Fannie and Freddie went under the same week and would have taken 90% of the US mortgage markets down with them if not nationalised. Lehman did something similar for CDS markets. I see it as a combination of the two events which undermined confidence. It was the point at which those still using bubblevision began to realise that the gig was up.
FoFP
Yes, it was nine months that a homeowner had to last out before welfare kicked in to pay (interest only) on mortgages up to a 200,000 limit. There is redundancy insurance available for debtors which will cover that period and in my view, it's the debtor's job to get themselves vovered. If they refuse, they shouldn't be able to call on the taxpayer to make them good.
Rents are payable pretty quickly on welfare (as in a handful of weeks). Also I think the government has now cut the waiting period on mortgages to three months for the duration of the crisis. [...]
Well I can't find a way to unsubscribe from these bailouts short off giving up my income and putting myself in the same boat.
Mebbe that's what's needed: a taxpayer strike. No economy = nobody to fund bailouts. Perhaps I'm finally getting the point of "Atlas Shrugged". All I can say is God help you all if this turns me into a Randian.
FoFP
War has always driven certain forms of innovation. Howwever, given the destructiveness of modern warfare, it wouldn't be easy to argue that they come out in an overall profit...
FoFP
Indefinitely-prolonged growth requires infinite resources. There's a practical problem there that requires almost-continuous growth to be occasionally punctuated by large contractions, or alternatively, that growth is carefully managed to match available resources in anything but the very shortest term.
I can't imagine even competent people achieving the latter. In the long term, the consumption of resources cannot exceed their acquisition. Pretty obvious when put baldly, but it suggests we put a bit more effort into education and research, rather than phasing them out. The belief that a post-technological culture can maintain a rising standard of living in the long term would seem to be mistaken.
We may also need a better system of government, one that isn't so obsessed with the very-short-term goal of winning the next election, or at least achieving enough public exposure to retire rich. A large chunk of our resources is spent on that particular game. It's not difficult to invent a better system, but the beneficiaries of the current one may need some persuasion to adopt it.
I would have thought the creation of the Antibiotics industry would have a paid for the war on it's own. It would never have got financed without the impending war. Even then it had to be taken to America to get kick started, just as was the cavity magnetron. The Rocket Science and it's subsequent Electronics industry, Radar, Satellites and GBS navigation must be huge. Who would ever have thought those puttering doodlebugs and V2 rockets would have spawned all we have today.
Then of course the Jet Engine and need for hardened metals for the blades... it goes on and on. Most peoples work lives today are a direct result of WW2 innovation. I think it must have been the most mentally stimulating and technologically creative time in history. I was only a boy but was fascinated by the sound of asdic pings and what they did. It seemed so clever and so simple. It was the THOUGHT behind it.
Everything manufactured now is because of what happened then. What would all the millions of people be doing to day as far as work is concerned if it hadn't been for that war ?
stry, ?Radar,
y stimulating and
Computing likewise which became a reality to decode Enigma.
It's a very big universe, and it's getting even bigger...
I don't believe that. Soon we'll have the resources of an entiire solar system to exploit. That'll do for a while and we can leave galactic exploitation for someone to figure out how to make interstellar trips...
Or no government at all...
FoFP
stry, ?Radar,
y stimulating and
I have an uncle of over 90 who has in his garage a tin disk with a spiral of tiny holes in it from a Baird televisor he made in the
1930s. Talk about technical progress in a few decades!M Holmes mentioned earlier living through three recessions and this was not like any of them. Me too. There was a minor one in unemployment terms (by today's standards) in the 1970s due to the oil price hike. Then the early 1980s which was about lowering inflation and restructuring. Then the 1990s recession of a hard landing after a boom. None involved mass banking near failure or failure. Even the
1930s in Britain did not involve that although it did in the US.It's worth remembering that last bank failure was Overend and Gurney in the 1860s. Amazing that with all that supposed regulation we are in such a mess.
It appears a 'summit' is to be held the upshot of which will be a relaxation of the bank capital requirement which was jacked up just when lending was failing.plus guarantees on loans and swopping assets for gilts. But asking for lending at 1997 levels as Labour demands is barmy when such levels were reckless.
25% unemployment was common outside the s.e. several commercial banks went under in the 70s recession..... in bother the 70s and 80s recession various uk major banks were technically bankrupt....
they were allowed to trade out of their problems via inflation
now you have the net...
this banking clag-up is *presently* being hyped by various interested parties....
Why should the banks lend? It used to be their business and how they earned their money, but now they can just ask for money.
while you are fully correct.....
it is well to consider that 'growth' can be defined and counted in many ways...and those ways change over time.... eg, the horse economy disappeared...it was replaced by filthy fossil fuels.... it may well be possible to replace filthy fossil fuel with clean nuclear fission power....nuclear could take only a millionth of the volume of fuel....(and fusion may become possible) would that be counted as 'growth'.... etc...
link fails
regards
And I don't believe that the UK will be in any way involved in such activities. Women are running the West, and anything beyond 50,000 feet is a Boys' Toy. China, India, maybe.
And can you imagine the life expectancy of a Beanstalk?
Now you're looking millennia ahead...
? walk quietly and carry
? ? ? ? a big stick.
ctions not words
? ? only when it's funny -- roger rabbit
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The real level of unemployment was nothing like now in the 70s whatever pockets there were.
Of course banks were in difficulty but nothing like the current situation. The level of debt to income was small compared to now. Begg Fischer Dornbusch give 38% in 1980. 79% by 1992. No major bank went bust. One of two fringe investment outfits did like London and County. They were not banks in the sense of being High Street deposit takers a la Northern Rock..
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Look I lived through that period and saw the 70s property collapse at very close hand since I was doing building in inner London. One building I was putting windows in before the collapse suddenly appeared on the front page of the Evening Standard. MP complains in Parliament of obscene property profits. Not mine! I knew the most notorious estate agent associated with the inner London boom. He was actually a rather decent guy but made good tabloid fodder. They all went bankrupt.
When it all fell apart no one thought for a moment the High Street banks might fail or even considered a run. They might lose money but the B of E would lend for a while. Nothing like now when people shift cash around to keep under the guarantee level. (Now increased.) Failure was something in history books.
it must be difficult to count that clearly.....
3 day week... 3 million headline numbers....'they' have changed the counting methods so many times it would require real work to make good comparisons...
are you going to count all the government parasites as 'employed'?
all reasonable comment except i'm unsure the big banks are in a seriously worse condition they were writing off billions when billions were bigger
.
? walk quietly and carry
? ? ? ? a big stick.
ctions not words
? ? only when it's funny -- roger rabbit
The counting methods have been changed to reduce the uenmployment figure now.
Your point about useful work is a very good one but unemployment as I was viewing it involves not having an income. In the 70s there was vast overmanning so pretend work was rife but widely spread.
But cheap fuel is only an aid to production, not production itself....isn't it?
Like managers of a business...*aids* to the efficiency of whatever is being produced...isn't it? But not GROWTH itself. Otherwise you could count more and more public servants as growth. What am I missing.
i've no doubt the clown does counts his make work as 'growth'....
returning to the subject...many things are becoming miniaturised and more efficient.... i expect explosive growth in replacement materials in the near future...eg carbon compounds replace steel....or even iron... ie lighter materials replacing heavier and more bulky materials.... again....ie a strange form of growth where bulk and weight are reduced....
increased efficiency and recyclability will also make 'growth' counting continue to be difficult...
On Thu, 15 Jan 2009 00:34:32 +0000 (UTC) 'M Holmes' wrote this on uk.politics.misc:
The link crashes ...but I'd like to read it if poss..
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