More cracks in the Euro project
- 10 July 2012 11:43182157Mark those 1700% loans are appalling but these are only meant to be relatively small amounts and short-term, hence the astonishing rate. I am personally would outlaw such loans even so. Mostly people who use these have problems with budgeting and are on low incomes. Better that they resolve their budgeting issues and learn to manage their money.
A bigger problem has been the use of credit cards as a substitute for saving and the 'need' for instant gratification. There are clearly issues of education here. These can be a good tool if used responsibly but murderous if not.
High mortgages are a different matter. This is where the housing bubble got out of hand and where the failed inflation brief to the Bank of England was the big causation factor with interest rates too low to long. As I say the Treasury mistakes do not let lenders off the hook pr individuals for not assessing their affordability properly. Advisers too, some unscrupulous advisers, particularly where they had a vested interest in a property being sold as well, did not adequately consider affordability.
I no longer do mortgages and have not done so for quite a few years but when I did I told many a potential home-buyer that they could not afford a particular home or suggested a limit to their borrowing who then went to an estate agency broker and got a mortgage.
I have made representations to the FSA that a business relationship between estate agents and brokers should be reviewed with a view to separating their interests.
Nevertheless, regardless of all this - ultimately people are and should be responsible for their own decisions. You need only to look at the case of those I told not to proceed with a mortgage and then went to find the answer they wanted elsewhere. - 10 July 2012 11:44182158amazing how this has moved away from the EU....
- 10 July 2012 12:06182163I am not sure it has moved away, Barry. Swap the naivety of the domestic borrower with the vanity of the politician and you begin to see how nations became debt bound. The motivation of the lender remains the same in either scenario, however.
- 10 July 2012 12:11182166Mark - a fair point.
We, or rather our pension funds, really should not be lending to these irresponsible deficit spending countries until they get their affairs in order and reduce spending to manageable levels.... - Brian Dixon
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
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10 July 2012 16:25182183barry a chalenge,name one country that hasnt a deficit. - 10 July 2012 16:28182184Brian - where do I start?
The Pacific rim, the Americas, northern Europe? take your pick.
To be fair more will have a deficit now, years into a recession than did at the start of the recession and that is the whole point. The irresponsible countries carried on building up deficits in the growth phase of the economy when they should have been balancing the books.
Norway, even now has a surplus, back in 2010 it was about 10% of GDP.
The UK economy at that time had 13.3% deficit. This was the largest inn the OECD with the next largest deficit to us being Ireland at about 12.2%. Greece incidentally was a bit over 9%.
Such is the scale of the problem - the massive UK deficit did not include Brown's off-balance sheet fiddles either. - Brian Dixon
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10 July 2012 16:34182186and can you be more spesific please.name countrys alfabeticly. - 10 July 2012 16:40182188Read the expanded reply Brian - we crossed. The important point being that at the start of the cyclic slowdown you should not have a deficit, that slowdown started in 2007 whereas the UK had a structural deficit as early as 2005 that Brown kept increasing.
- Brian Dixon
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
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10 July 2012 16:46182190barry,you still havent explaind the ones who havent a deficit.we all know most have a deficit in and around europe but not worldwide.so can you give us a clue of whos in credit,and not those who are not.
yes i an feeling a bit contancerious today. - 10 July 2012 17:15182192Brian - you should read what I said very carefully. I have explained some very basic economic concepts very carefully and frequently in the past and quite frankly cannot be bothered to go into that detail yet again, so I can be cantankerous too....
The economy works in cycles and the fiscal position at the start of a slowdown is a crucial issue to how you can deal with that slowdown.
I have already given you some facts for the 2010 year and that was 3 years into the slowdown. - Brian Dixon
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10 July 2012 18:42182201and you still havent mentiond any country that hasnt a deficit,is that because there is none. - 10 July 2012 20:13182221Norway.
