ISlot Posted October 6, 2022 Share Posted October 6, 2022 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
philinvicta Posted October 12, 2022 Share Posted October 12, 2022 I know most people will not be aware of what is happening in financial markets but one thing that Kwasi Kwarteng's budget has done has exposed peoples pension funds to big losses and mortgage rates to rise . As many people get closer to retirement then most of their funds tend to be put into so called "safer" funds such as Gilts (Government Bonds) which in theory means their fund is not likely to suffer from large market falls thus wiping out a big chunk of money they were relying on to fund their retirement. Many people would also not understand that mortgage rates which are long term borrowing are also linked with Gilts interest rates. Ironically because of the failure to control inflation the Bank of England and other central banks are having to raise interest rates. Because this was started too late and because of things like Covid vast amounts of Quantitative Easing took place ie pumping money into the economy which has caused inflation rates to go higher and on top of this because of the energy price crisis inflation has become more entrenched when Central Banks said it was only transitory ie they expected the price rises would only happen once and then in a year the effect would drop from the inflation rate. Because they were wrong and they have a target rate of 2% inflation when the current rates are double figures they are having to increase rates by big amounts at every meeting. In the past interest rises have been over longer periods and smaller increases which meant markets moved more slowly. Currently interest rates are rising very quickly going from close to zero to an expected 4.5/4.75 per cent within a year. Also the Bank of England had plans to take money from the system by reversing Quantitative Easing (Quantitative Tightening) ie selling the items bought to pump money into the system thus forcing institutions to buy them which together with interest rate rises would mean a tightening of money supply and the cost of money therefore hopefully bringing inflation down. As a result of this policy and the Kwasi Kwarteng's budget there was a loss of confidence in the markets and a run on the pound where it fell to around 1.03 to the dollar there was also an expectation that the Bank of England would have to raise interest rates well above the expected levels to protect the pound value and also because tax cuts were going to negate Quantitative Tightening this meant that there was a big sell off of Gilts to reflect the new expected rates of interest. What many people would not realise is that pension funds had used those Gilts they owned to borrow money to reinvest and try to increase returns using the Gilts as collateral. These funds released money using a form of instrument called ' Liability Driven Investment'. Once again many city institutions encouraged these funds to borrow more and more money using Liability Driven Investments and it has got so out of hand currently the outstanding balances are over a trillion pounds. Once interest rates rose so fast it meant that the price of Gilts fell and this meant that the value of the Gilts in the Liability Driven Investment instruments did not have sufficient collateral against the borrowed funds so they made a call on the funds for cash . The problem was that to raise this cash funds had to sell Gilts to raise the cash causing the price to fall even further and thus a call for more cash and forcing the sales of more Gilts and this was a so called "death spiral" which meant that may pension funds were actually in danger of actually failing let alone being able to pay their liabilities. This caused the Bank of England to step in to settle markets and to say they would buy Gilts thus meaning that markets and Gilt prices settled down but this is due to end on Friday but pension funds were expecting them to extend the programme until the end of October and have not done all the selling they needed to do because they thought they would have more time but the Bank of England has said no it ends Friday because they need to get on with bringing inflation down as that is their main priority. All this means that many funds that are invested in "safer" Gilts have lost as much as 25% of their value and stock markets are also down and this has rippled into other markets as well such as crypto. Gilts are supposed to be a safe market but it looks like this has been leveraged and could lead to a similar fall out to the other "safe" bet of sub prime mortgages in America and once again it is likely the person who has their money managed by an "expert" who will pay the price. It will be interesting to see how many large companies will get caught up in the pension liability fall out. Crazy thing is all these guys will still be collecting their fees and commissions and thanks to Kwasi the good news is their will be no cap on their bonus ! The other problem is that even though interest rates are getting higher they are still well below inflation rates and it is hard to know how high rates need to go. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mad Slasher McGurk Posted October 13, 2022 Share Posted October 13, 2022 Thought I had better prepare for the power outages and energy rationing so I just bought some rechargable LED work lights to light the house and I fillled a 15kg Calor Gas bottle with butane, the first time I have done this in years and it cost £53 for a refill, jeebus! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
