Off Topic The "Discuss Anything Else" Thread

Back off the life support machine; the Bundesliga returns tonight. Will watch Hamburger SV - FC Bayern Munchen in my FCB jammies. Viewing accompanied by Nurnberger Bratwurst, Sauteed Potatoes and chilled Irn Bru!

Yahoo!!!!!!!!

 

Grub sounds OK, but the Bundesliga? Dull as bloody dishwater, unless you're a Bayern fan, and then some of these clowns must get bored with it all!

Just joshing you, enjoy! Erm, presume 'jammies' are pyjamas? Didn't know the FCB Fan Shop did a line in pyjamas?

 

Now we are being lectured by imams, This one reckons the Cologne troubles were caused by "women wearing perfume and being half-naked." "Half-naked"? On New Year's Eve? I wish the whole damn lot of them would go back to Saudi, wherever, and sort out their own problems there. Bloody hell, honestly.

http://www.dw.com/en/cologne-imam-w...aring-perfume-and-being-half-naked/a-18997352

 

Half naked totty in Cologne; might have to leave the twenty four hour gay bar with the great music!!!!!! Must e-mail the preacher man for some addresses!!!!!!

Ho-hum!!

 

Do report back please Florida

 

Swanny's got his Santa list sorted and it's only January!

 

My portfolio has been doing rubbish for a lot longer than a week. My emerging markets plays are all heavily down because they were too heavily exposed to the Shanghai casino. As soon as news got out that Standard Chartered were going to plug the huge gap in their accounts with a rights issue the markets flushed them down the loo. My JP Morgan Emerging Markets fund is down nearly a quarter in the last six months.

What does your brother do in the City? Valet parking? The stock market meltdown has been going on largely unreported for more than a year. The FTSE lost nearly 8 per cent in 2015, whilst the NYSE lost a deceptive 1 per cent because a few big tech stocks hid the fact that 490 of the S&P 500 fell. The best performing of the major markets was Japan, fuelled by quantitative easing! The big hit a couple of days ago made a few headlines but the markets have recovered some of that lost ground in the last couple of sessions.

The World economy over the last five years or so has been akin to that of the 1930s, but nobody dare call it a Great Depression. We live in the era of the media savvy politician so they are smart enough to keep the great unwashed in the dark. The debt in the Western World has been piling up unsustainably and, personally, I hope that when the debt bubble bursts the biggest sufferers are the one with the debts rather than those of us that knew what prudent meant when Gordon Brown was still trying to figure it out with his Keynesian Economics for Dummies.

Try looking up Hyman Minsky’s Financial Instability Hypothesis – he has been pushing up the daisies for nearly twenty years but his theory is starting to come true. There are three types of borrower: The Hedge borrower who pays off the interest and the principal; the Speculative borrower who pays off the interest, but refinances to sustain the principal; and the Ponzi borrower who relies on the rising value of the asset purchased to pay off the interest and the principal.

When the third type were in over their heads in the American sub-prime market, their gamblers packaged up the debt and sold it on to our gamblers, just before the Ponzi borrowers handed in the keys and defaulted on the debt. There are still too many Ponzi borrowers in the system, so the next ‘crash’ is nearer than people think.

 

You are looking in the wrong direction for the glut of oil.

The Saudis and some of their neighbours are over-producing oil because what they want to do is destroy the shale oil and gas industry in the USA. By making black gold cheaper than the fracking product, they are hoping to force their rival supplier out of business.

The problem with this policy is that Iran is about to re-enter the international oil market following the lifting of sanctions imposed until the Iranian nuclear programme had been vetted and verified by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

I read a prophecy for the 2016 economy the other day from the CEBR, who were predicting oil returning to $60/$70 a barrel this year; however, that seems like a fantasy with China continuing to slow and no obvious other big buyer.

 

Sterling is falling because the currency traders see little prospect of the Bank of England (BoE) raising rates any time soon, so the US Dollar is a better place to park your money (admittedly at minimal returns) as expectation is that the Federal Reserve will put rates up by a small amount over the coming months.