Scandinavian countries top the ranks of surplus countries in Europe. Norway had the most surplus in Europe with about 18% of GDP followed by Finland, Denmark, Luxembourg and Sweden. The countries with the highest deficits were Ireland, the UK and Romania. Deficits in Ireland and UK were more than double the maximum EU requirement. Many of the Eastern European countries such as Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania have high deficits. The economy of these Baltic countries fell heavily last year during the height of the credit crunch. - Brian Dixon
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11 July 2012 06:22182261thank you kieth,i am sorry that barry couldnt answer a sensible question like you have.
- 11 July 2012 07:08182265Thank you Keith,can you confirm if any of them have a flat rate of tax please?
- 11 July 2012 08:58182294Interesting question from Reg. Not because it has any relevance as such, but because along with other things he has said it suggests an attitude that I find abhorrent.
Quite clearly Reg - you take a 'communal view' of property. You believe that a government can spend what it likes and we all just have to pay whatever taxes are demanded of us and be grateful for whatever the government allows us to keep.
This suggests you are an old fashioned communist in the Soviet style when combined with your expressed hatred for the wealthy and successful and repeated suggestions that there should be more controls by government over business and even nationalisation.
Personally I take the direct opposite view.
That we should be wary and suspicious of governments (and politicians), they are essentially incompetent and should not have excessive power. They should spend carefully with the knowledge that they are spending other people's money and should restrain the level of taxes they demand. They have a duty to defend and protect the nation and its interests and to ensure that they enable the conditions for a healthy sustainable economy so they can enable help to those people who really need it. I also believe that our salaries/profits are our private property and we have the right to defend that private property and legally minimise the amount of tax taken by the government. The government must always acknowledge the rights of the individual in that respect and be reasonable with its demands as part of governing by consent.
You and I will never see eye to eye, our whole philosophy of life is at odds. - Brian Dixon
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11 July 2012 09:02182295mmmm interesting,reg now a red under the bed,nice theroy though. - 11 July 2012 09:05182296Barry's latest post is spot on
- Brian Dixon
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
11 July 2012 09:16182303that depends on your view point david. - 11 July 2012 09:30182307Funny how easily one can stray so far from ones ideals in one respect when one focuses all ones attention on one other single aspect of one's 'ideals-set'.
Not so funny, and not so strange, is that such is evidenced most starkly when discussing the 'what is mine is mine' proposition, as when one, in a rapturous reverie, reflects upon one's true love, Money.
All the talk is of 'rights', personal claims of the sanctity of having, and no hint is made as to responsibilities.
Obviously, some puffed-up bubbles are made of stern stuff, and yet it is the fate of all bubbles, that are ever-so-fervently inflated, to go pop!
The answer to the question; Whose money is it anyway? is plain in general terms, and I have pointed it up before, and made as clear as crystal with QE. All money is 'our' money. As the economy IS our economy. It is our nation's money & economy.
Funny how our's is all responsibility and no rights and for the wealthy individuals it has to be all 'rights' with zero responsibility.
In essence money is a concept, one that those with the wherewithal to gloat and drool cannot conceive of or will not conceive of.Ignorance is bliss, bliss is happiness, I am happy...to draw your attention to the possible connectivity in the foregoing. - 11 July 2012 10:03182316Tom - no surprise, you are a collectivist too, like Reg and you say it, money is communal and what we earn is not really ours.
My view is the opposite.
As for rights, yes, one of my beefs with the HRA is indeed that alongside rights go responsibilities, this is vital. I believe in government by consent, I give consent to the government to collect taxes from me and in turn I have a duty to pay what is legally required. The government's right to tax me is or should be also balanced by a duty to ensure that tax is at a reasonable level and is spent well and efficiently - right now this is not the case and has not been for a long time. The government has a duty also to see that the economy is managed (not controlled) in a sustainable way and that is another duty that it has failed at since 1997 when it went on a spend and tax spree that we are now paying for. My money, hard earned, is mine, my private property and I have the right to see that the taxes I pay are only what I legally have to pay and this is strengthened by the fact that the government has not upheld its part of the deal in the setting of taxes at a reasonable level, a sustainable economy or in efficient wise spending.