Off Topic The Politics Thread
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Currency fluctuations are always happening and to say that a move of less than 1% is a "plummet is an exaggeration to say the least. Breaking down out of a recent range would be more of a concern, that low is around 1.20.
EU Flexing its muscles toward Ireland.
Ireland ordered to loosen abortion laws by Council of Europe
Current laws deepen social inequalities and lead to traumatic, clandestine procedures, Nils Muiznieks says
Ireland ordered to loosen abortion laws by Council of Europe
Current laws deepen social inequalities and lead to traumatic, clandestine procedures, Nils Muiznieks says
On the evening before the article 50 was delivered the £ dropped 2.2% against the $. More than double your 1%, so I'm so pleased the word plummet meets your definition!
You seem to have very low expectations for the £ if you are happy with 1.20. The £ was 1.45 - 1.49 before the Brexit vote, and should gradually at least head back there.
Just heard an interview on the radio which made my jaw hit the floor. It was a labour spokesman, John Healey I think, who was given a platform to have a go at the Help to Buy programme, on the grounds that people/households earning over £100k p.a. were benefitting from it. He was also unhappy that house builders are getting cash from it, about £12bn supposedly.
Now his only job is housing policy. Yet when pressed on what income cap Labour would have for the scheme he went from £80k to £70k to 'we don't have a policy' in 20 seconds, and was forced to concede that the scheme has contributed to a 6% rise in new house building, and that real people live in the new houses, so it is doing precisely what it was intended to do. Of course house builders benefit from it, it's an incentive.
Woefully underprepared and of clearly limited intelligence, which is what you get with a restricted pool of talent most of whom refuse to serve under an idiot who is manipulated by sinister extremists. With an opposition of this quality disMay can take us back to the Stone Age and still get in at the next ballot. Bad news for British democracy.
Now his only job is housing policy. Yet when pressed on what income cap Labour would have for the scheme he went from £80k to £70k to 'we don't have a policy' in 20 seconds, and was forced to concede that the scheme has contributed to a 6% rise in new house building, and that real people live in the new houses, so it is doing precisely what it was intended to do. Of course house builders benefit from it, it's an incentive.
Woefully underprepared and of clearly limited intelligence, which is what you get with a restricted pool of talent most of whom refuse to serve under an idiot who is manipulated by sinister extremists. With an opposition of this quality disMay can take us back to the Stone Age and still get in at the next ballot. Bad news for British democracy.
The council of Europe has nothing to do with the EU. The ECHR is part of the Council of Europe, and nothing to do with the EU.
The UK is leaving neither of these. Many people wanted to leave the EU because of the ECHR, so you're not alone in being uninformed on its operation. Neither do you have to be in the Council to be in the EU (if you are it helps prove your joining credentials of course).
I'd have personally left the latter and not the former, rather than what we are doing. ( the vice versa)
The only thing the EU is flexing are its sphincter muscles over the brexit uncertainty as we leave.
I have spent an hour scouring the paper for the April Fools story. Every other one seems to have potential, but end up being pretty miserable, like Prince Charles asking the Americans to delay invading Afghanistan for Ramadan, when the story goes on to speculate on how many times Princess Diana tried to kill herself. Given up now.
But I did spot that house prices have dropped a tiny bit. This is against expectations/predictions and may not last, so could be a good time to buy.* Mortgage lenders are also reporting reduced levels of loans as there are fewer buyers around, so they should be offering decent deals.
I think that prices will remain very geographically specific. Here in lovely leafy Leamington Spa, they are still rising exponentially, which is great for me but crap for my son who is looking for a new flat to rent with mates. Another story tells me why - all the Wasps players and club staff who have relocated up here are buying places in Leamington. I'm not surprised. I am a Londoner by birth and inclination, originally NW but lived Mortlake, Teddington, Hampton as an adult, lovely places but Leam is just as good and you can (usually) park. And it's just over an hour on the excellent Chiltern Line to Marylebone. So Danny Cipriani can still hit the clubs with ease.
* Disclaimer: I am not an accredited financial advisor, any decisions taken in response to this guessing are entirely at your own risk.
Oslo you are fighting a losing battle. If you know anything about currencies and the £ you know that not even the best economists will ever predict how it will go. You keep going on about the pound being 1 point down (zzzzzz). I have told you before, on here, that it was only a few years ago that I got.......1 Euro to 1 pound. Where is your argument there?
last week you moaned that the pound had dropped, well it has risen again. Last week the Euro was 1.14 and then it went up to 1.16/17. The dollar was also over-inflated when it reached those highs so many expected it to fall (maybe not as much). We all agree that there is a lot of uncertainty with Brexit but that was to be expected. You keep bleating on about the pound makes you sound too obsessed and a crying 'remoaner'. Get over it fella.
