Just updated my website.

I just updated one of the pages on my site. You may take it with a pinch of salt, or consider it food for thought! Oh, and don't be afraid of calling me a nutter, I've been called much worse!

“Oh weep, ye harlots of Babylon!”
Sorry to keep harping on about “The Invisible Hand” but it is becoming ever more relevant. Remember how Jesus was asked by the deciples about when he would return, and he was giving hints and clues to watch for? Well, at it’s peak, the ancient city of Babylon was the Wall Street of it’s day. A centre of commerce, banking and trading, it was at the centre of the known worlds economics. But greed was it’s downfall. Today there is nothing left of it. Babylon’s economy was based on the same style of banking and lending we see today in the world’s markets. When Jesus talked of the harlot’s of Babylon, he was refering to the traders and dealers who would think nothing of prostituting themselves in order to make a profit. When he said, “Oh weep,” bearing in mind he was talking about signs of his imminent return, he was stating that just prior, there would be a total, complete, worldwide, economic and banking colapse. Just like Babylon.

Hello again VEE, I'm sorry but it's that man again! Just a short word or two to cheer us all up a little. I have lived quite a long time now (ages) honestly, I have seen the depression of the early 30's, I have lived through the last world war and the destructive power of the Atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I have lived through the Rusian Cold war and the Berlin wall, the threat of atomic warfare, the Cuban crisis, the Korean and Vietnamese wars, the six day Israely war, the Suez crisis, and more recently the Falklands, Iraq and Afghasnistan wars. I suffered the 50's consequences of the last war with the continuing shortages, the final abolition of food rationing and FAGS suddenly appearing from under the counters again! The first black and white TV's and the many changes of various governments of all parties. Prime Ministers from Chamberlain, Churchill and right through to George Brown. All of them without exception uttering false promises and let downs. I saw the birth of the national Health Service, the first and last flights of the Supersonic Concorde and now the final collapse of the World banking system. Who said Comunism doesn't work, now take a look at China's powerful economy! Did I say "a short word or two to cheer us all up?" Well the point I wish to make is this, that for all of the worlds catastrophies and disasters we, the human race, always come through in the end and this latest Economic breakdown is just one more Blip in a line of continuous World disasters and we will get through this one just like all the others, believe me, I speak from experience! Bankers are not fools, they enjoy making money and before long this huge money worry will go down as just another worrying part in mankinds history! I just hope I live long enough to see my shares and savings earning a few more pennies once again! Good luck to everyone.
Alroy.

Well, I just hope my £52.00 in the Bradford and Bingly is safe! If I loose that, that's my life savings gone!

OK I am not here to win a popularity vote, but do empathise with what Royal had to say.

Nevertheless, I would like to add this little gem of a link, which also contributes in an appropriate manner to this thread:-

From Times OnlineOctober 6, 2008

Pope says world financial system 'built on sand'
The Pontiff said the banking collapse shows that 'money is nothing'
Richard Owen in Rome
Pope Benedict XVI today said that the global credit crisis shows that the world's financial systems are "built on sand" and that only the works of God have "solid reality".

Opening a Synod of Bishops in the Vatican the Pope referred to a passage from St Matthew's Gospel on false prophets, saying ''He who builds only on visible and tangible things like success, career and money builds the house of his life on sand''.

He added: ''We are now seeing, in the collapse of major banks, that money vanishes, it is nothing. All these things that appear to be real are in fact secondary. Only God's words are a solid reality''.

He was referring to Jesus's words in Matthew Chapter 7, beginning "Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves."


Times Archive, 1929: Wall-Street panic
A Niagara of liquidation fell upon the American Stock Exchange today

Wall Street collapse: effect on business
New York banker's death
Related Links
Brown and Merkel try to patch up savings chaos
Global panic on markets over credit crisis
Multimedia
Share panic explained
Jesus adds: "Whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock …but everyone that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand.”

On Sunday the pontiff launched a marathon reading of the Bible on Italian television at the basilica of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme in Rome by reading aloud the opening passages of Genesis.

More than 1,200 people are reading the entire Old and New Testaments from beginning to end this week, including Church and political figures, actors and volunteers from all walks of life drawn from the ranks of Catholics, Protestants, Jews and Muslims.

