end of capitalism.

[j1979]

well this is my opinion so please don't bite my head off!

as im sure your all aware the world is suffering a major backlash due to the so called credit crunch. the whole question of capitalism is in question. the state is having to nationalise banks in UK and US.

so in order to save capitalism falling apart at the seems, the state has intervened here in the UK and in the US. The countries that are suffering the most from this global credit crunch are those that have embraced capitalism the most. The irony being that they need the left wing ideology (nationalisation) in order to save the day.

well my question is do people think that our government here in the UK needs to move to the left. according to the news today 52% support for the tory's. People would be willing to vote for a man who after all is only leader of the opposition but uses a private jet, whilst in the same breath preaches about global warming. Dont get me wrong, i dont like Brown either, he lost any credibility with me when he canceled the last general election.

but i really think we need to take a more left wing / liberal / green approach in the future, in order to prosper in the future. I dont think any party has a complete solution to the current crisis, but all i know is things need to change.

im asking for everyone elses opinions. what do you all think? what would you vote if and election was held tomorrow?

ive added 1 extreme left and 1 right party.

[directhex]

i see two extreme right-wing parties

[j1979]

i see two extreme right-wing parties

well ukip aint quite BNP is it! and to be fair there is socialist and respect.

[directhex]

well ukip aint quite BNP is it! and to be fair there is socialist and respect.

no? ukip candidate for mayor of london describes rape as fun for all involved as force-feeding a woman chocolate cake?

not sure i'd say they're "not bad", they're the "intelligent design" to the bnp's "creationism"

[j1979]

no? ukip candidate for mayor of london describes rape as fun for all involved as force-feeding a woman chocolate cake?

not sure i'd say they're "not bad", they're the "intelligent design" to the bnp's "creationism"

sure you have a point, and i agree with what you say, i just think i needed to add them to make the poll more balanced.

[TheAnimus]

Capitalisim has no 'need' for the banks to be saved.

The idea to save Fanny + Freddie is not born from a straight capitalist idea, indeed in true sense they are in-efficient and should fail, clearing the space for a more efficient solution.

What happened was a socalist idea, that was designed to prevent the devistating collapse of the economy that would of followed, such intervention has no place in true capitalisim. It was this that gave the desire to stop people loosing their homes, their jobs, their places of work and the onslaught that would follow.

Capitalism and social development are not diametrically opposed.

The classic story i like, was during the 60s, a russian general who was visiting london asked his host if he could possibly meet with the person in charge of keeping london so very well stocked with bread.

What we should see is capitalisim adapt itself so it can better understand the market, and spread risk (this is a fundamental idea of investment, and a very honorable one) property indecies should be extended. Home owners should be able to buy puts on the appropriate property index, with this they would have protection against negative equity, mortgage companies would have a better insight into market confidence and such.

We're not even close to the problems that where seen during the 30s, the new deal enterprise was far more than socialism in the form of re-distrabution of wealth, quite the opposite, the hand outs where designed to spark economic growth and developement, not to some arrogant rubbishrubbishrubbishrubbish of a PM's personal plan, but wherever the economic free market saw fit. It was economics applied with compassion that saved the USA, not socalisim.

[j1979]

Capitalisim has no 'need' for the banks to be saved.

The idea to save Fanny + Freddie is not born from a straight capitalist idea, indeed in true sense they are in-efficient and should fail, clearing the space for a more efficient solution.

lol im sure your right in principle, in practice if a large bank collapses and takes with it peoples savings, and the government cant afford to compensate the people who lost out, your talking meltdown, anarchy and chaos within the rest of the banking system and the country as a whole.

already withdrew all my savings and keeping it as cash for next few months. no more money left in the kitty for the next one that goes bust. would you give me 100/1 on Barclays within 2 weeks?

[Saracen]

lol im sure your right in principle, in practice if a large bank collapses and takes with it peoples savings, and the government cant afford to compensate the people who lost out, your talking meltdown, anarchy and chaos within the rest of the banking system and the country as a whole.

already withdrew all my savings and keeping it as cash for next few months. no more money left in the kitty for the next one that goes bust. would you give me 100/1 on Barclays within 2 weeks?

Don't forget that all deposits in banks registered with the FSA are covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme up to the first £35,000 per person per FSA registration.

If your "savings" exceed £35,000, then you need to be careful about different trading names that are actually the same organisation, like Abbey and Cahoot, or Halifax and Intelligent Finance, and make sure that you shift it to organisations that have different FSA registration numbers, but providing you do that, the FSA gives a government guarantee for deposits (and it's founded by the banking industry as a whole, not the taxpayer). If they don't exceed £35,000, they're protected anyway, as long as you don't have them in a foreign bank that isn't FSA registered ... and even them you may have protection under similar schemes operated by that bank's home country's regulator.