Re Gibraltar
I think the Spanish are taking the 'P' here and maybe we should add into that paper that we need to discuss Catalonia and it's independence? let's see how quickly they change their minds?
Gibraltar is a strategic island and there will be no way that our government will allow it to be used as a bargaining chip. If they do then I shall be the first to turn on May.
I think this is a non-starter so don't believe Sky/BBC with their project fear stories.
I think the Spanish are taking the 'P' here and maybe we should add into that paper that we need to discuss Catalonia and it's independence? let's see how quickly they change their minds?
Gibraltar is a strategic island and there will be no way that our government will allow it to be used as a bargaining chip. If they do then I shall be the first to turn on May.
I think this is a non-starter so don't believe Sky/BBC with their project fear stories.
Tooting it's like some people that own homes in the EU think they will have them taken away.
Utter nonsense as it comes under a different law.'European Convention on Human Right' protects them, yet people still make up rubbish.
It's not an island. And if citizens rights and security are bargaining chips then Gibraltar certainly is. Best way to put pressure on re Catalonia is to allow Scotland a referendum at the time of its government's choosing and be full of happy smiley faces should they select independence, make it as easy as possible for them. Set the precedent.
The people of Gibraltar should be given a referendum on shared sovereignty (which I guess would enable retaining the British naval presence) and dual citizenship, which means they remain British and in the EU which is what 96% of them want. If they reject it a hard border is the consequence.
Unrelated brilliant fact. In the olden days sailors used to wear earrings because they contained just enough gold to get you buried in a foreign land.
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Yes, that was silly of me to describe it as that.http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/576160/Foreign-Secretary-Philip-Hammond-Gibralter-job-ad
Not one point down - Zzzzzzz. You can twist the reality of Brexit around to some dream if it makes you happy. But whenever you need to check in on reality, just search on gbp usd from XE and run it for the last year. You'll see reality clearly at the end of last June. Some of your grandad''s pensionist friends wiill have seen it in their bank accounts since then too, if they happen to live overseas.
Os, just how much have you gut stuck in GBP vs NKK that it keeps you up at night?
I hope you haven't as that would make you one of those " I want all the cake for myself" types -
Whether you like it or not, there are swings and roundabouts of currency swings. Just ask US companies totally based there whether they are enjoying an easy exporting platform right now.
I'm afraid though that from your perpetual "Doomsday crying" that I deduce you have a lovely income from UK that you want to maximise whilst enjoying Norwegian quality of life.
My friend, being or playing at being Scandinavian comes at a cost - pay it and stop whining.
To be more precise then! I read it and think I understood it OK. I agreed with your first five words, then you misquoted me. I agree with your last sentence too that below 1.20 would be a major concern, but am surprised you or anyone with UK interest at heart would be so relaxed with such a low valued Pound.
I don't understand it either, but I'm not an expert in this, so maybe someone who is can help me out.
Why would the UK - a country that spends more on imports paid for in USD or EUR than it earns from exports - be relaxed when the value of GBP is falling against those currencies? I don't want to be told reassuring tosh from the currency speculators perspective about how GBP has been overvalued and is now reverting to its true level. I just want to understand what the benefits are of paying more for your imports when you are an importing country, and to whom.
And this, surprisingly for some of you I expect, is a genuine question and not about scoring some point regarding Brexit. We're all past that now - or at least we should be.
Who said I was relaxed?.
The pound is moving in a fairly narrow range so any drop or climb within that range is not of concern. The bottom of the range is just below the 1,20 mark and if it went down there it would trigger stop loss selling and could fall quickly 1to around 1.17.
1% is not "my"
I know the pound was around 1.49, it has also been around 2.25 and 1.03
I live in the States and earn $ so my house in London and trips and trips to the UK are getting cheaper.
I'm no expert either but I suspect that it's better to be relaxed about it than throwing money at it like Major and Lamont tried with the ERM. I also suspect that there is very little logic applied to currency speculation and I know this is the case when it comes to stock markets. Traders like to think they are acting rationally and set algorithms to do the trades for them. The Dow and FTSE are near all time highs, on what basis I have no idea. China growth is slowing, the world is becoming if anything more protectionist, uncertainty abounds, austerity is still the mode, yet share prices keep going up. The sector I work in is a major driver of the stock indexes, and overall the shares of companies involved are doing very well. It's perverse, because we all know that it's becoming harder and harder to sell our stuff and we all expect it to get worse, plus our productivity has fallen off a cliff.
What I do think is wrong is to ascribe every twitch in the value of Sterling to what people perceive is happening with Brexit. It's a major factor of course, but if Trump fails with his tax reforms I would expect a significant strengthening against the $ and if le Pen (God forbid) becomes President of France likewise with the € and if North Korea successfully launches a long range missile everything gets chaotic.
Perhaps we should just ask George Soros, he's rather good at this stuff, but not infallible.