philinvicta Posted October 14, 2022 Share Posted October 14, 2022 Rumours are that Kwasi Kwarteng has been sacked Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mad Slasher McGurk Posted October 14, 2022 Share Posted October 14, 2022 (edited) 1 hour ago, philinvicta said: Rumours are that Kwasi Kwarteng has been sacked And only in place for 38 days, he is just back from the US as well, I wonder if he went to beg for help from the US Fed in keeping the UK Gilt market afloat? Edited October 14, 2022 by Mad Slasher McGurk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blacko Posted October 14, 2022 Author Share Posted October 14, 2022 22 hours ago, Mad Slasher McGurk said: Thought I had better prepare for the power outages and energy rationing so I just bought some rechargable LED work lights to light the house and I fillled a 15kg Calor Gas bottle with butane, the first time I have done this in years and it cost £53 for a refill, jeebus! Wouldn’t worry too much about it hardman as the thermonuclear warheads that will be falling on the UK soon will keep us all nice and toasty. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
philinvicta Posted October 14, 2022 Share Posted October 14, 2022 2 hours ago, Mad Slasher McGurk said: And only in place for 38 days, he is just back from the US as well, I wonder if he went to beg for help from the US Fed in keeping the UK Gilt market afloat? US Fed has been financed by the Chinese and previously the Japanese for years no use going to them for help. There has been some sort of meeting in New York this week of finance people not sure if it was IMF or World Bank or something as several people have been interviewed on Bloomberg. I assume he flew back as he was going to be sacked Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
philinvicta Posted October 14, 2022 Share Posted October 14, 2022 I cannot see how Truss will be able to stay in the job for much longer, She has been in office for a very short time has managed to bring in a budget which has written off billions if not trillions in the value of UK assets and has lost the confidence of the markets. She has also fallen out with the Bank of England and also spread fear of contagion into other markets. She thinks by reversing what she did will somehow "make it right" but it will not. She has also lost the backing of her party MPs and a good many Tory members. She has consolidated her parties position in the polls to such an extent they could have not a lot more MPs than the SNP after an election and are facing a relative wipe out. Her policies mean the Bank of England may have to raise interest rates higher and hold them there for longer I saw a piece yesterday that suggested Inflation could stay at close to 10 per cent for the whole of 2023. We are also seeing more strikes such as at Royal Mail and the UK has a police force handing out cups of tea and protecting protestors who are bringing roads to a standstill and stopping other Emergency Services, Some of the people beaten by her in the leadership race must be thinking WTF Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jok3st3r Posted October 14, 2022 Share Posted October 14, 2022 18 minutes ago, philinvicta said: There has been some sort of meeting in New York this week of finance people Was it a how to count course? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Chair Slots Posted October 14, 2022 Share Posted October 14, 2022 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mad Slasher McGurk Posted October 14, 2022 Share Posted October 14, 2022 2 hours ago, Blacko said: Wouldn’t worry too much about it hardman as the thermonuclear warheads that will be falling on the UK soon will keep us all nice and toasty. Good thing is I live right next to the nuclear submarine base, I won't know a thing about it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mad Slasher McGurk Posted October 14, 2022 Share Posted October 14, 2022 1 hour ago, philinvicta said: US Fed has been financed by the Chinese and previously the Japanese for years no use going to them for help. There has been some sort of meeting in New York this week of finance people not sure if it was IMF or World Bank or something as several people have been interviewed on Bloomberg. I assume he flew back as he was going to be sacked The IMF have the best balance sheet in the world currently, they are only over leveraged 3x. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
philinvicta Posted October 14, 2022 Share Posted October 14, 2022 1 hour ago, Jok3st3r said: Was it a how to count course? Well I think he went to tell them that the UK is looking at a 100billion pounds budget deficit and he has made sure that by cutting taxes in the mini budget he will hit that target and the country only owes just over two trillion so who would like to give him more money. Never mind that rates are no longer zero and interest rates are rising because that will mean that he will manage to keep the deficit very high due to paying more interest on the two trillion debt as it unwinds and has to be refinanced. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