The Pope was followed among others on the first evening by the actor and film director Roberto Begnini, who said he had been awed at reading the Bible "in the house of the author".

However Riccardo Di Segni, the Chief Rabbi of Rome, who was to have been one of the readers, pulled out last month, saying that the arrangements for the marathon were too "rigorously Roman Catholic."

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article4893190.ece

:Nothingtoadd:

Seriously folks, food for thought

This will correct itself. Out banking system in Aust has come through relatively unscathed, with their biggest problem being the cost of the money that they lend. We have a highly regulated banking system, and the executives have a bit more sense than those in the US and many other countries. I wouldnt be surprised to see some of our banks launching new takeover bids in other countries.

We have a very strong economy because our major trading partner is China, and we are riding the back of a mining boom. I expect this will slow a bit, but China will not slow too much, even when demand goes down in the US and Europe. Some of our local councils and govt depts have lost millions as they invested in what they thought were govt backed mortgage bonds in the US, and they are now worthless, as they were repackaged loans from Fannie May and Freddie Mac. Even one of Victoria's hospitals has lost millions, a public hospital. So that will have a bad effect. Most worrying to us, is the effect on our pensions/superannuation. We have all lost a packet. I almost transferred ours into cash the other day but thought, not not the right thing to do, and now another crash, at least I have no international shares in my super, neither does my partner. And we are still investing heavily in there, so are taking advantage of dollar cost averaging, meaning we get more for the money we invest now, but it doesnt even come close to making up for the losses. But it will grow back again. I have no doubt about that.

Our stock market will take a big dive again today, following on from the US and you guys in Europe who started this rot. This is just blind panic at work, and it will even out in the next few days, if not tomorrow. And then begins the long haul of pulling the markets back up. Look at the price of oil, it is getting lower as I write this, and this will take a while to flow through to the economies. But it will have a positive effect.

But be prepared, this rollercoaster ride will continue for months.

And Royal is correct. The bankers and wall street wallies want to make money, and they will not keep selling and losing. It will stop. Basically, they will pull themselves together and things will start to improve. Plus, a number of the bigwigs in the US will face civil actions and some will most certainly face criminal charges over the collapse of the sub prime market. It may take a while but things will get better. It is just unfortunate that so many people (and it the children that worry me the most) will struggle so badly while this is all going on, and those that caused it continue to live in luxury. Although how much luxury will they get from the inside of a gaol cell.

Something needed to be done donkeys ago about the way our money markets worked, it appears we learned nothing from the Wall st crash!

The way I look at it is very simplistic, this is because basically it is, all the money on the world is still there! the gold reserves everything, it has not been transferred out of the world to a remote economy on some distant planet, it is still here and this will pass eventually, I predict a rocky 2008 and an edgy but recovering 2009, with a few blips along the way, but basically we weather this.
I am worried for my children, they along with many others have done everything right and I fear for them, hopefully our government will put is some safeguards to protect people affected by something that is not their fault!

I blame the banks, but it is not just people spending on credit that has caused this, it is the banks! the people in the stock markets deliberately causing panics so they can run on a particular currency in order to make money! They should be thrown in jail! The media have to take some blame too, they have kept on and on and on about this until they caused people to panic.
The banks will not loan each other money and if they do it is at the overnight rate, which is ludicrously high, this means they will not loan people money for mortgages and this then feeds through to the economy via the housing market, ie builders and all the sub economies that depend on a robust housing market!

The one good thing to come from this, when this is finally through and that will be sooner than people expect, at least first time buyers will not find themselves priced out of the housing market! Property will be a realistic price again.

One thing for people in the UK to understand this is not really a recession in the way we have seen other recessions, this is caused by the greed and illegal trading in the banking system. In the UK at least we have moderately low interest rates and both inflation figures are relatively low, this is in direct opposition to other times of recession when interest rates ran at almost 16% for a whole year and we had rampant inflation, this caused massive home repossessions.

just one little thing to hang on to, while we wait for the idiots to come to their senses. Also at least world leaders are actually trying to do something about this and as Diane has said the price of crude oil is now tumbling, so this too should feed through to our economies shortly and at least it will relieve the inflationary pressures.

And anyway we have Lardy Boy's trial to look forward to, I do hope he gets what he deserves!

