BEWARE! THE BANKS ARE OUT TO GET YOU!

[plaques]

The stock market has always been likened to a casino ie: gambling. One would never dream of saying that bookmakers profits are an indicator of how well the country is doing. It may be in fact an indicator of how desperate people are getting that they are prepared to gamble short term because they are getting left behind in the current system.

[Tizer]

The news about the tech stocks has a different aspect - they now represent most of the value in the US market and are what has been saving Trump while the old rustbelt stocks still decline. It's ironic that Trump on the one hand hates those companies and on the other depends on them for his claims to have America great again.

[Stanley]

Quite but don't hold your breath while waiting for him to admit that.
In the UK you only have to look at the list of Tory Party donors to get a good idea of who policy will favour.

[Stanley]

Have a look at THIS and see if you can make any sense of it. I had heard whispers about this but if these reports are true it's astounding. Could the banks have been actually doing this? We're used to dodgy behaviour but outright forgery means criminal fraud doesn't it?

[Tizer]

Good memory...it's not whispers you heard but a post you read on OGFB over a year ago when we discussed the original BBC report about Lloyds Bank forging the signatures: LINK
At that time the BBC asked the National Crime Agency to investigate but they still haven't taken any action against the offending banks. They're still giving it a coat of looking at!

[Stanley]

Is it stupidity, incompetence or simple lack of will to function because the financial sector is so powerful?
We see this syndrome right through government. Big problems crying out for action, erudite reports proposing sensible solutions all followed by stasis. No action.
Should official reports after lengthy enquiries be given force of law?

[Tizer]

All very true, and I guess it's a bit of each of your three potential reasons that are the cause. It seems difficult to get good people into politics but perhaps that's a circular problem - the people we need don't want to go into politics because of what see of our present politicians. It's notable that, for example, very few of our politicians are scientists. I remember when I was doing some research in geochemistry in the late 1970s and the professor in charge of the geology institute in Germany was a minister in the German government! I'll bet there are still a lot more technology people in German politics that we have here.

[Stanley]

Very true Peter but there are always exceptions, Thatcher was science based! In days gone by my beef is that there were too many lawyers and accountants and not enough historians, now it's politics and economics degrees that are the entry card. That was one reason why entry via trade union service was so valuable but I don't suppose there is any hard and fast rule. The main problem is perhaps still lack of contact with the bottom layers of society, what we used to call the grass roots. My impression is that all the top posts are held by wealthy people but I don't know if that is true.
I heard a news report yesterday that the unemployment figures are lagging behind the true position and there is a suspicion that Number Ten isn't over-worried about that as it suits their spin.

[Tizer]

`Continued tech sell-off drags Wall Street lower' LINK
`A sell-off in shares of US technology firms has continued for a third day, dragging down all three major American stock indexes more than 2%. Apple was the biggest loser on the Dow, falling more than 6.7%. Amazon and Facebook also dropped at least 4%. The sharp downturn follows the huge gains earlier in 2020 which had helped US markets rebound from the pandemic..'.

[Stanley]

I noted that as well Peter and reflected that if a company like TESLA can lose a third of its value it is more a reflection of the mood swings of investors than actual changes in the company.
Trump is silent on the falls, he is only interested in good news stories and if there aren't any of them he simply lies. Simples! (And unfortunately it seems to work which is very worrying.)

[Stanley]

The furloughing scheme finishes in less than 45 days. 45 days is the notice most large firms have to give of redundancies. I fear that many such notices will be in the post shortly and then we will get an idea of what the effect is going to be on employment figures. The CBI and the TUC are only two of the public bodies who have queried continuing support for those in work but no signs so far of any relief.
Unemployment and the economy are going to be the story from hereon in to the end of the year and beyond.

[Tizer]

...if a company like TESLA can lose a third of its value it is more a reflection of the mood swings of investors than actual changes in the company.

And in the case of big tech companies and ones like Tesla the mood swings of investors can be simply down to the behaviour or statements of the CEO. Tesla goes up or down as Musk himself does sensible or silly things, even things in his private life.

[Stanley]

Indeed. And yet politicians use good stock market levels to 'prove' they are doing a good job when in fact they are based on the most ephemeral criteria in many cases.
Trump is an obvious example and it may yet prove to be a weak reed to rely on.

[Stanley]

The worsening of the Covid19 situation plus the ending of some emergency measures and all exacerbated by Brexit are beginning to take their toll. The economic forecasters are slowly abandoning talk about 'V' shaped recoveries and sounding far more pessimistic. Reality is beginning to bite. Watch this space, ebullient optimism and talking the market up have had their day. It's beginning to look increasingly troubled out there and I suspect many companies are taking far-reaching decisions but don't want to reveal just how bad they are. Tin Hat Time?

[Stanley]

Just had the post delivered. It includes a flyer from Provident offering me a £1,000 loan at 535.3% APR.
The sharks are circling already.

[chinatyke]

Just had the post delivered. It includes a flyer from Provident offering me a £1,000 loan at 535.3% APR.
The sharks are circling already.

