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Sterling/ Euro - heading towards parity, and beyond...?
Sterling/ Euro - heading towards parity, and beyond...?My foreign exchange screen is showing the sterling/ euro exchange rate down below 1.15, with depressingly little sign of support. I have a Chertovian gut feel that if it breaks the 1.10 level, barring an even bigger fuck up in Europe, it'll pop onto the express elevator down to parity where the Big Fun will really start in earnest
Looking around some shops today and chatting with some chums in retail I've come away with the distinct impression that no-one's ordering any more stock for next year. Once current stock is liquidated everything we need to import (which would be everything) is going to cost 30-40% more
All that pissing around and financial rhetoric of the last few weeks has changed nothing and has almost certainly made the eventual outcome worse. UK interest rates are near zero, the printing presses are being cranked up and it's getting harder and harder to find foreign mugs willing to feed and clothe us in exchange for nothing more than our fucked up, yieldless, worthless money
However, looking on the bright side...
er...
Still, there's no shortage of entertaining, domestically produced child abuse stories to take our minds off things...
Baby P. is sooooooo last week
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43 comments:
And apparently the treasury is looking into something called quantitative easing.
Which is essentially a nice sounding euphemism for printing money and dropping it out of helicopters.
Get those wheelbarrows ready...
great minds think alike and a slightly edited post makes passing reference to quantitative easing
I have shifted uncomfortably over the last few weeks with all this talk about inflation worries now been over. Sure, demand is dropping off a cliff, but there's a bottomless pit of freshly printed government money ready to fill the gap. And do we really trust Brown, Mervin and co to get the balance right and not trigger a hyper-inflationary spiral? It's playing with fire and we all know who'll end up getting burnt.
My best guess and what I'm personally acting on...
1. Deflation for a few months
2. Then hyperinflation once all that money that's been stashed away in Shadowlalaland is unleashed
3. The gentlest of taserings for anyone who has a problem with that
Sounds like a good call to me. I was getting quite morose about my oil and gold positions which have taken such a battering recently but I don't think we've seen the end of them quite yet.
/ dons rampant capitalist hat
in £ terms gold has held up well
oil looks like a one way bet (ok, a bet with a favourably asymmetric risk/ return profile) - as if it falls any lower production would simply be cut
/ discards rampant capitalist hat
a currency crash, and it really does feel like the PtB are trying to stoke one up, would compress timescales sharply
it might be a good idea to pop round to the Post Office and buy next year's holiday money early
Not going to be much point in me trying to save a deposit when the inflation will wipe it out...
I wouldn't worry about that
The price of houses and anything else people usually borrow to pay for will continue heading into the crapper regardless
You can't eat a house
"This was a very unusual case and despite our inquiries the circumstances of why and how the money came to be torn up and put in the bin remains a mystery."
The value of the notes has been estimated at around £10,000 but Mr Hill faces a tough task, police said.
So this is how they've been hiding all that worthless paper cash.
Bank of England mulls "nuclear option" of cash injection
The Bank of England is working on radical plans to inject cash directly into the economy - the nuclear option to be used only when interest rates approach zerö
oil looks like a one way bet (ok, a bet with a favourably asymmetric risk/ return profile) - as if it falls any lower production would simply be cut
Brent Crude down to $42 today, with forecasts talking about $25. I'm seriously thinking about calling shenanigans
Of course, only a paranoid loony would suggest that the process of stopping out all the mug punters with sharp price falls before ramping things up could ever be the result of deliberate manipulation
the nuclear option to be used only when interest rates approach zerö...
The head of a blood-drenched dynasty of usurers speaks...
"Ethics - we have lost sight of an honest day's work for an honest day's pay.
Careful management - we have indulged our wants without the taxes or the prices or the cash to pay for them...
This era of struggle may last as long.
Until we can be generous in accepting fault for our predicament, we will have difficulty dropping our suspicions about others so that we can get on with repairing the damage.
Unless action is taken soon, we can only see a long time of difficult and very onerous problems continuing.
Could be one or two years.
It is therefore essential that management must take a firm look at it's problems and accept its faults and redeem them.
A lot of talk and a lot of words have been written.
But in the end action has to be taken and action must be taken very soon if we are not going to see this stretched out over many years."
Got to laugh at a Rothschild lecturing other people about morals. The grand architects of f**king up the money system for personal gain. Oddly theres no "have your say" for that piece.
from the same joke book...
A senior MP has said it is "ridiculous" that the head of a government-owned body which helps to tackle poverty in developing countries earns nearly £1m.
Oddly theres no "have your say" for that piece.
you noticed that too
a nice portent of the future methinks
Currencies are a tricky one at the moment, it’s a race to the bottom with GB doing everything he can to really FUBR the British economy at every turn but he does have some stiff competition in Spain and Italy, and there's the rub. The Euro-zone could still mess things up right-royally as they tend to pursue politics above prudence.
I'm waiting for the big dollar bail but I hear a rumour that China are preparing to manufacture a currency devaluation somehow. Now that will set the cat among the pigeons.
