Off Topic The "Discuss Anything Else" Thread

You talk a very good game QM but I don't see any figures to replace the £62bn to £78bn. If we are to be £50bn or so worse off, that must have some impact somewhere

 

Didn't know where to post this, here or the Share Trading thread, but I guess here is best. Recently saw the film "The Big Short", about a bunch of miscellaneous traders, mostly young, who screwed around with the bond market prior to the great collapse of 2008. Supposed to be a comedy, well OK it was quite funny in parts, but it made me very angry and extremely hostile towards various scumbags in the banking/financial industry. The ordinary people, millions in the USA, who suffered then, and are still suffering, as a result of the shenanigans of the banking/stock market people, relative to mortgages, is appalling. Yet, only one guy was ever put in gaol, and that was an employee of UBS. So many got away scot free. So many big banks, financial institutions, the 3 major rating agencies, Wall Street, got away with murder. Even now banks are up to their old tricks. In 2015 they were offering a thing called "Bespoke Tranche Opportunity' which means, apparently, "A type of collateralized debt obligation (CDO) that a dealer creates for a specific group of investors. The CDO is structured according to the investors' needs. The investor group then typically buys a single tranche of the bespoke CDO."

Here's a fairly decent review from The Daily Telegraph:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/film/the-big-short/review/

Some great acting in it, must say. The Morgan Stanley guy (Steve Carell) was terrific. The short bubble-bath scene with Margot Robbie was good too!

 

I have not been to a gig in ages but there are a couple of people visiting these shores that I would like to see, so I went on the SECC (Glasgow) website to look at tickets for two shows in March. I cannot do their London shows at the O2 because they are weekdays.

Of course, the Tickets option redirected to Ticketmaster. It transpires that the tickets are £75 plus £10.15 in “fees” plus an unspecified delivery charge per order. So 12 per cent of my order goes to those thieving scumbags—plus postal charges will not be a first class stamp!

Now I remember why I only go to gigs these days when they are at venues that have their own box offices...

 

Let us be honest, Cyc, you watched the film because you heard that Margot Robbie had a scene in the bath – I would have done the same!

Your observations do illustrate a common problem with the general public analysis of the financial crash.

Everybody blames ‘the bankers’ as a collective, which is a bit unfair on the thousands of ordinary bankers who were not involved. The ones who were involved worked at a few major investment banks around the world. They parcelled up sub-prime mortgage debt in “financial instruments” (like the CDOs you described) and when the music stopped whoever was holding the parcel bit the dust.

This of course does ignore how the debt was created in the first place – American banks lending mortgages to people who could not afford them in a property market that was out of control (like we have in the UK at the moment).

So the actual origin of the financial crash was in fact people borrowing money they could not afford in a country where it is easy to declare bankruptcy and walk away with no personal consequence. The great unwashed cannot blame their brethren, so it must be the big bad corporations’ fault.

We live in an era where nobody takes responsibility for their own actions because there is always somebody else to blame. Fantastic news for lawyers – they get rich whoever wins.

 

Ron, what I did not bother to mention about those CBI stats was how they are misrepresentative of British business.

In 2012, we were exporting 45 per cent of our goods to the EU yet over 70 per cent of CBI members approved of the super state. What about the thousands of businesses that are not CBI members? Do they not count?

According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), in 1999 we sent 54 per cent of our exports to the EU but in 2014 that was down to 44 per cent; and it will continue to fall as Europe declines. Our dynamic economy is one of the few creating jobs in the EU because British national government is much more laissez faire than much of the EU.

If European industry wants a quick suicide they can refuse to do a trade deal – Frau Merkel will be out of power inside a week because Germans will care more about their jobs and their futures than The Project (a French invention).

I think the Europeans will do a trade deal in very short order but they will look to hit our Service and Financial sectors because they are such a big part of our economy. The Germans would love to usurp Britain in the global financial pecking order. What a shame for them that the Americans chose English and Hollywood exported their version of it around the planet.

I am suspicious of the estimated benefit of membership numbers (continually trotted out by the “Better In” camp without much in the way of evidence) because this does just like the prelude to playing the Fear card (which Cameron will definitely end up having to play).

Brussels are running scared at the moment that a Brexit will demonstrate that what we originally had (the “Common Market”) was working pretty well (some reform needed) and the intended final destination – a European Nanny Super State (France but larger) – is unrealistic.

 

Firstly, I am not Cyclonic111, and I did not go to the cinema specifically to watch a blonde in a bubble-bath, in fact I had no idea such a thing was in it. It was a nice diversion though. I take it you have not seen the film, so I'll wait for your comments again after you have done so. The general public does not blame bankers specifically, but financial institutions in general, and they are right to do so. You defend capitalism to the death, and describe all Socialists as loony, well I'll tell you something QuarterMoonII, there are some brutal, uncaring, bastard sons-of-bitches in the financial world of the extreme right that you defend so vigorously.
EOS from me. Say what you ****ing well like from now on, I don't give a **** any more.