philinvicta Posted October 14, 2022 Share Posted October 14, 2022 (edited) 28 minutes ago, Mad Slasher McGurk said: The IMF have the best balance sheet in the world currently, they are only over leveraged 3x. And who gives them the money the lend to countries in trouble ? It did not take the IMF long to update their page ! Edited October 14, 2022 by philinvicta Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blacko Posted October 14, 2022 Author Share Posted October 14, 2022 (edited) 31 minutes ago, Mad Slasher McGurk said: Good thing is I live right next to the nuclear submarine base, I won't know a thing about it. Ah so ur either Helensburgh or Arrochar based then.. what in hell made me think u lived on the borders. Edited October 14, 2022 by Blacko Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mad Slasher McGurk Posted October 14, 2022 Share Posted October 14, 2022 5 minutes ago, Blacko said: Ah so ur either Helensburgh or Arrochar based then.. what in hell made me think u lived on the borders. Nearer Helensburgh, 26 miles to Glasgow Airport. I used to work in the base, you have never seen so many people who do nothing and work school wains hours think they are hard done by. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
philinvicta Posted October 14, 2022 Share Posted October 14, 2022 (edited) This is an interesting graph of interest rates against total debt. It was easy for governments in recent times especially during Covid lock downs to borrow huge sums at close to zero or even in some cases be paid to take the money ! It comes from this piece which suggests if things carry on the way they are UK National Debt would hit 350% of GDP which is around 3.5x within 50 years and the Tories are supposed to be the responsible ones when it comes to the economy ! https://www.economicshelp.org/blog/334/uk-economy/uk-national-debt/ I would also add that as a lot of Government debt is index linked( ie pegged to rate of inflation) the interest bills are rising a lot more quickly than expected Also Bank of England having to raise rates is likely to mean a recession and higher unemployment with less income and higher expenditure for government. They will also get caught like the rest of us with much higher energy bills in hospitals etc Edited October 14, 2022 by philinvicta Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mad Slasher McGurk Posted October 14, 2022 Share Posted October 14, 2022 1 hour ago, Chair Slots said: By this time next week Truss will be out as well, Rishy washy in? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Chair Slots Posted October 14, 2022 Share Posted October 14, 2022 (edited) 52 minutes ago, Mad Slasher McGurk said: By this time next week Truss will be out as well, Rishy washy in? Well a vote of no confidence can’t be triggered in the first year of a PM’s term. (Unless the 1922 Committee decide to change the rule of course, which is possible.) I honestly think though that if pressure in the Tory camp was ramped up on Truss, she would threaten to call a general election, which they would lose. And I’m sure none of them want to lose their seats, so at the moment I would say she’s safe. But only for those reasons. Edited October 14, 2022 by Chair Slots Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IndridCold Posted October 14, 2022 Share Posted October 14, 2022 6 hours ago, Mad Slasher McGurk said: Nearer Helensburgh, 26 miles to Glasgow Airport. I used to work in the base, you have never seen so many people who do nothing and work school wains hours think they are hard done by. You should walk around the BBC then. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mad Slasher McGurk Posted October 20, 2022 Share Posted October 20, 2022 Breaking nooos! Truss has resigned. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blacko Posted October 20, 2022 Author Share Posted October 20, 2022 1 hour ago, Mad Slasher McGurk said: Breaking nooos! Truss has resigned. Can’t they call a general election and give the rest of the UK an opportunity to get rid of these bastards?, apparently Truss stands to rake in £150k a year for life having been a fuck up PM for five weeks. 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mad Slasher McGurk Posted October 20, 2022 Share Posted October 20, 2022 Just now, Blacko said: Can’t they call a general election and give the rest of the UK an opportunity to get rid of these bastards?, apparently Truss stands to rake in £150k a year for life having been a fuck up PM for five weeks. And qualifies for police protection for the rest of her life, I don't think they will go to the public, they can just appoint a leader like how Labour appointed Brown after Blair, Rishy or Hunt possibly? What a shit show, going to end up with a general election where Starmer is actually made to look like the choice to make and he's the one the globalists really want in charge. 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chrissy_M Posted October 20, 2022 Share Posted October 20, 2022 The obvious choice surely.... 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blacko Posted October 20, 2022 Author Share Posted October 20, 2022 7 minutes ago, Chrissy_M said: The obvious choice surely.... The cat gets Blackos vote 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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