any 'may' about it
Well Spains a definite.
Anyone else has the banks/money's confidence in their import/export/potential.
Greece was never a 'European' system.
(sic).Well Spains a definite.
A definite what?
Low €uro? I'm happy.
I can't remember the exact stat but 1 in 5 of the unemployed in the whole of Europe are Spanish.
[quote=TandemJeremy said]Why is it surprising the £ is getting hammered? Economy under performing, government policies creating recession, idiots at the helm.
I thought the £ was strong at the moment ?
It's a race to the bottom, the £ will be more adversely affected by a euro crisis than the USD.
The only way the Sterling would be affected would be by currency speculators.
I see it being positive, people taking their savings/bonds etc out of Euros and putting them into safe/established currencies. i.e. The £ or $.
i see it as a positive
but a strong pound's bad for exporters...
so, we need to create just enough un-ease to scare away the people looking for a safe haven.
Hora, there is always opportunity in adversity...
but a strong pound's bad for exporters...
And good for importers... 😆
but a strong pound's bad for exporters
Not for exporters like Actionsports.de, rosebikes.de canyon.com and bike-discount.de it isn't
If the contagion spreads as it could the very last thing on your minds will be picking up cheap bikes...
If the contagion spreads as it could the very last thing on your minds will be picking up cheap bikes...
It's not just cheap bike though, is it?
It now becomes a question of priorities, what is more important for the UK?
A cheap €uro is going to boost €urozone exports that are not going to have any direct impact on the UK, and if anything a negative impact as UK exports will decrease.
Europe makes more than bikes.
Not for exporters like Actionsports.de, rosebikes.de canyon.com and bike-discount.de it isn't
Think you've got the wrong end of the stick here.
It's actually the likes of CRC and Wiggle whose international sales will suffer.
The relative strength of £ is a tad inconvenient for those here who like to trash the UK on here 😉 and the kleenex will have to be put back in the box as unemployment fell this morning. Not that this has much to do with governments anyway, but will those who take a rise in UN or a statistical blip in GDP data as an excuse to blame governments directly, now give them credit?!? Hardly, the silence is defeaning!!!
Then again most of this is just economic noise so 'no comment' either way is probably the best option!! Hopefully folk will remember that when the next negative blip occurs 😉
Then again most of this is just economic noise so 'no comment' either way is probably the best option!! Hopefully folk will remember that when the next negative blip occurs
Negative is relative, some of us have a cost advantage when everything is normal and an even bigger advantage when the Euro falls. That sounds like a win/win to me. 😀
Unemployment fell? Oh really?
ohnohesback - Member
Unemployment fell? Oh really?
I know, hard to take isn't it!?!?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18084679
But its about as relevant in the grander scheme of things as a statistical blip in GDP data.
Was the 'fall' down to people finding real jobs or just being forced on to pointless make-work schemes? I've lost count of how many times the unemployment figures have been 'massaged' since the early 1980s, it was at least twenty changes to the way they were calculated.
Aren't statistics great?
(Allegedly) Unemployment may be down, underemployment isn't. 'Real' jobs are being lost at a rate of knots. Part time jobs, less than 22 hours a week, with zero employment rights, mainly on minimum wage, have replaced them
All hail Gideons economic miracle
At this rate there will be no unemployment at all! 🙂