BEWARE! THE BANKS ARE OUT TO GET YOU!

[Stanley]

See THIS Latest NYT report on Wall Street. The same thinking can be applied to the other markets. In another report the Volatility
Index is noted as being at the highest ever.
Here in the UK we had the latest figures showing a drop of over 20% in GDP (LINK). Looking at further shocks to come and allowing for Events Dear Boy the optimistic reassurances we are getting from our leaders sound suspiciously like whistling in the dark.
(Yes David, I am pessimistic! But I think with good reason.)

[Stanley]

Much comment about the resumption of shopping. However, beneath the hype there is much pessimism as a sector of the economy that was in deep trouble before Covid19 doesn't expect profitable trade due to the oncoming recession. There is also the small matter of the rents that are due.
For once I agree with Mary Portas, that it is the major shopping centres that will suffer most. Just for once, prospects are better for small local shops with low overheads. I hope so...

[Whyperion]

Low overheads. Depends on an efficient delivery of goods in, most manage. Most Co-ops have taken themselves as mid-market delis wannabe Waitrose's (though I find Waitrose can be cheaper and have a better range of goods)

[Stanley]

THIS CNN article is worth a read. It is about conditions in the US but applies equally to the UK. One of the big shocks to come is I fear a widening of the income gap between poor and rich and this article spells out the mechanism that will cause it.

[Tizer]

It's not the only gap that's widening. Divisions are increasing in number and size, between nations, political groups, age groups, religions, economic groups etc. It bodes badly for our chances of tackling pandemics, climate change, deprivation and so on. We need more cohesion, not division.

[Whyperion]

Anyone got a sociological idea why divisions (a) occur , (b) tend to fall 52:48 or/and 10:90 (more accurately 10:10:70:10 on income and employment splits).

In the iron ages (roughly) inside one of Stanley's Defensive ditches there would be hierarchy of family groups with their livestock, wooden palings would enhance the ditches to keep unwanted out, any who did not fit in the internal group through common law breaking would be cast out , as out-laws.

[Stanley]

I agree absolutely Tiz. You'd think we'd learn wouldn't you. Probably evolution in action setting us up for a cull to keep numbers down.

[Tizer]

I read that the very rich are now buying not those usual flashy yachts but big powerful ex-ocean research vessels. These are built to survive polar ice and tropical storms - and probably pirates and law enforcement agencies too. One recently bought is a Russian `ex-spy ship'. It's rather like the barons building their castles in medieval times. These vessels cost billions of pounds each. The UK's richest man, Sir Jim Ratcliffe who owns the Ineos chemicals business, has bought one of these ships and I expect he has another reason - searching the sea floor for minerals such as manganese. He can afford one - he was said in 2018 to have `net worth' of £21.05 billion.

As an aside...Wikipedia reports: `In March 2019 INEOS said it would close its Middlesbrough manufacturing plant unless it is allowed to ‘defer compliance’ with EU rules designed to prevent air and water pollution. An analysis of data from the Environment Agency (EA) also reveals the plant clocked up 176 permit violations between 2014 and 2017. An EA spokesperson said: “Air emissions are well over legal limits and this poses a risk to the environment”. INEOS director Tom Crotty said the firm “cannot justify” the investment required to comply with EU air and water pollution rules due to come into force in the coming years.' Ratcliffe

If you hadn't guessed it, he's a Brexit supporter!

[Whyperion]

Dont we have to comply given the terms of the agreed exit political agreement (I dont know the detail so could be wrong). I saw one of the Business Yachts, cannot remember whose it was (Chair of NCP I think). I thought it was the local Island to Spain Ferry it was so large.

[Tripps]

"Born in Failsworth, Lancashire, the son of a father who was a joiner, and a mother who was an accounts office worker, Ratcliffe lived there in a council house until the age of ten."

As were most of my immediate family.

[Stanley]

Was it Andrew Carnegie who said that if a man died rich he had failed, he should have given it away to where it would do most good?

[Tizer]

We've already been passing on more of our savings to our younger family members. They need it more than we do and it makes more sense to give it to them now than making them wait until we die. The more of it gets spent sensibly on the youngest members, the greater the impact. It's a bit like with pensions - the earlier you start the bigger the result.

[chinatyke]

We've already been passing on more of our savings to our younger family members. They need it more than we do and it makes more sense to give it to them now than making them wait until we die. The more of it gets spent sensibly on the youngest members, the greater the impact. It's a bit like with pensions - the earlier you start the bigger the result.