I blame the banks too. All this was brought about by them and messages of doom and gloom to stop us spending it while they work it all out.

All these failing banks and the owners still pay themselves big bonuses.

Money is just a virtual figment that gets passed through the ether backwards and forwards. Games are played with it within financial institutions and the stock market. The common people are led to believe it is real by allowing us to have some loose change, so as to keep us in control.

I heard that sales of gold have increased. Now that is a solid.

I am pleased some of my friends are in agreement with me with each of you making fine and sensible contributions in what you say. However, and as much as I love you Chinadoll the Worlds economic difficulties are very unlikely to be resolved by prayer and quotations from the Bible, or by the Popes kind intervention, and I speak as a Roman Catholic. Prayers didn't help the Jews very much during the Holocaust did they? But putting religion to one side this whole business is due to the incompetence, greed and criminal activities of the American bankers who at the expense of ordinary people have bled the system dry and are now sitting back in their mult- million dollar mansions and yatch's awaiting those same hard working taxpayers pick up the bill. I have heard only this morning that some of these Leaches and Vampires have for years been draining their companies dry year after year giving themselves bonuses of not 'the odd million or two' but believe it or not, 'hundreds of millions'. These same people are not speculators and carpet baggers making quick and rich pickings but criminal bankers who have brought the U.S. and the rest of the World to its knees! These same people should be stripped of their ill gotten gains and thrown into jail! Even in the U.K. bankers have regularly been awarding themselves millions in bonuses. The worlds banking system must henceforth have built in safeguards and controlls to avoid such situations re-ocurring in future and all the parasites responsible for the worry and mayhem to ordinary working people in this country should henceforth have their money grabbing deals taxed up to the eyeballs! The taxing system in this country is unfair both to the middle and working classes and needs a complete overhaul! (not politically intended)
Alroy.

Alroy, methinks you are right.

Don't worry Alroy, I certainly do not think that the current global financial problems can be solved by prayer. I did, however, feel the article was of relevance to the original post and the religious aspect of same.

I agree with many comments made since my last post. The current state of the global financial markets is pretty dire in my opinion and I do not believe it will blow over in a matter of months. In fact, I am of the opinion that next year will be worse than this year. They do say that if America sneezes, the rest of the world catches a cold. Well, it seems to me that America has now caught a very bad cold and I believe the repercussions ahead will be life threatening for the international financial community and as we see right now, drastic actions are being taken by many countries governments, in terms of bail outs and pledging of tax payers funds, in most instances, funds that are not available in the exchequers of those countries and therefore debts that will have to be paid off by future tax payers, like our children.

It is widely accepted that the problems started in the American sub prime market. I agree that the bankers have a lot to answer for, but the regulators, credit ratings agencies and bond insurers, carry a huge burden of blame. I do not mean credit agencies that do credit checks on individual borrowers either. I mean the credit agencies and bond insurers that gave the repackaged toxic mortgages/loans their approval, via their once respected three star ratings (that could not be justified) and due to same, they were thereafter purchased by pension funds and the likes, as safe long term investments. These companies are in place to guarantee interest rates on such investments, in the event of default, but of course, they defaulted themselves as they just could not meet the level of claims made as a result of their negligent/ignorant grasp of what was happening. I agree with Dianeh that there will be huge repercussions for the bankers/financial institutions that were responsible for same. Indeed, I have read that the FBI is probing institutions irrevocably linked to the sub prime crisis, including Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Lehman and AIG, among others. The fact that these companies do not exist in the same form as they did when they oversaw this mess, will not deter the FBI from pursuing individual employees of same and already, many private class actions have sprung up against these companies and that is prior to any criminal charges being brought.

I feel that one of the main problems that led to this mess, was the lack of assessing moral hazard. When I took out my first mortgage in 1987, a substantial deposit of 15 - 20% of the purchase price, was the norm. In addition, one had to have ones legal fees, land registry fees, stamp duty and other disbursements saved and put away. Income to loan ratio was two and a half times annual salary max. Also, as a divorcee, I had to demonstrate how I would pay for child care (no after school clubs in those days) and sickness leave in the event that myself or my boys were unwell. Naturally, I factored for these prior to applying for my mortgage, hence I applied for less than the two and a half times salary ratio. My car was also an essential daily requirement and that together with a contingency fund for emergencies needed to be taken into account.. All my furniture was second hand etc etc., I am sure you have got the picture.

