Not really a lot to say today, the game going on here makes
the ramifications of national debt even the imminent collapse of the Euro pale
into insignificance.
News, Local history and Thanet issues from Michael's Bookshop in Ramsgate see www.michaelsbookshop.com I publish over 200 books about the history of this area click here to look at them.
Monday, 14 May 2012
11 comments:
Comments, since I started writing this blog in 2007 the way the internet works has changed a lot, comments and dialogue here were once viable in an open and anonymous sense. Now if you comment here I will only allow the comment if it seems to make sense and be related to what the post is about. I link the majority of my posts to the main local Facebook groups and to my Facebook account, “Michael Child” I guess the main Ramsgate Facebook group is We Love Ramsgate. For the most part the comments and dialogue related to the posts here goes on there. As for the rest of it, well this blog handles images better than Facebook, which is why I don’t post directly to my Facebook account, although if I take a lot of photos I am so lazy that I paste them directly from my camera card to my bookshop website and put a link on this blog.
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Is that the same Euro crash which has increased its value against the pound by more than 20% in the last ten years?
ReplyDeleteAh Ken you have obviously played with similar opponents.
DeleteI think it is a mistake to consider the Euro as a currency outside of the obvious criteria that you can spend it. What you really have is something much more like the gold standard, with frankly no hope for countries without enough gold.
The most basic and simple criteria for countries having there own currency is simple, when a county gets into economic trouble the value of their currency diminishes, their goods and services become cheaper and it is expensive for them to import.
In simple terms with the Greeks, if the had their own currency, it would have fallen so holidays in Greece would have become cheaper, doing much more than their politicians could do to repair their economy.
Monopoly money Euro's much the same me thinks especialy if Greece bails out and Portugal and S
DeleteSo Michael, taking your criteria and applying it the pound, we are in a similar mess to Greece except we have quantative easing (commonly known as devaluation)
DeleteFar from it Ken, when you take in to account the size of the UK and the population we have one of the best GDP figures in the world, and of course not joining the Euro was a very wise move too.
DeleteOn balance with our very high level of human rights, health service and social benefits it isn’t surprising that a lot of people want to immigrate here, you may not of ever had it so good but it most certainly could be a great deal worse.
I guess that the greatest danger to the UK with the Euro situation would be a considerable rise in the value of the £, I for one would see a reduction in export sales.
Trouble is Michael, people look at it on a day to day basis and six months maximum or to their next holiday abroad. The UK has approx 4% inflation and 1.5% interest rates, so you may be getting good exports but the pound in your pocket is worth 3p less year on year and saving is a mugs game. This has resulted in the Euro increasing 20% more than the pound in the last 10 years, but the media talk about the "Great Euro Crash" when it drops 2p.
DeleteThe Euro bought £0.62 when launched in 2002, in 2011 it reached £0.90, it has now dropped back to £0.79, hardly a crash.
The problem for the Euro is not so much its value against other world currencies, but the fact that no one national treasury is involved in its support. What we are seeing is the result of the rush to enlarge the zone without imposing quite the same fiscal discipline on the newcomers. Hence, it is not the small drop in value that presents the danger, but the very real risk of the break up of the Eurozone itself.
DeleteThe Euro may have launched at 62p, but was always expected to grow in value against other currencies over time. That is not a criticism of sterling for it also achieved similar gains against other world currencies. The reality is that the Euro only continues thanks to the Germans, but how much longer will they be prepared to bail out the rest of Europe.
As for Ken's comment about saving being a mugs game, exactly what else are the responsible amongst us supposed to do. If you want money tomorrow to fund future needs you need to save and it is a message we should take on board as a nation. So what if the £1 you put aside is worth only 97p, at least you have 97p more than the person who spent every penny. You can, of course, also save by investing in precious metals, art, shares or even baked beans, but which will perform best in todays volatile markets is anyone's guess. Few jerrycans of petrol might be the best bet, but storage can be illegal.
No comment about last nights exercise in bribery? Or was it too much for even your left wing soul to digest
ReplyDeleteTiggywinkles blog seems to have vanished!
ReplyDeleteRumour has it the tiggywinkles were all found squashed on a busy road which they were evidently trying to cross. It is also suggested that the boys in blue are looking for the Tiggies former webmaster who was heard to shout threats over his sacking. All in all it is a nasty business and the disappearance of their blog adds to the mystery.
ReplyDeleteMeantime in the corridors of power over on Cecil Street, the leader is left to wonder whether his support group will ever appear again. Could this let the dreaded Tories back in power and ruin all those plans to spend hobbles of loot on useless projects with a view to punishing the filthy rich of Thanet with a council tax rise next year.
By the way, if you live next to an empty house stand by for it being snapped up by the council for social housing. Areas particularly sought after are Callis Court Road, Kingsgate Road, the North Foreland Estate and the area around Epple Bay. These are considered to need a bit of ethnic cleansing of rich bloated capitalists.
Still think it funny that Michael, who usually has a view on everything, has not commented on this piece of gerrymandering
ReplyDelete