Note for Dan S: That's my Santa list finished for this month, February!

 

OK. I would expect them to be optimistic; but to what extent would you adjust those figure QM? Can you justifiably knock them down by £50bn to £60bn?

If they are running scared why don't they bend over backwards to keep us in? They don't appear to be trying very hard

 

Difference of opinion makes for a good debate...

I have not seen the film but I did not consider Cyc’s posting to be a film review as he had pondered placing it on the Share Trading thread. Clearly the intended levity of my point about Margot Robbie went astray.

I do not defend capitalism to the death but I do know that Socialism (and its harder-left cousin Communism) are proven failures, so I advocate neither. I have never said that everybody working in the Financial world is a saint and I am sure that there are just as many sinners as in the Used Car Sales and Estate Agency worlds. I did see “Wall Street”, so I figure there are good guys and bad guys.

Financial Institutions rely on customers to turn a profit. If customers do stupid things and they profit, surely that is the customers’ fault. Soon drinkers will be complaining about breweries making too much profit.

 

I know it says I am an Economist, but I am not really so I would be inclined to stay out of the number slinging game as neither side can actually provide any evidence for them. The fact that I happen to read a few economics columns does not make me any sort of expert.

The answer to the question is that Cameron started off saying that he wants to stay, so Brussels figure that they do not have to offer him too much as he will still fight their corner. If we go, the bureaucrats will quickly be out of jobs as the whole house of cards will collapse. Do not hold your breath for images of Nigel Farage standing on a tank in the Grote Markt!

The “Better In” camp are waiting to find out the actual date of the Referendum. There was a YouGov poll out last week that gave the Brexit camp a nine point lead, thanks mainly to all the effort they are putting in right now, albeit from three different campaigns. The Fear card will not be played until a couple of weeks before the vote, just like with the Jocks, so the “Better In” camp are relatively quiet.

 

Oh God, I am not Cyclonic! It was I who commented on the film The Big Short. You're the only one who has gone astray.........

You say, "Soon drinkers will be complaining about breweries making too much profit.".....and horseracing players too about bookies making too much profit?

Please do not blame Cyc for my posts, he will be one upset Queenslander!

 

Fair enough QM. You are pretty clued up though. Is there anyone representing the out camp that can argue (with believable figures) that we would be better off economically with an exit?

 

Surely the referendum has to be about more than finances. An outer will tell you the EU costs us a fortune - £50 million a day is the figure the kippers spout. A stayer will tell you than it will cost us a fortune if we leave, in trade and jobs. Can't say I've ever heard figures attached to this though. I'll be voting leave mainly because I prefer to have decisions made by a government I can vote for or against. I don't accept that we need the EU to make laws for us either. I consider that we're quite capable of making these ourselves. Cameron's negotiations aren't worth tuppence and will change nothing.

 

That £50m per day being the cost of being in the EU is a nonsense Chan. It completely ignores the rebate. Also what is the point of saying the cost of something without at least having a stab at the benefits. The outs only state the gross cost whilst the ins no doubt over-estimate the benefits. Finances aren't the only thing but they have a major impact on everybody at the end of the day, one way or another.

The annual cost and rebates are concrete facts, indicating that the net cost is about £10bn pa (or about £27m per day).

Benefits estimated at £60bn pa and upwards (by the ins). Do the outs claim that there are no benefits at all?

 

This is certainly worth a read. At least it reads like a balanced view. I think too many people are basing their vote on single factors without looking at the overall implications. What's worse is that I think they will continue to and there is a strong possibility of the blind taking the country where it may find it doesn't want to be. It will be too late.

As an aside what can happen if we stay in. The EU may grow stronger but in the extreme it could collapse. If it collapses what will that mean to Britain? Would it be any different to getting out now? Just a thought.

 

Of course it's nonsense Ron. Most of the kippers rhetoric is nonsense. My point is that one side will tell us leaving will cost us £££s and the other will say it will save us £££s. They can't both be right can they. I don't trust anyone in politics who uses just bare stats to make their argument which is why I'll ignore it all. My gut feeling is if we left the EU we wouldn't be significantly better or worse off financially. What we would have is some control over our future and the ability to elect and reject our future leaders.

 

The £50-55m figure that gets quoted for our membership came from the UK treasury itself and was not made up by people on the "out" team.

 

That's certainly true. In the dim and distant past I worked in a govt department and part of my job entailed letting service contracts. Because of the value they all had to go through the EU sieve which was an absolute pain in the arse, extremely time consuming and provided no discernible benefits. Although I no longer work in this area the contract value limits were recently significantly reduced creating even more pointless bureaucracy