Me too, I'm helping where it is most needed.

[Stanley]

I think that many of us are now paid up members of the bank of Mum and Dad.
I had an unscripted moment with a very nice young lady at my bank a few weeks ago. Totally out of order of course but I suspect she was very alert to what I was doing. She asked me if she was correct in thinking this was Bank of Dad in operation. When I told her it was she said I wish I had a dad like you. As I say, her bosses would not be pleased but I was very sorry for her and thought it was a nice touch. All communications with your bank should leave you with that feeling!
These are hard times especially for the young. Not their fault, burdens must be shared.

[Tizer]

She was probably also checking you weren't being scammed.

[Stanley]

If you had heard the tone of her voice Tiz you would not have had any suspicions. I felt for her, there was a story behind that simple phrase.

[Tizer]

I'm not talking about suspicion, I'm saying she was doing her job properly by checking that you weren't being taken advantage of by one of the many scammers now forcing older folk to take money out and give it to them. They have to do that now. And she was kind enough to overlay it with friendliness rather than sounding authoritarian.

[Stanley]

Understood Tiz. It was good, it made for a nice phone call. But I still detected heart felt feeling in "I wish I had a dad like you."

[Stanley]

The decline of the High Street is a fact of modern life. Ironic that the large malls that triggered much of this decline are themselves in trouble. See THIS BBC report on the position of Intu who own some of the largest out of town centres.

[Stanley]

Mohamed Mansour (born 1948) is an Egyptian billionaire businessman and former politician. He is the chairman of Mansour Group, a US$6 billion conglomerate that is the second largest company in Egypt by revenue. In November 2019, Forbes estimated his wealth at $2.3 billion. He was on World Service this morning commenting on the world economy and I think he made a lot of sense. Amongst the things he said was that this is the first time he has ever seen both global supply and demand fail simultaneously. He also said that we can't compare the present position with 2008 because then the saving grace was that economies cooperated and took joint action, this time those relations are fractured, largely because of Trump's policies. This being the case he expects things to get worse before we see any 'bounce back'.
He made sense to me......

[Tizer]

I see similar views in The Times. The friction between nations is raised, and especially between US and China with Russia stirring the pot. Divisions within the population of each country are also greater. There are more types of division than we've seen in the past. The gap between rich and poor is getting greater rather than smaller. All bad news, I'm afraid. And all at a time when what we most need is internation cohesion to deal with global problems.

[Stanley]

Exactly how I see it from Barlick Tiz.
This is how it should be presented to the public as the sober realisation of what Covid means in economic terms might slow down the mass disregard for precautions we are seeing nation wide. (As if.....)

[plaques]

Every time the Bank of England (BoE) prints money / electronic money through quantitative easing etc: someone has to pay for it. First its take money from the savers by reducing interest rates. Then off everybody by inflation. Those at the bottom by austerity and wage freezes. And finally reduce the peasants wages via the Gig economy. People will note that the BoE has just printed some more to deal with the covid problem.

[Tizer]

Some people are doing well out of the covid crisis - $57,000,000,000 in the first 6 months of this year...
` Wall Street banks net record fees for pandemic fundraisings: First-half total of $57bn swelled by debt sales as companies seek cash to ease coronavirus pain' FT LINK

You might remember we discussed Jim Ratcliffe recently, richest man and owner of Ineos Chemicals. Well now he's got even more control over the chemicals business. (By the way, his Grangemouth refinery is a joint venture with the Chinese state oil firm, PetroChina.)
`BP sells petrochemicals business to Ineos in $5bn deal' LINK

[Stanley]

Tiz, what obscene figures.... I know that in Tory eyes I am just an old Red but I have been banging on for years about income inequality and at the moment it's rocketing up. We used to talk about the top 10% controlling 80% of the world's wealth. I suspect we should modify that to the top 1%. It is totally unbalanced and nobody wants to address it as every political system is driven by economics and greed. If Marx and Engels were alive today they would be forecasting a revolution. Actually, I think it is leading to a total breakdown of society, a dystopian world where the rich sit in enclaves with private security and the waves of protesting poor batter their walls like waves in a storm. Fat lot of good their wealth will do them then. They'll be in permanent lockdown and the underpaid workers will make sure they have a rising tide of crap and garbage. (And no water!)
Anyone care to argue against that?