How the banks and financial institutions and their approach to moral hazard, have evolved since then, is frankly mind boggling. Instead of assessing the risk to their employers, of borrowing money, they have been financially rewarded in terms of commissions and bonuses to lend lend lend. Hence the feel good factor of recent years, with credit being so easy and plentiful. Sub prime customers were targeted in their never ending quest to make a fast buck and the long term ramifications of their fancy repackaging and reselling of these little understood schemes, are now being felt. The US treasury is currently taking sub prime loans/securities and even car loans and such likes, as collateral for bailing out these institutions. Same here in the UK, with Northern Rock and families that were lulled in to a false sense of security and taking out 125% mortgages, in the form of cash back enticements etc., with the general consensus being at that time, that property will continue to rise.

I have felt for some time now, that our education system should address financial issues, as part of the mandatory curriculum. How many of our kids actually understand prudent financial planning, let alone some of the mortgage products that have been thrust at them, or APR and what it entails etc., let along pension planning, appropriate insurance products etc etc? In my view, the banks and financial institutions have regarded us all as potential cash cows that they could milk indefinitely. Now the chickens are coming home to roost, the same institutions that should have led by example, are paying the price for their lack of consideration of moral hazard in their approach to lending, which the tax payer, pension funds, stock markets etc will have no choice, other than to pick up the bill.

Emerging economies like China and India will not be immune to global financial difficulties. China in particular, has invested a great deal, in fact, a colossal amount in America and the West. I note that the Bank of England is meeting this week to once again consider the current interest rate setting. This is of relevance to businesses and what little manufacturing industry we have, but the banks are not likely to pass any cuts on to mortgage holders, as the Libor rate will not be affected. They sure will pass on the cuts to savers pdq though, the very people that they need to support their business plan and the very people who are nervous as hell, not about their returns, but about the safety of their money. Gold and other valuable minerals and collectables will be a safe haven for many. If the Bank of England does cut interest rates, as is being widely encouraged, then the pound will be further devalued and the cost of imports from the likes of China, will be felt across the board.

One final thought.

How long before the pound and the Euro are indistinguishable - ie could this be the catalyst that takes the UK in to the Eurozone?

Our reserve bank cut the interest rates by 1 full percent yesterday. You need to understand that the wallies put up interest rates because of inflation as they didnt understand it was not demand driven inflation but petrol/oil driven, so we have higher interest rates than every single one of our trading partners. So in a surprise move they dropped them 1 %, whereas it was predicted to be only 1/2 a percent. And it was also predicted that half that would be passed on. Well surprise surprise, the banks have already agreed to pass on 80% of the cut, so we will receive a .8% cut, which on an everage mortgage is about $160 per month, which is quite substantial. I just hope it came early enough to help our those families who are currently in trouble with their mortgages and to the others experiencing mortgage stress. And our stock market went up yesterday. Just wondering how it will hold together today after the debacle on the US market overnight.

And completely agree with what you have written below. And just want to add that our local councils and hospitals and other govt departments that lost their dough (some even borrowed) in the US mortgage backed securites did indeed think they were buying triple star or double star rated securities. I watched a spot on Fox news yesterday and it seems the s### loans (no docs most of them to often unemployed or very low income earners) were packaged through a number of layers of banks including the infamous Fannie and Freddie, to be parcelled out to unsuspecting investors, completely hiding what they originally were and imo (and the opinion of the experts on Foxnews) fraudulently misrepresented. Those organisations that lost big money over here will be taking civil actions against those that sold themthe investments (if they still exist, I know that one of them bought via Merrill Lynch, so no good sueing them). And Fox is also predicting that criminal action will result but are concerned it will not go far enough.

Very interesting reading, thanks for all your interesting thoughts and comments concerning a very important subject. I agree entirely with what you all say. I would just like to point out that in my condemnation of American and British bankers I also included most of the other large financial institutions in both countries. I notice both governments are now taking great steps to bring the banking world back into a more fair and sensible situation. I just hope those responsible for instigating this financial crisis are made to pay for their criminal activities but feel sure most of them have already made sure their ar..s and pockets are carefully and legally well and truly covered!
Alroy.