That's about 10% per week or £100 a week in fees! I wonder if they find takers at that level of interest?

[Stanley]

That's the sad thing China. Of course they do. It's immediate money and there are a lot of desperate people out there. Provident would argue they are providing a vital service, I see it as naked exploitation of families in distress. As far as the government is concerned it's more money into the economy. This country is running on debt and there has to be an end to it. This winter is going to be very rough.

[Tizer]

Just had the post delivered. It includes a flyer from Provident offering me a £1,000 loan at 535.3% APR.
The sharks are circling already.

And the sharks are not all bankers - I've received an email from VW with a `special offer' to replace my Golf's headlights with LED ones. The special offer price is £999!! (I had a look at a dealers web site and when you buy a new Golf you can add in LED headlights as an option - at £1000 - so the special offer must be £1 reduction!).

Here's one of those unintended consequences of Brexit that will affect any Brit who spends time working in the EU...
'My bank is shutting my account because of Brexit' LINK

[chinatyke]

That sounds extortionate for a couple of lamps so I had a quick look here. I don't know your model but a quick search shows model Magotan B8 headlight assembly (pair - original equipment) at 1068 rmb + 114 rmb for installation. That's £123 + £13. (No VAT, tax is included). What a rip off!

[PanBiker]

I have a busted rear numberplate lamp. The lens is missing as well. A quick search on Ebay and I have found a LED replacement which is fully compatible for my model of Hyundai i30. £15.40 + £3.20 p&p for two! Why two? there is only one on the back of the car. Can't seem to find anyone selling the same thing as a single item. I think a Hyundai incandescent replacement is around the £79.00 mark. I will probably buy the double deal, anyone else with a 2009 Hyundai i30 1.6ltr Comfort Hatchback?

[Stanley]

Being an old dinosaur, my first call when the back cluster was broken on my Astra was the scrapyard at Salterforth. A tenner as long as I took it off myself. Mind you, that was a while ago.

[PanBiker]

You can't do that now because of Elf and Safety regs. It needs to be the exact right model as well because they changed the shape and fitting on the later marque. I might as well replace it with the LED one and have spare that I will never use, might be able to repurpose it for something.

[Tizer]

This will have the bankers chattering around the world... (I've copied in a lot of the text in case Chinatyke can't access the beeb.)
`'One day everyone will use China's digital currency' LINK
`Chandler Guo was a pioneer in cryptocurrency, the digital currencies that can be created and used independently of national central banks and governments. In 2014 he set up an operation to produce one of those currencies, Bitcoin, in a secret location in western China. "Mining" Bitcoin is a power hungry enterprise involving dozens of computers so he used power from a hydroelectric station, in partnership with a local Chinese government official. At its peak his machines were capable of mining 30% of the world's Bitcoin. He believed Bitcoin would one day change the world and replace the dollar. But now he sees a new force emerging - a payment system created by the Chinese state and known as Digital Currency Electronic Payment (DCEP). It's really a digital version of China's official currency, the yuan, and Mr Guo feels DCEP will become the dominant global currency. "One day everyone in the world will be using DCEP," he says. "DCEP will be successful because there are a lot of Chinese people living outside of China - there are 39 million Chinese living outside of the country. "If they have a connection with China they will use the DCEP. They can make DCEP become an international currency." But many question whether it will succeed and there are concerns that it will be used by Beijing to spy on citizens.

`China plans to launch DCEP later this year. But so far, the People's Bank of China has not given an exact date for the nationwide launch. China began testing the digital currency earlier this year in selected cities. When rolled out it will allow users to link downloaded electronic wallets to their bank cards, make transactions and transfer money. "It's hard to predict the timeline but the People's Bank of China is under a lot of pressure to accelerate the development because they do not want to be in a world where Libra (Facebook's digital currency) becomes the global currency, which they think is worse than the current global financial system controlled by the US," says Linghao Bao, an analyst from Beijing-based Trivium. Observers say China wants to internationalise the yuan so that it can compete with the dollar. "The Chinese government believes that if some other countries can also use the Chinese currency it can break the United States' monetary sovereignty. The United States has built the current global financial system and the instruments," says an anonymous Chinese cryptocurrency observer known as Bitfool.

[Stanley]

Chilling report Peter. Do you remember that song (or was it a show?) 'Stop the World! I want to get off!'.
Have a look at THIS. I read the report yesterday and it sprang to mind because a lot of enormous illegal transactions are done using Bitcoin. The article makes the point that ignoring this evil is already damaging the world order. The way it is allowed in the UK is a scandal and the Eye makes the clear link between this lax regulation and Tory Party funding.

[chinatyke]

Thanks Peter. I cannot access any links to the Beeb. I don't really understand all the fuss around this e-currency. Isn't it just another fiat currency with no cash option? Like everyone else I'm already using e-transactions to pay for most things. My pensions go into my bank accounts without anyone seeing any cash, and I use up most of it by e-transfers and e-payments. Last time I paid in actual cash at my bank was 2004 shortly before I came here.