Besides which, Alistair Darling was chancellor during the crash, not Brown, and while RBS should have been more tightly regulated (regulations that the Tories under Cameron in opposition fought tooth and nail against), the sub-prime market in the US was the responsibility of the Fed, as Ben Bernanke has made abundantly clear, whilst also praising the actions of Brown and Darling as being at the forefront of saving the whole international financial system.
A . I posted a link to a BBC article about the fussy Hotel guests which you haven't responded to B. Politicians stealing money had nothing to do with the conversation C. In your imagination I mentioned the London Mayor D. The sexual predator that incited an incerection was another thing you pulled out of thin air but you have already forgotten E. You still haven't commented on the BBC article F. This is why most people keep you on ignore as you don't actually have an opinion of your own and when you try to respond it has nothing to do with the conversation.
Gordon Brown goes on tour to explain bank bail-out Deborah Summers, politics editor Thu 9 Oct 2008 11.40 EDT Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share via Email 14 years old Gordon Brown is embarking on a charm offensive, with a podcast and regional tour to explain to the government's £500bn banks rescue package to the public. No-doubt mindful of the backlash in America at the US government's bailout of the financial institutions, the prime minister will reassure taxpayers that the British deal will "not be at the expense of better public services". Downing Street said Brown and a number of other ministers would travel around the country to set out the details of the multi-billion pound scheme and explain the reasons behind it. The move is an attempt by the prime minister to engage with voters questioning why the government can find billions of pounds to bail out the financial sector at a time when little is being done to help hard working families who face soaring food and fuel prices. In the podcast the prime minister tells listeners: "I want to take this opportunity to talk to you straight about the action the government is taking on the economy. "I know you'll be anxious about events of the last few days and weeks… The bottom line is that if we don't take this action to help stabilise the banking system, the cost to savers, homeowners and small businesses would be far higher… Businesses would go to the wall and families would really suffer." Brown goes on to say that his commitment to government investment in schools, hospitals and ensuring fairness is "as strong as ever". "If you're a saver, a homeowner, an entrepreneur, a family struggling to get by – I want you to know that we are doing this for you," he says. Downing Street said Brown had met young mothers in London this morning and would travel to Birmingham this afternoon to set out the government's proposals to a group of small business leaders. He will have similar meetings in the south-west tomorrow. A Downing Street spokesman said other government ministers – particularly regional ministers - would also take part in the campaign. "The prime minister's efforts in dealing with the banking crisis are two-fold," the spokesman said. "He will be travelling to different parts of the country to explain the action the government has taken and the reasons for it. "He will also work intensively with our international partners to create an international response to the crisis." The prime minister held talks with the Finnish prime minister this morning, and on Friday he has further meetings with European leaders ahead of an EU council meeting in Brussels next week. The chancellor, Alistair Darling, is also due to fly to Washington in the next few days for meetings with the IMF and the G8. us … we have a small favour to ask. Tens of millions have placed their trust in the Guardian’s fearless journalism since we started publishing 200 years ago, turning to us in moments of crisis, uncertainty, solidarity and hope. More than 1.5 million supporters, from 180 countries, now power us financially – keeping us open to all, and fiercely independent. Unlike many others, the Guardian has no shareholders and no billionaire owner. Just the determination and passion to deliver high-impact global reporting, always free from commercial or political influence. Reporting like this is vital for democracy, for fairness and to demand better from the powerful. And we provide all this for free, for everyone to read. We do this because we believe in information equality. Greater numbers of people can keep track of the global events shaping our world, understand their impact on people and communities, and become inspired to take meaningful action. Millions can benefit from open access to quality, truthful news, regardless of their ability to pay for it. If there were ever a time to join us, it is now. Every contribution, however big or small, powers our journalism and sustains our future. Support the Guardian from as little as £1 – it only takes a minute. SingleMonthlyAnnual £5 per month£10 per monthOther Continue Remind me in January please log in to view this image
