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1. 10 chenier says:
   October 19th, 2008 at 6:05 pm

   Enjoy your dinner, Val, and remember: it’s not the equity markets that you have to worry about.

   And interest rates are almost certainly tied to Libor, which is why I make an effort to check LIBOR each day.

   It’s a bit like inspecting the entrails of a goat…

2. 9 val says:
   October 19th, 2008 at 5:58 pm

   It seems the Stock Market in U.S.A. does not have faith in the rescue operation and
   since it is prone to panic, every Country follows suit. I wonder how much interest
   the Government is paying on the Sovereign Fund loan?

   All these repossessions mean more problems trying to re-house the the Families
   involved. I think we should take some initiative and ban all Immigration until we
   have cleared the backlog, deported those who don”t qualify, and Educted our
   youngsters, not just to go to UNi, but learn a trade so we don”t have to bring in
   Labour from Abroad.

   Off the soap box now, got to sort out Dinner.

3. 8 chenier says:
   October 19th, 2008 at 5:38 pm

   Clearly the bank could and should have done more to assist your friend; it does nobody any good to play beggar my neighbour, particularly when it results in beggaring themselves as well.

   But Dog only knows where Boulton got his figure of 12.5% from; the Government here, and in many other countries, has poured hundreds of billions into the financial markets in order to get the money market moving again; the point is that the banks don’t trust each other and won’t lend to each other.

   And that is hugely worrying, because if the people who should know most about what they are sitting on are scared shitless, then the odds are that there we’ve seen only the tip of the iceberg of toxic slime…

4. 7 val says:
   October 19th, 2008 at 5:26 pm

   chenier

   Northern Rock was never mentioned, what did emerge is 45,000 people have
   lost their homes recently. I personally know of a case, not with Northern Rock,
   where this Lady could not pay her Mortgage when the Fixed Rate expired. Her bank
   did nothing to help and the House had to be sold . The Lady still owes the Bank £40,000 and is paying £750 a month for a rented Flat. Her Mortgage repayment
   was £1,000…………. and the Bank couldn”t reduce her payment until the Economy
   improved or extended the term of her Mortgage???????

5. 6 chenier says:
   October 19th, 2008 at 5:10 pm

   Val

   Then he doesn’t know what the word interest means, which just goes to show that Sky has its own Troubled Assets, in the shape of its reporters.

   Yvette Cooper probably does know what it means, though possibly the point has eluded her in one of her many briefings.

   Northern Rock has the good fortune to have a roof over its head thanks to the nationalisation in February, when they were saved by the taxpayers’ money; unfortunately it seems to believe that this provides it with carte blanche to evict as many poor payers as rapidly as possible, thus allowing it to repay us, the taxpayers, well ahead of schedule.

   The whole point of rescuing Northern Rock was to shore up the housing industry, the banking sector, and the homeowner.

   Northern Rock seems to think that the sole purpose of being rescued was to enable it to go back to trading mortgages with the least possible inconvenience to itself.

   Thus the bank’s chairman, Ron Sandler, says: “I would deny strenuously that we have been overly aggressive.”

   Note the impossibility of defining ‘overly’ and ‘aggressive’; these are weasel words put in his mouth by a PR.

   The charity ‘Shelter’ has told Channel 4 News that from January to June 2008, the total number of repossessed properties on Northern Rock’s books was three and a half times the industry average.

   A couple of days back I pointed out that Rock got itself into this by offering loans of 125% of a house’s value; to make matters worse on 1 November, a tranche of its fixed-rate mortgage deals expire. Some customers will move from a rate of 3.99 per cent to 7.34 per cent, in an economy where unemployment is rising and output is dropping.

   Large scale evictions will be paid for by the taxpayers, one way or another; somebody needs to make that point crystal clear. Admittedly, Boulton probably isn’t the person to do that since he’s a fully paid up Blair fan, but claiming that Rock is being forced to do this by the government is a straight forward lie. It isn’t…

6. 5 val says:
   October 19th, 2008 at 4:36 pm

   chenier

   That”s right, Yvette Cooper, she” seems to be on T.V. a lot, that”s about the 4th time
   iv”e seen her.

   He certainly did claim the Banks were being charged 12.5% interest and Yvette
   really didn”t deny it.
   Cooper

7. 4 chenier says:
   October 19th, 2008 at 4:26 pm

   Val

   That wasn’t a spokesperson, that was Yvette Cooper, Chief Secretary to the Treasury, and I profoundly hope that Adam Boulton didn’t claim that the bank was paying interest at 12.5% to the Government.

   It would be nice to feel that Adam Boulton, Sky’s economics reporter, actually knows what interest is…

8. 3 val says:
   October 19th, 2008 at 4:04 pm

   On Adam Boulton”s Sky Programme, the Labour spokeswoman, can”t remember her
   name, was saying how the Government were going to help the Construction Industry
   both to keep people in work and also finish projects (would it be anything to do with
   the Olympic Games do you think?)

   Also the Government are to ask the Banks to give Homeowners more support and try
   to help them instead of forcing them to sell their homes. Adam asked how the Banks
   could help when they are being charged 12.5% interest to the Government on their
   borrowings, needless to say the woman tried to justify this .

9. 2 chenier says:
   October 19th, 2008 at 1:27 pm

   I think David Cameron probably is trying to erase the incredibly stupd remarks he made at the Conference about supporting the risk takers in the financial markets who had generated so much wealth.

   He really should have known better; now he’s desperately trying to pretend that the Tories are for the small business people, but I doubt that will sound anymore plausible than McCain’s ‘the US economy is in great shape’…

10. 1 Janish says:
    October 19th, 2008 at 1:20 pm

    VAT Holiday, whats the point of that! we will just end up with an even bigger payment later. Lets face it, if a small business such as my own can’t pay thier VAT then they are ,very unfortunatly, already in deep trouble.

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