[iranu]

well this is my opinion so please don't bite my head off!

as im sure your all aware the world is suffering a major backlash due to the so called credit crunch. the whole question of capitalism is in question. the state is having to nationalise banks in UK and US.

so in order to save capitalism falling apart at the seems, the state has intervened here in the UK and in the US. The countries that are suffering the most from this global credit crunch are those that have embraced capitalism the most. The irony being that they need the left wing ideology (nationalisation) in order to save the day.

well my question is do people think that our government here in the UK needs to move to the left. according to the news today 52% support for the tory's. People would be willing to vote for a man who after all is only leader of the opposition but uses a private jet, whilst in the same breath preaches about global warming. Dont get me wrong, i dont like Brown either, he lost any credibility with me when he canceled the last general election.

but i really think we need to take a more left wing / liberal / green approach in the future, in order to prosper in the future. I dont think any party has a complete solution to the current crisis, but all i know is things need to change.

im asking for everyone elses opinions. what do you all think? what would you vote if and election was held tomorrow?

ive added 1 extreme left and 1 right party.

What is your definition of Capitalism?

"left wing / liberal / green approach" is going to get you nowhere except a dark future - literally the lights will turn off and you will have no internets. People have to realise that we, in the west, are far too gone to go back to a command economy and subsistence living which is ulitmately what would result from "green" policies. Call me when the US defaults on it's repayments.

The Stock Market crash of the late 20's/30's, whereby the DOW Jones index took until 1954 to regain the market level of 1930 didn't kill capitalism and that was far worse than we see now. Infact one of the reasons for such a deep recession then was the lack of central banks and their governments to make "money" available. We are seeing governments act. It's not pretty, but reform and better regulation will end up being the order of the day and we will have a more secure system (until someone else decides to cut the reins).

A centrally commanded economy is doomed to failure, the USSR is a case in point. There are no doubt hard times ahead and we live in interesting times, but this shock will make people and banks and governments more wary and sensible. That will lead to greater stability in the future.

[Emirzan]

Don't forget that all deposits in banks registered with the FSA are covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme up to the first £35,000 per person per FSA registration.

Yep, amazing how many people don't know this. Withdrawing your money from the bank is madness!

In my opinion poor financial regulation on the US and UK governments behalf has led to this problem. Allowing the housing market to become so ludicrously overpriced and allowing the banks to make loans to people who couldn't really afford them were the major mistakes.

If your "savings" exceed £35,000

'Nuff said. Happy days!

[Betty_Swallocks]

Don't forget that all deposits in banks registered with the FSA are covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme up to the first £35,000 per person per FSA registration.

That's very true, but if this situation goes to the extreme that it could potentially do how long do you think that guarantee will last? If Nat West, Barclays and Lloyds went down there's no way the government could afford to give £35k to every customer who had that much on deposit. Compensation would run into the hundreds of billions. I think we'd see that rule change very quickly.

I've already arranged with my financial advisor to get my pension funds out of stocks and shares based investments.

The most annoying thing about this is that the likes of George Soros, who siphoned billions out of the UK economy on "Black Wednesday", will almost certainly be on hand when it all falls over to add even more to their personal wealth at our expense.

[Gerrard]

I was watching a program with Martin Lewis (the MoneySavingExpert bloke) shortly after the Northern Rock fiasco, and he mentioned this FSA guarantee. But he then research into it and found it only had £4bn or so, and couldn't cover the top 20 banks. Personally, I'm keeping my savings in the bank (HSBC) for the time being. Will be a couple of years yet before I hit the £35,000 mark.

[IBM]

If Nat West, Barclays and Lloyds went down there's no way the government could afford to give £35k to every customer who had that much on deposit.

But when it comes down to it, there aren't many people out there who have more than £35,000 in savings. I'd be very suprised if it was more than 0.01% of the UK population. Admittedly, that's still a lot of people, but as it's supported by the international finance, they could probably pull it off.

[kalniel]

I was watching a program with Martin Lewis (the MoneySavingExpert bloke) shortly after the Northern Rock fiasco, and he mentioned this FSA guarantee. But he then research into it and found it only had £4bn or so, and couldn't cover the top 20 banks.

Then make sure to read his follow up. The FSA has legislation in place to borrow any additional money required and continue taking payments off other financial institutions until this loan is then cleared.

OT, I don't think this has anything to do with the end of capitalism - it'll only come out stronger as a result. You need some negatives from time to time otherwise you don't actually select for better methods.

[TheAnimus]

already withdrew all my savings and keeping it as cash for next few months. no more money left in the kitty for the next one that goes bust. would you give me 100/1 on Barclays within 2 weeks?

This views do NOT consitute any implied investment advice.

Barcap is sound, they've just bought whats left of Lehman's US (when its been section 11'd they create like a good bank to sell on, and a bad bank that is just going to default.)

Now when you put your money in a regulated UK bank, the BoE guarantees it upto 35k. If you've got more than £35k in a regular bank account you DESERVE to loose it for been a tit.

So taking your cash out isn't really necessary, clever or going to help things.

Now in our "who's next sweep stake" I've got the Yorkshire building society.

[b0redom]

Now when you put your money in a regulated UK bank, the BoE guarantees it upto 35k. If you've got more than £35k in a regular bank account you DESERVE to loose it for been a tit.

Interesting sweeping generalisation there. What about the self employed? What about small businesses? Many of them will have balances over 35k, but won't be in a position to push that into other assets as they require liquidity and 'safety' for tax reasons.