Gold: Gordon Brown's sale remains controversial 20 years on By Russell Hotten Business reporter, BBC News 7 May 2019 Updated 7 May 2019 Gold bars IMAGE SOURCE,REUTERS It was called one of the worst investment decisions of all time. Twenty years ago on Tuesday, then Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown said he was selling tonnes of Britain's gold reserves. Trouble was, his timing could barely have been worse. "It was the bottom of gold's two-decade bear market," says Adrian Ash, director of research at investment firm BullionVault. Hindsight may be a wonderful thing, but Mr Ash points out there were plenty of people warning against the move at the time - including at the Bank of England. Between 1999 and 2002 the Treasury sold 401 tonnes of gold - out of its 715-tonne holding - at an average price of $275 an ounce, generating about $3.5bn during the period. Mr Ash says the average price since the sales ended has been almost $1,000. In 2011 the price reached more than $1,900 an ounce, and on Monday stood at about $1,279. gold price 'The final blow' Despite these headline numbers, at the time it seemed perfectly sensible to many at the Treasury. Other central banks were also selling gold. According to BullionVault, Belgium, Canada and the Netherlands had already sold 1,590 tonnes between them since 1990. In 1997 alone, Argentina and Australia sold a combined 290 tonnes. And in April 1999, Switzerland voted in a referendum to sever the Franc's gold backing, effectively approving a plan to sell 1,300 tonnes from its 2,590-tonne hoard. Writing in his 2007 book The Ages of Gold, Timothy Green says: "The erosion of the gold price during the late 1990s owed much to steady, but uncoordinated, central bank selling." But he adds: "The final blow, [the UK's sale] sent a terrible signal to the market." Gordon Brown IMAGE SOURCE,PA London had been the centre of the gold market for 300 years. The circumstances of the UK sale fuelled a belief that a modern economy no longer needed to hold huge gold reserves (an argument that still persists today). News of the sale emerged during a planted question in the House of Commons on a Friday afternoon in May 1999. That prompted a 10% fall in the metal's price. Revelations that the sale would be staggered via auctions telegraphed to the market that the price was likely to remain depressed. It all gave the impression that for governments, holding bullion as a store of value and useful hedge against inflation was becoming irrelevant, says Mr Ash: "Central banks thought they could manage the world by tweaking interest rates, switching a few dials. Gold's role as a financial backstop had diminished." The new backstop This view that gold no longer glistened was underlined in a New York Times' editorial in May 1999, headlined: Who Needs Gold When We Have Greenspan. "Dollarization... amounts to a sort of a gold standard without gold," it said. In other words, Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan and the US dollar were the new backstop. (The article did caution, though, that this could all change "if it turns out that central bankers are not the geniuses they are now deemed to be"). There was an end-of-millennium feel that gold was history, says Mr Ash. Globalisation was re-ordering the financial world; the euro created a new - and, hoped-for, stronger - monetary system; there were calls for the International Monetary Fund to sell its gold to help write off Third World debt; private investors had lost interest in the precious metal, preferring to help fuel the dotcom bubble. In this context Mr Brown's decision does not necessarily look out of step. The money raised from the gold sale was put into assets that yielded a return - bonds and currencies. The sale of what was then regarded as a legacy asset would make money, not lose it, according to the Treasury. Former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan IMAGE SOURCE,GETTY IMAGES Image caption, Some linked the shift from gold to the policies of former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan Even so, says Mr Ash, other nations baulked at the "ham-fisted" way in which the UK chancellor went about the sale. He cites the Central Bank Gold Agreement, signed in September 1999 and designed to prevent the markets being spooked by another sudden sell-off. The agreement involved 15 central banks promising to cap sales over the following five years, a move designed to provide clarity to the financial markets and put a floor under the gold price. "It was," says Mr Ash, "a slap on the wrist for the UK." Has there been any lasting impact? Rhona O'Connell, head of market analysis for Europe and Asia at global financial services firm Intl FCStone, says no. She recalls the shock among the influential bullion banks when the decision was announced, but this subsided once it was accepted that it was the Treasury's decision, not the Bank of England's. International credibility "It was irritating at the time that the Bank of England carried the can [initially] for a decision made by the then chancellor," she said. The debate continues on the need for governments to hold large reserves of gold. Critics argue that storing a precautionary asset whose value would probably fall as you sold it is somewhat purposeless. It remains anachronistic, they say. But for Ms O'Connell: "Regardless of its price on any date, gold is negatively correlated with virtually all other asset classes and from a central banker's point of view it is important in terms of adding international credibility within the financial sector." Some countries - she cites Vietnam as a good example - have bought gold as security for raising money on the international financial markets in order to avoid default. It's clear that for many governments, the demise of gold has been greatly exaggerated. The World Gold Council (WGC) says that purchases by central banks in the first three months of 2019 were the highest in six years as countries diversified away from the dollar. China and Russia were the biggest buyers. Central banks bought 145.5 tonnes of gold over the January-March period, 68% more than a year earlier. It followed purchases of 651.5 tonnes in 2018, the most since 1967. "Given the strategic nature of central bank buying, we expect the momentum to continue," the WGC's head of market intelligence Alistair Hewitt said, adding that he expected central banks to buy 500-600 tonnes this year. Gordon Brown may have had many legitimate reasons for selling Britain's gold, but claims it was because bullion was yesterday's asset probably isn't one of them.