If we had been really smart we would have bought the Japanese Yen in the first half of 2015 as, along with Japanese equities, it did well from their government’s quantitative easing stimulus. I note that Jim Mellon is tipping Fanuc, Hitachi, Mitsubishi Heavy and Honda as good plays for 2016.

 

A money broker. But he used to be a fund manager before he got made redundant with a six figure payoff which he spunked on booze birds and drugs. But there's no call for old school risk taker, it's all grads with economics degrees and no common sense. Probably a bit like you.

 

Oh and by the way you managed to sum up what I said earlier in 800 words of bullshit. No wonder we are all in the **** with smart arses like you. And by the way the word from the coal face is, "we are all doomed, sell! Sell! Sell!!!

 

Sorry QM, but that statement of yours, "The World economy over the last five years or so has been akin to that of the 1930s, but nobody dare call it a great depression." is wild and fanciful in the extreme. The problems of today are nothing like those of yesteryear. There were four bank runs in the USA that in the end saw half of them go to the wall. At one point, at the time of Roosevelt's inauguration, at the height of the fourth run, every state in the USA ordered the temporary closure of all banks. All. And Europe suffered badly as well. Hyperinflation in Germany was rampant. Between 1919 and 1923, a loaf of bread hovered at about two thirds of a Mark, but at the height of the depression, it had risen to 2 billion Marks. People were using the stuff to start fires. I'm sure as a lot of folk in the UK know a damn sight more about the affects of the depression on that part of the world, than I do. So I'll leave that to you locals. England and other home counties would have badly suffered as well. There was no escape. What we have today is but a pale shadow of what those poor people had to endure. No need for scare mongering my friend.

 

Well, Dan, wasn't such a terrible game, both teams a bit rusty after the Winter Pause. However, I really don't find it as interesting as the Premier League, really don't.

P.S. Will probably revise my Santa list in February.

 

Imagine working with this guy.

 

SH - dead right about game; dodgy penalty but correct 'off-side' decision on second goal. If I was not a FCB fan I would suggest Conan on medication!!!! Grub was great. PJ's purchased in branch of Hertie somewhere 'oooop north' years ago.

 

Good grief! Certainly a master of the English language; what an impressive vocabulary?

 

You couldn't drive a greasy stick up a dogs arse!

 

I do not have a degree in economics and I must have some common sense because I have no debts whatsoever (other than this month’s credit card bill that will be paid in full when it arrives as always) and I can afford my stock market losses because I only put money into equities that I can afford to lose – just like I only bet on horses with money that I can afford to lose. Who knows, my five figure bank balance might make me more common sense than you.

800 words is a little bit of an exaggeration (425) but I was trying to give an answer to the question that you had posted. As I am a lowly second-rate IT nerd, the state of the financial markets and the economy is nothing to do with me.

I note that the word from the coal face has not changed since you originally posted it in 38 words.

I did read a piece the other day where the author suggested that people like me hanging on to equities that were down 33 per cent should just crystalise their losses as they were now hanging on in the belief that the equities would rise by 50 per cent from their current value to get back to a par. There is plenty of common sense in the logic of his piece but I buy equities for the long term so I accept that there are troughs as well as peaks.

 

Google tax deal labelled 'derisory', as criticism grows

Dear George Osborne,

If Google can get away with paying tax at just 3 per cent, I would like to request a rebate on my taxes for the last six years. Let me start with the £8,000 Corporation Tax bill that I paid on 31st December 2015. That was 20 per cent so I actually want about 85 per cent of my money back.

Nip next door and ask Sam Cam how much UK tax here employers paid last year. As they are owned by a Luxembourg-based holding company, I expect that I probably paid more tax than Smythson. That said all those £1,000 hand bags flogged on Bond Street must generate more VAT that I pay. Ultimately, they are not as big a name as Google, Amazon or Starbucks so they only make the middle pages of The Garunaid.

Regards, QM