The Chinese are starting to get just a little bit pissy about the prospects of the Americans devaluing all that junk paper they've been passing around
Italy's a fucking mess and ripe for meltdown. On the other hand, that's what Italians do best and they've had loads of practice. I won't point to any stats but, based on personal experience, here and in Italy the pasta chompers still retain the productive infrastructure to see themselves through hard times. If a certain pending visa application doesn't work out I'll be slipping off there shortly
Spain is just a mess
Thanks heavens for those thrifty Teutons
Of course, sterling isn't just tanking against the Euro
It's being slaughtered in comparison to virtually everything - including that personification of financial stability the mighty Pakistani Rupee
oh goody
sterling's up a bit today
/ sells sterling
Question: When will one Pound be worth less than one Euro?
take the poll!
http://post.euro.polls.yahoo.com/quiz/quizresults.php
so far in the poll
It won't - this is a temporary, albeit heavy, fluctuation 64% said 54votes
I remember the good old days when people were just worried about parity
*sigh*
the Euro/ US$/ £ are headed towards the same place
in the long run which one got there first will be academic
Pentagon raises status of 'irregular warfare'
waahhooo get ready for a LOT more AlCIAEDA attacks.
WASHINGTON (AFP) – The Pentagon has issued a directive putting the fight against terrorism and guerrilla warfare on the same footing as traditional warfare in terms of military planning and doctrine, officials said Thursday.
The directive was signed December 1 by Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England, who outlined roles and responsibilities for developing capabilities for fighting non-conventional threats.
"It is DoD policy to recognize that IW (irregular warfare) is as strategically important as traditional warfare," the directive said.
Under the directive, irregular warfare is defined as encompassing counter-terrorism operations, guerrilla warfare, foreign internal defense, counterinsurgency and stability operations.
It instructs the Defense Department to develop capabilities to:
-- identify and prevent or defeat irregular threats from state and non-state actors
-- extend US reach into denied areas and uncertain environments by operating with and through indigenous foreign forces
-- train, advise and assist foreign security forces and partners
-- support a foreign government or population threatened by irregular adversaries
-- create a safe, secure environment in fragile states.
its an old strategy.Divide the world and conquer.
This may be the answer to your problems -trust the Frogs to be ahead of the game.
http://tinyurl.com/6ap3pz
< shameless post plug >
Weimar Republic, anyone?
< /shameless post plug >
Is the Dollar rally over?
http://bonddad.blogspot.com/2008/12/forex-fridays.html#links
yohohoh Santa Clause is coming to give yeah all a pinf fuckin slip.
Employers Slash 533,000 Jobs in Nov., Most in 34 Years- AP
The government says employers axed 533,000 jobs in November, the most in 34 years, and the unemployment rate rose to 6.7 percent. It was dramatic proof the country is careening ever deeper into recession. The Labor Department's report shows the crucial employment market deteriorating at an alarmingly rapid clip, and handed Americans some more grim news right before the holidays.
One thing I personally didn't see coming was (temporary?) strengthening of the dollar off the back of lots of people closing $ denominated investments/ positions
Right now there are an awful lot of people sitting on an awful lot of cash looking for something that will sustain the illusory value of that cash
Going forward, any idea/ commodity/ country that looks like it will fit the bill is going to be choked with the stuff
Apocalypse Clarkson
Jeremy Clarkson telling people on national radio that it's time to start growing vegetables is as reliable a portent of the End Times as I could possibly conceive
"Of course, sterling isn't just tanking against the Euro
It's being slaughtered in comparison to virtually everything - including that personification of financial stability the mighty Pakistani Rupee"
Well if he will insist on needlessly lowering our interest rates this is a dead cert outcome, then with our dependence on imports we get massive inflation. QED Britain financially destroyed, job done.
legalise all drugs, the amount
london spend on Charlie every week should clear the national deficit in 2 years.
"Currencies are a tricky one at the moment,"
Not tricky just a crime against humanity. (Along with passports).
Get rid of the two and everything else falls into place.
Whats your take on the Olympic "terror threat" and related scaremongering? Was just on the BBC now, apparently the security costs are skyrocketing...
lol
the answer to that question practically writes itself
and as Terence McKenna pointed out so eloquently, the spiral of time does appear to be tightening and a lot is going to happen in the next four years - chickens will come home to roost, bubbles will burst and global problems will call for global solutions. The XXX Olympiad is set to be something quite special - and not necessarily in a good way
have missed the news of the latest 'surprise' cost increase - off for a root around now...
Agreed.
The current official threat level is "severe" after the Mumbai attacks.
Which incidentally are nothing compared to deaths from the usual religion-associated violence across India, but since foreigners were involved this time its a big deal...
Which incidentally are nothing compared to deaths from the usual religion-associated violence across India
or a slightly worse than usual day in Baghdad
I'm not sure anyone's even bothering to report the Iraqi death toll anymore
I'm not sure anyone's even bothering to report the Iraqi death toll anymore
According to Craig Murray's blog, its nearly 1.3 million.
Meanwhile the [known] UK government debt rises towards 10% of GDP, according to HM Treasury's office...
Stef, I'm glad to see that the current economic problems have enabled you to take your mind off of melting steel buildings, cruise missiles disguised as airliners, and other various improbable oddities.
Perhaps we can get the economy back under control and then you can go back to good old-fashioned conspiratorialism.
They're just different chapters in the same story
There comes a time in the personal awakening process of every Conspiraloon when they have to ask themselves are the melting steel buildings, cruise missiles disguised as airliners, and other various improbable oddities paving the way for...
1. Establishment of a global plantation/ gulag slave economy/ New World Order?
or
2. The first wave of Alien landings, scheduled to touch down in the Olympic Stadium in 2012?
Personally speaking, I concluded that my own brand of Loonery is grounded in the political and economic rather than the multi-dimensional
It is my belief that 9/11, 7/7, the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, the changes in our laws and the intrusive new technologies were all deliberate precursors to the inevitable crash
I also sense that the crash started a little earlier than was expected and the repressive infrastructure is nowhere near as developed as it was planned to be
which would mean some more melting steel buildings, cruise missiles disguised as airliners, and other various improbable oddities could be headed our way real soon now
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