A- I respond to what I chose to fella B-just pointing out how weird it is you rage day in, day out about poor people being helped just because they’re foreigners, yet you seemingly couldn’t give a **** about rich ****s robbing you blind C-on a post I responded to .. yeah you did, do try and keep up D- In the same post about Khan you brought up Trump. E-See response to A F-derpy derpy derp. You do know you don’t own the conversation right? You are very ****ing weird.
Okay, so as the lefties are intent on stalking, have any of them got the balls to post something that's not just childish babble, and actually offers a political opinion of their own beyond "Wah, not that " or offer something to encourage people to vote labour beyond "they're not tories"?
Brown sold our Gold reserves at the lowest rate in 2 decades and handed £500 billion to the Bankers . He's worth $15 million and currently working at the W.H.O Gordon Brown recruited as WHO ambassador after Covid jabs campaign The former prime minister has been unveiled as the ambassador for global health financing after campaigning for the equitable distribution of vaccines https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/gordon-brown-recruited-who-ambassador-25022704 Yeah he's not at all a corrupt liability that ruined our country financially and now pushing big Pharma covid shots for money
You didn't respond to that post you mental case . That was a reply to a post about Sadiq calling for tech sensorship not the dietary requirements of foreign beggers .
No. I have mentioned that I'm open to switching to Labour if there is a good reason to many times , but never been given one . Most don't know why they would either other than Racist Gammon Tory Scum And some weird Donald Trump fixation I attempted to engage with willy hops today about paying millions a day to feed and house ungrateful foreign beggers , whilst we have a homeless problem already but he/she is unable to hold an opinion It's just a random Orange man , Tory scum generic NPC response that has no relevance.
So why did you quote my post referencing the Hotels then bang on about things you made up in your head instead ?
because I was also responding to you crying about foreigners which related to that post. Do you need a hand tying your shoe laces as well?
They've shown time and time again, that they're just empty vessels devoid of any thought of their own, and trying to spout an ideology which ties them up in knots when it's examined. That's why they avoid engaging, and simply spout banal ****e in the hope someone saves their embarrassment and closes yet another thread because of it. You've really got to question the mental state of someone that goes out of their way to show people how vacuous they are, all because they simply can't admit that they've got other posters politics very, very wrong. .
Because he doesn't understand what's posted, so tries to shift the topic to his fantasy version, or say 'that's you that is'. If you approach it as you would communicating with a toddler, you'll not be far off. He much prefers looking a total arse to being ignored.
It comes down to binary "thinking" or lack there of mostly. If I laugh at the London Mayor desperate to appear relevant by demanding Orange man be banned from Twitter. By default I back January 6th and the day Democracy died in America, worse even than 911. Where in reality I believe at 74 nobody that age should be in a position of power or you end up with a dementia patient like now. I have a long enough memory to have lived through Blair and Brown wrecking the country and now living as multimillionaires. Obviously from following orders from their Globalist handlers at the U.N & W.H.O. With their money laundering slush funds, The Office of Gordon and Sarah Brown LTD & The Tony Blair institute for Global change. Starmer is an open Fabien society Marxist and corrupt ex Crown Prosecution Service head which you only get to if you are a high up Freermason . These are apparently the good guys that are going to improve the lives of the UK voters .
And all the time, no matter who gets voted in, the Civil Service plod along 'giving their advice' to which ever face or rosette is flavour of the period.
