which Big Four UK bank will be 1st to go kaput?

RBS Group owns all the shares in Royal Bank of Scotland, Natwest and Ulster Bank, and have no plans to sell any of them, so they are not publically traded.

This is different from Bank of Scotland, Halifax, Birmingham Midshires, Intelligent Finance, AA and Saga; which are merely "divisions" of Bank of Scotland plc. Sainsburys and St James's Place are separate companies which HBOS owns along with Bank of Scotland.

HBOS is a big four bank, and has already gone kaput. Lloyds is a big five bank, and looks vulnerable because it is trying to digest something twice its size. It used to be regarded as the safest bank in the country.

Other than that, I would agree with your sentiments on Royal Bank of Scotland. However, I do have faith in Gordon Brown's ability to ensure our deposits are safe. It is about the only thing I have faith in his ability to do.

Put in an offer for £45k and see what happens. That's assuming you want to live there.

Why do I come up with such a low figure? Average salary x 3.5 should equal the price of an average house. Average salary is around £23,750.

It will probably overshoot on the way down. Last time it overshot to 2.5x on the way down. This time it looks like it will be much much worse.

This house sounds like it should be cheaper than an average house, so maybe £45k is too high an offer.

That's an annual increase of 5.14%. You would get a better return in a building society.

Don't hold your breath. When people talk about things returning to normal, what they don't understand is that what you are seeing now is normal. Lending vast sums of money to anyone with a pulse without even the most cursory checks of their ability to pay is not normal, and we are unlikely to see that again for some time.

yeah, he has a printing press in the basement

You must be about the only person in the UK that has that faith, anyone who trust Brown and his gang of no hopers must have very short memories. Every other post war labor government has had to either come out before their time was up or been knocked out at the following election do to their total incompetence regarding the handling of the economy and this government's eleven years at the helm is down to Tony Blair NOT Brown.

I have no intention of selling, I think long and hard before I buy anything and anything I buy I keep until it becomes uneconomical to repair in respect of electrical goods or cars and I think when I finally leave this property it will be feet first .

Exactly, and I suffer from the effects of that whether my money is in the bank or under my mattress. I may as well earn some interest on it.

you have then, what is known technically as, 'a sound attitude'

regards

be on the way to total currency collapse a la Zimbabwe in no time at all.

It could be very inflationary. There will be inflationary effects from the current liquidity spree.

system amounts to nothing more than a printing press.

beautifully engineered?!? Looks like the first Tay Bridge at the moment - i.e. a pile of [s]crap...

But if he had put the money in a building society he would then have had to rent somewhere to live for the last 30 years. Most of that

5.14% return would have been eaten up by that, so he's have very little left to show for it today.

Chris

And how's the 2nd Tay Bridge faring?

Yes! beautifully engineered!

A system where under intrinsically useless or near useless bits of paper, bits of metal, columns in ledgers, even electronic pulses, and articles of faith have been harnessed to form the basis of exchange and a repository of value.

A system of checks, balances and self compensating mechanisms. In short a well crafted, well oiled machine.

Of course, like any other machine, if it is abused it will break down. However, it's not broken down but it has stuttered. It has also stuttered in the past and no doubt will stutter again in the future. Each stutter will draw attention to any defect or weakness in the system. It even monitors itself. At the end of each stutter it emerges strengthened and better.

This time will be no exception. Poetry indeed!

Is this the one?

The latest position is this:

Apparently 96% of bank deposits by savers are already covered by the £35 limit. That would increase to 98% if it was raised to £50K.

However, in the light of repeated announcements by the Prime Minister and the Chancellor recently, the government is effectively pledged not to let savers lose out at all, and that of course amounts to 100%.

In Ireland, the official limit was recently raised to 100,000 Euros, but yesterday the Irish government said it would protect all deposits of whatever amount in Irish banks for the next 2 years.

I have, in internet accounts as part of strateg yin recent months - which is why I was able to easily move £17k out of B&B at the first hint of trouble 8 weeks ago ;-)

Not so; probably those who panicked were the wise ones. £20+bn in saver deposits, £70+bn in commercial loans, many said to be preference which would have dumped the major losses on ordinary depositors, and a Financial Services Compensation scheme that can come up with £4bn p.a. ? And many of those in the in the queues had their 'life-savings' vastly in excess of £35k all in the one 'trusted' local institition they had banked with for years.

Toom

The latest position is this:

U45631620080930

Apparently 96% of bank deposits by savers are already covered by the £35 limit. That would increase to 98% if it was raised to £50K.

However, in the light of repeated announcements by the Prime Minister and the Chancellor recently, the government is effectively pledged not to let savers lose out at all, and that of course amounts to 100%.

In Ireland, the official limit was recently raised to 100,000 Euros, but yesterday the Irish government said it would protect all deposits of whatever amount in Irish banks for the next 2 years.

The FSCS is funded by a levy on the financial institutions which are members, and can, at best, only come up with £4bn per year. It could cover failure of relatively small members, but seems to be largely cosmetic in terms of major failure of multiple major players (and their failure would remove the major contributors to the levy).

In recent weeks I've seen two government ministers, and last night the Prime Minister, asked variations on the question of whether all (or the first £35,000) of deposits are guaranteed in *all circumstances*, and the answer has not been 'yes'. The current mantra is that they are dealing with issues on a 'case-by-case' basis. But then again, I doubt there is enough money anywhere to cover all deposits in a major meltdown.

Whatever - there have been no cast-iron guarantees, only statements of intent. And remember, these ultimately come from an economic incompetent who in ten years couldn't figure out the difference between an 'unprecedented period of sustained economic growth' and an unprecendented period of ever-increasing personal and mortgage borrowing with all the initial illusions of success and ultimate sustainability of a pyramid selling scheme

Toom

>

It is 96% of depositors, which is not the same thing, as the 4% of people who have big balances have balances which make up more than 4% of the total balance.