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BMW and Mercedes not immune to Credit Crunch |
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The iconic motoring brands saw recent sales fall by more than 25%. What’s more worrying is that these are the most affluent consumers. With no car finance available to the ‘average Joe’, expect to see the ‘average brand’ sales fall off a cliff, not to mention the value of your car.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/governmentFilingsNews/idUKL56331020081205?pageNumber=2&virtualBrandChannel=0
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/banking_and_finance/article2469491.ece |
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Honda’s given up on Formula 1, or maybe Honda just got fed up of Jenson Button salary per point. Not exactly performance related pay….
http://www.pitpass.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=153362&sid=aee148cbda3b1dd17a60a32c710bc6d3 |
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Electric Car makers Struggle too! |
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With a price tag of $100,000 for the Tesla, it’s not exactly affordable motoring for the masses. Maybe the new Mini E is more the future….
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122849893450683261.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7760787.stm
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Bagpuss creator meets his maker |
Don’t worry, Oliver Postgate’s much loved ‘saggy old cloth cat’ will live on in 13 episodes. You can here the mice cry ‘we will mend it, we will mend it’, sorry guys you won’t be mending this one. Postgate was also the creator of the ‘Welsh Thomas the Tank Engine’ also known as ‘Ivor the Engine’, and the bizzaro world of Clangers. http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/oliver-postgate-bagpuss-creator-dies-aged-83-1058432.html
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The End of the Credit Crunch |
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Good News! The end of the Credit Crunch is coming! The Bad news however is that it is coming to an end because all the paper money in the world is actually worthless. Start stocking up on your gold bars and just chip a bit off next time your in Tesco’s.
http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/2008/12/did-december-2nd-mark-beginning-of-end.html |
If you actually think this Government has any idea what it is doing then please read this from Michael Coogan, Director General of the Council of Mortgage Lenders.
“To different degrees lenders are facing conflicting pressures to recapitalise against possible future losses, service government’s preference shareholdings at 12 per cent, pay a premium to access the Bank of England Special Liquidity Scheme, show forbearance to borrowers in arrears, follow base rate moves down to help their existing borrowers, keep savings rates high to support existing savers, and provide competitive rates to new borrowers and savers to maintain economic activity in a recession. And they are supposed to ensure their long term financial stability to help the UK economy rebuild itself when we are out of the recession."
Is that all?? Even a man with four arms couldn’t juggle this lot. Has Gordon gone mad? Well madder anyway…….
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/money/property_and_mortgages/article5312186.ece |
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Start stocking up China ain’t coughing up |
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Well if you thought things couldn’t get any worse, China have said they not going to lend us anymore cash. Bugger, these fellows have been working for slave wages in sweatshops for a decade now, to fund our western lifestyles through their savings, which we then borrow and spend on their goods. Crazy world this bastardisation of Capitalism is…...
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article5309917.ece |
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A documentary produced by by an awardwinning Canadian director, John Zaritsky is to be shown tonight on Sky Real Lives channel. It will document a a terminally ill man, Craig Ewert swallowing a lethal mixture of sedatives and switching off his life-support machine. He needed a mouth-operated system to switch off the machine because he had lost the use of his limbs.
The contrevsial clinic in Switerland has helped over 700 people from 25 countries end their lives since 1999. However there was criticism yesterday from people who saw it as an invasion of privacy, and from those who oppose assisted suicide.
John Beyer, the director of the television watchdog Mediawatch-UK, said: “Documentary-makers produce all manner of programmes and no one can stop that or intervene unless they fail to comply with the requirements of the Communications Act. If this programme is not impartial and promotes euthanasia then it would be in breach of the Act; in short, it must not influence members of the public or a change in the law."
God forbid someone actually makes a television programme that influences members of the public or a change in the law. Whatever next? Ban David Attenbourgh for alerting us to climate change, ban FOX network or prehaps even censor the BBC for alerting us to the fact that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction……
Serious subject as this is, I had no idea the Communications Act has such a vast mandate.
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-wellbeing/health-news/final-words-to-her-husband-have-a-safe-journey-i-will-see-you-some-time-1059446.html |
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Reality in the markets but not in the press |
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Further to my earlier blog regarding the backwardisation of gold for (technically) the for first time in history (first link), the 3 month US Treasury Bill turned negative for the first time too. When a Treasury bill paying 0% is overvalued at issue what does this tell you about the true scale of this depression? Well it was four times oversubscribed so in my humble opinion a lot.
These issues are not in the meainstream, ordinary people don’t quite get this technical stuff so it does make good news, this however is NEWS is has never happened before! We the people have been failed at the highest level will someone please let them know whats coming.
http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/2008/12/did-december-2nd-mark-beginning-of-end.html
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=at.e0xwtyWrk&refer=home |
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Taking artistic licence too far |
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Actor Daniel Hoevels almost died when he slit his throat with a real knife rather than a prop while performing in Mary Stuart (about Mary Queen of Scots) in Austria. What these actors will do nowadays for a round of applause…
On a serious note police are investigating foul play and Mr Hoevels recovered to perform the following night.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7777086.stm |
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Robert Peston’s article is a great staring point for anyone who wants to understand the scale of the current depression. For a journalist this guy has been doing his bit toward the Brave New World coming to us soon….
Please bare in mind this is the BBC so he can’t get to gloomy. Continue your own search for the truth.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/robertpeston/newcapitalism.pdf |
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For those who require a more in depth look regarding the current depression, the Financial tsunami series by F. William Engdahl’s is top draw. Considering much of this is written before events happened, it shows that those with the understanding and insight knew what was coming.
http://www.shadowtraders.com/futuresblog/financial-tsunami-part-vi/239 |
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The push by Gordon Brown to become next Prime Minister has reached unprecedented levels in the last few months. From strutting round the world to teach his piers how to run their economies to token gestures in the Emergency Budget for Labour canvassers, his brazen disregard for real fundamentals has left those ‘in the know’ flabbergasted.
Why he would want to win the next election is beyond me, but must he scupper the economy for the next 30 years just to satisfy his mammoth ego in the meantime?
http://uk.reuters.com/article/businessNews/idUKTRE4B93IV20081211 |
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Get good advice from your bank? |
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Check for April 1st, pinch yourself, is this The Matrix, no apparently this is serious. Natwest have given 1000 advisers, 8 hours training each to solve our financial problems. I almost fell of my chair. I have 15 years experience in Financial Services, am an Economics graduate, Advanced Financial Planner, Qualified Investment Fund Manager and Mortgage Adviser and my advice is have a safe installed in your house, buy gold bars and put them in it then pray a lot even if you’re an atheist.
http://www.citywire.co.uk/adviser/-/blogs/broker-consultants/content.aspx?ID=323669 |
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Welfare Reforms lack insight |
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To reform the UK benefit system would challenge the greatest intellect, indeed the interconnected elements would include the tax system itself and the indirect consequences of the increase in crime, which is particularly difficult to quantify.
So it come as some surprise that David Freud took just three weeks to come up with the latest White Paper on Welfare reforms. Well this guy must be an unparallelled genius, a master of all he perveys.Well no he’s the guy responsible for raising the funding for those two commercially viable leviathans Railtrack and EuroDisney.
In his own words “I didn't know anything about welfare when I started.” However three weeks later he is willing to send the mental ill into the workforce and the poor into crime against the people to fund their standard of living. Smart guy I’m sure he must have big gates and bodyguards, even if he clearly has no brain. http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/matthew-norman/matthew-norman-it-takes-a-rich-man-to-pour-such-scorn-on-the-poor-1061132.html |
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