Eurozone will collapse...

[nomadking]

Regardless of whether they are inside or outside of the eurozone, if governments borrow ridiculous amounts, their country will end up in trouble.

Originally Posted by Osem

Economies fail, governments fall and markets are in turmoil yet have any of the architects of the Euro straightjacket disaster really been called to account for getting it so wrong? Have they even really acknowledged that anything is wrong with their grand scheme?

"whats the problem ,everything is fine ,there is no problem ,don't know what you're talking about,Greece? what's Greece got to do with anything,now stop asking questions i've a bucket of sand to stick my head in "

All this is proving good for the pound though ,so all the summer holiday makers will be going abroad taking their money with them and spending it abroad instead of in this country

Yes indeedy - current mid-market rates are 80.5 pence to the Euro, or €1.24 to the pound (tourist rates are not quite as good, reported as €1.20 in the news at 1pm). Still, the Euro has a way to fall before it hits the rate it was at a decade or so ago, when IIRC it was more like €1 = £0.68.

---------- Post added at 13:57 ---------- Previous post was at 13:56 ----------

Addendum ... the 10-year chart at xe.com is interesting:

http://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?fr...o=GBP&view=10Y

It looks as if the Euro's jump to the 80 pence-plus level coincided with the crash of 2008. Do we have any money market experts to explain why that would be? Was the Euro initially perceived as a safer port in the storm?

Originally Posted by Chris

It looks as if the Euro's jump to the 80 pence-plus level coincided with the crash of 2008. Do we have any money market experts to explain why that would be? Was the Euro initially perceived as a safer port in the storm?

Maybe the graph is upside down.

[Osem]

Originally Posted by martyh

All this is proving good for the pound though ,so all the summer holiday makers will be going abroad taking their money with them and spending it abroad instead of in this country

At least there'll be all those who'll be coming here for the Olympics, Jubillee celebrations etc.

---------- Post added at 14:40 ---------- Previous post was at 14:36 ----------

Originally Posted by Chris

It looks as if the Euro's jump to the 80 pence-plus level coincided with the crash of 2008. Do we have any money market experts to explain why that would be? Was the Euro initially perceived as a safer port in the storm?

NOT a currency expert (sadly never had enough of it to become one ) but I'm sure it was and I don't think the realities of what was going on in Greece, Spain, Portugal, Ireland etc. were fully appreciated at that time.

[richard s]

What a shame if the Euro was to go. If it does then the USA, China and possibly India will have a strong free hand in the world of economics and trade etc. If Europe fractures back to the dark days of my own little country ideaology (which this countries Tory and UKIPers) would want... fear for the future my friends.

We should be at the forefront of Europe and not always sitting on the bloody fence.

Time to change our name from Great Britain to Little Britain the Empire died years ago.

[Osem]

The Euro isn't what makes Europe strong - quite the reverse. The 'one size fits all' economic policy it requires is a positive hindrance to competitiveness with the countries you mention. The various nations of the EU don't need to be entirely separate entities or homogenised into a superstate in order to compete with the rest of the world.

The 'Great' in Britain has nothing to do with greatness, superiority or empire.

Originally Posted by richard s

Time to change our name from Great Britain to Little Britain the Empire died years ago.

'Great' is a geographical term that distinguishes the island from 'little' Britain, more commonly known as Brittany in France.

[Traduk]

Originally Posted by Chris

Yes indeedy - current mid-market rates are 80.5 pence to the Euro, or €1.24 to the pound (tourist rates are not quite as good, reported as €1.20 in the news at 1pm). Still, the Euro has a way to fall before it hits the rate it was at a decade or so ago, when IIRC it was more like €1 = £0.68.

---------- Post added at 13:57 ---------- Previous post was at 13:56 ----------

Addendum ... the 10-year chart at xe.com is interesting:

http://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?fr...o=GBP&view=10Y

It looks as if the Euro's jump to the 80 pence-plus level coincided with the crash of 2008. Do we have any money market experts to explain why that would be? Was the Euro initially perceived as a safer port in the storm?

I do not claim expertise because my forte is not currencies.

It would have been more easily understood had you set the cross on the chart to show Sterling against the Euro as most folk's primary interest is how many Euro's do they get to spend when away in Europe.

