01/01/2012 by admin.

What a year 2011 was for the world stock markets.

The United Kingdom’s FTSE 100 fell 5.6 per cent in 2011, while France saw stock falls of 18 per cent and German stocks fell 15 per cent as fears for the survival of the euro bit. But United States stocks ended 2011 up. The euro has ended 2011 close to a 15-month low against the US dollar.

The crises in the eurozone has had a huge impact on world markets, as investors await a plan to ensure that Italy’s government can continue to support its mounting debts. The United States and Europe, including the United Kingdom, have had to accept that it may be many years before their debt ridden economies get back to normal.

Also in 2011 the United States lost its AAA credit rating, following deadlock in Congress over raising the country’s debt ceiling - or the legal limit on the federal government’s total borrowing.

But 2011 has been dominated by the euro crisis and the euro ended the year close to a 15-month low against the dollar after it shed more than 3 per cent last week. Many analysts suggest that it could drop even further in 2012.

France and Germany could bear the brunt of any bailout costs for the southern European states - and this has been reflected in the performance of their equity markets.

France’s Cac 40 dropped 17.5 per cent and Germany’s Dax fell 14.7 per cent in 2011. The United Kingdom’s FTSE 100 index is 5.6 per cent lower on the year, worries over the impact of the eurozone crisis did most of the damage.

Will 2012 be any better?

Posted in Finance | 2 Comments »

09/07/2011 by admin.

Hi, here we are again, in a sleazy turmoil. Of course I mean the recent hacking scandal. After sleazy banks and sleazy MP’s, we now have a treble dose of sleaze - sleazy press, sleazy police and, once again, sleazy MP’s. Also to top it off we now have yet another sleazy Prime Minister.

In any business there is a need to stay ahead of the competition and you can do this legally and fairly, or illegally and by cheating. Phone hacking has given certain newspapers the edge regarding their competition. That competition also includes online news companies. Falling sales of high street newspapers signifies that there is a war going on in the news print industry. The saying that “anything’s fair in love and war” seems to have been taken to heart.

I really wish people would stop buying papers like the News of the World, but this society of Hero Worship needs to be fed. A couple of years ago some primary school children were asked what was the biggest thing that worried them about their parents. The children unanimously said that their parents preoccupation with celebrity status.

There have always been people in the past that have shined for all sorts of reasons and they rightly go down in history and are much talked about for doing amazing things, right or wrong. But the stars of today seem to be shallow and squalid and overpaid and they seem to be everywhere. On every TV channel, levering their way into every form of media they can.

We have a wonderful country, a green and pleasant land, but certain greedy people are screwing with it all.

Posted in Politics | 2 Comments »

21/03/2011 by admin.

Why are we getting involved in Libya? Haven’t we learnt our lessons from previous attempts at world policing? In 2003 I was in favour of us going into Iraq because of the fact that Saddam Hussein was supposedly putting to death hundreds of people a day and doing terrible things such as gassing the Kurds. But here we are, after only a relatively few deaths in Libya, trying to once again to sort out another countries problems. The Labour party got so much stick over Iraq and I particularly feel sorry for Tony Blair who was only doing what he thought was right at the time. What we sometimes forget is that all military action was passed in our houses by a majority, and was also backed by the Tories. In fact it was only the Liberal Democrats who were against that war.

Funny how silent Nick Clegg has been on this new WAR in Libya, and I’m afraid WAR is what it is. At a time when we can’t afford to keep basic services in our country and can’t afford to pay military pilots and have had to make them redundant - we are going to war, again, what is the sense of this? Libya is an internal dispute Gaddafi has not brought any other country into this, unlike Iraq, where missiles were exploding in neighbouring countries.

I was in support of the Iraq war and now have now decided, on all the evidence presented to me, that war affects all civilians, breeds more terrorists and has lots more consequences than anyone can imagine.  So I have revised my view and am now of the opinion that any war is not worth all this and I have many friends who feel the same way. I bet if Cameron had a referendum on Libya tomorrow the people of this country would vote against any action. I have also come to the conclusion that once again all of this must really be about oil and the world’s current unstable economies. We wouldn’t dream of going into Zimbabwe – no oil! So I have filed this posting under the heading of “finance” and not “politics”.

Posted in Finance | 3 Comments »

14/11/2010 by admin.

What a difference two years make, US President Barack Obama looks positively tired and jaded, his speaches are lack lustre. I think you can tell that his heart is not in his job anymore, and so can American voters. It has been two years since he became president elect in a euphoria of millions of people on the streets of Washington. But during that time he has achieved very little, probably his biggest achievemnet was to get the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize, but for what? Things haven’t got any better for the average American and now he has just said “no nation should rely on exports to the United States for growth” with other things he has said recently all I can see is that America is getting ready to implement protectionist trade policies, which will impact deeply on the European economy.

Posted in Finance | 3 Comments »

26/09/2010 by admin.

It seems that HMRC has obtained a list of wealthy individuals with accounts at the Swiss division of HSBC. This list was stolen by an HSBC employee and passed to the taxman by the French authorities, HSBC are not accused of any wrongdoing.

The Coalition believe that closing tax loopholes could generate up to £7bn a year by 2015 additional income tax revenue. The HMRC have said that: “The days of hiding money offshore to evade tax are now over.” 

But this is a shame because this is not really the Coalition getting tough with the rich, it is a worldwide clampdown on “offshore” tax havens ordered by the G20 last year.

Posted in Finance | 3 Comments »