Whichever way you look at it, sterling fell off a cliff from 2008 onwards against most currency pairs and as I have stated in other threads it has been IMO due to the dilution of Sterling value against international crosses because in our case quantitative easing is comparable to a company issuing huge tranches of new stock. The net consequence is that value of old stock drops proportionately. With stocks the holders get a rights issue which makes up for dilution but with quantitative easing, we the public get a lot poorer if we want to spend in foreign currency.

In the wisdom of our leaders we followed the lead of the USA but without the protection of being holders of the global reserve currency and as a consequence we lost shed loads of value against the Dollar which as it is the currency of energy and commodities makes a huge fat lie of the con trick that global commodity prices are the cause of energy driven inflation. There is truth in the lie but the fact that to bail out the banks, our currency exchange fell 30% against the Dollar is conveniently forgotten because it added a massive percentage to anything purchased in Dollars.

The truth of the matter IMO is that damage has been done, as the charts plainly show, and in the relative valuations of exchange crosses we only get elevated from bad to half way reasonable when the other side of the cross is in serious trouble.

The Eurozone was not allowed to play silly devils with their currency as we did and the Euro strength represented our weakness and had nothing to do with how good they were but more how bad we were\are. When viewing the charts it truly makes one wonder what calamity needs to overwhelm Europe before we again look less bad than them.

As the currency cross is the global measure of the standing of our currency against others in the world use the chart with GBP first and in the lower box look at our rating against the Dollar, Yen and CHF (Swiss Franc). It is hardly any wonder that international money is attracted to London property when the coalition's actions signalled open for business at fire-sale prices, all currencies eagerly accepted.

interesting stuff, I have had a play about with the graph as you suggest and Sterling did indeed go into something of a tailspin against the Euro, the Dollar and the Swiss Franc in 2008.

[Osem]

Troubled Spanish lender Bankia is to be partly nationalised, the central bank has confirmed.

Bankia, which holds 32bn euros (£25.7bn) in distressed property assets and whose boss has resigned, will have a 4.47bn-euro loan by the Spanish bailout fund converted into shares.

The state fund will emerge with a stake in the bank of 45%.

Earlier, Spanish stocks fell by 3% and government bond yields rose above 6%, a level seen as unsustainable.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18014077

Who's next?

... and just for those who like to give the impression that 'greedy shareholders' are the root of all evil, overlooking the fact that they can and do lose money:

"The partial nationalisation will be a controversial operation, because it will lead to huge losses for many thousands of Spanish investors, who bought shares in Bankia and provided it with loan capital when it was listed on the stock market last year."

[Ignitionnet]

I have no sympathy for private investors stupid enough to invest in a Spanish bank in 2011. Most likely they were hoping that the government would step in to absorb their losses if things went wrong as has happened in so many other cases.

In other news, Norway not only continue to look into the future by conserving North Sea revenue to pay for such things as pensions rather than ****ing it away in tax cuts and increased social services spending to bribe the electorate, they're also reducing their exposure to the Eurozone within that sovereign fund.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...KZ01-M3SVJ.DTL

[Sirius]

Originally Posted by Ignitionnet

I have no sympathy for private investors stupid enough to invest in a Spanish bank in 2011. Most likely they were hoping that the government would step in to absorb their losses if things went wrong as has happened in so many other cases.

In other news, Norway not only continue to look into the future by conserving North Sea revenue to pay for such things as pensions rather than ****ing it away in tax cuts and increased social services spending to bribe the electorate, they're also reducing their exposure to the Eurozone within that sovereign fund.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...KZ01-M3SVJ.DTL

And i bet they are not selling off there gold as cheap as possible.

[Osem]

Originally Posted by Sirius

And i bet they are not selling off there gold as cheap as possible.

Course not. Now who thought that was a good idea again?

---------- Post added at 18:58 ---------- Previous post was at 18:45 ----------

Originally Posted by Ignitionnet

I have no sympathy for private investors stupid enough to invest in a Spanish bank in 2011.

Nor do I particularly. Shareholding involves risks and the point being made was that being a shareholder isn't the guaranteed and safe route to riches some folks like to make out. Nor is it the sole preserve of the rich, famous and infamous since share ownership (albeit indirect) is a feature of most of our pensions funds.