Dammit. Must try harder.Originally Posted by Rave
My sincere apologies, Rave, but put it down to a momentary lapse in concentration.
You're not alone in that. But it is, of course, a risk. Gold prices can go down as well as up, and indeed, recently, have gone down. Over the last few years, though, ....
Took me a while to find it, but I read it on the BBC, bit down from the top in the Bailout Levy box,.Depositors will be compensated with the equivalent amount in shares in their banks
Of course, that doesnt necessarily mean thats what has or will happen, just thats what I read when it was first reported.
Gold is an odd one thou, it isn't just that it is inversly correlated to most indicies, it is the by product of that which I found most useful.You're not alone in that. But it is, of course, a risk. Gold prices can go down as well as up, and indeed, recently, have gone down. Over the last few years, though, ....
Gold has a habbit of rising quickly and falling less quickly.
Most stocks take a while to rise and rise, then fall quickly, it is an annoyance because most simple models don't take this to account, they like to assume that the return is normally distrabuted, as it makes the maths easy.
I do however dislike the advice that buying gold is simple and easy. Sure it was a while back, but gold isn't that scarse, it has limited uses too.
All investment is a risk, and ultimately people should be well aware of the downsides. The reason I mention this, is in the context of the thread, it's very easy to loose 10%. So damned easy, just look if you'd bought in October!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business/m...elve_month.stm
Lots of people like to crow about their sucsess and not mention their losses.
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It's a very interesting idea/proposal, and one where all sides of the debate are very easy to see.
On one hand, you have the Cypriot people - forget any claims of money laundering for now, there are real people who have potentially saved all their lives, who are being told that they must spend 6% of their money buying shares in a bank, forcing them to become investors. You can imagine the anger, the backlash, the rioting that would happen if that was implemented here..and if they goes through (I believe the Cypriot parliament is voting today) then I fully expect riots in the streets over there. Personally I would be going crazy - no-one loses any money immediately, but it does instantly put 6% of your savings "at risk" where previously it was a fairly safe cash deposit.
Then you have the Cypriot Banks/Government, who are really stuck in between a rock and a hard place. They need the bailout money - or else they will fall - but the richer nations in Europe who can stomach a bailout are demanding that Cyprus contributes in some way..so what are they to do? Go bankrupt and leave the EU? Put taxes up by 1% generally? (much more expensive for the citizens and only affects residents), borrow the money? (can't do that - hence the need for a bailout).
I can completely understand why WE (as in northern Europeans) are demanding some sort of change/contribution, particularly given that Cyprus contributes so little to the EU's GPD (its around 0.2%) - simply handing them 10 billion euros with no strings is very unfair on the rest of Europe. I'm not really convinced that this one off tax is the best way to do it - but I don't think it's the worst option, and the potential negative fallout for this specific situation is minor for the EU/World as a whole due to that 0.2% figure. It's harsh to say so but who really cares? It could even work out well for the people if the banks turn things around and start to make money.
The worst thing here for me is the precedent it sets. The fact it potentially opens the door to other nations forcing their citizens to convert money into shares is a scary one..I don't think that any major western power would actually get away with this sort of thing, but the potential is there and from a legal perspective they could do so quite easily.
We'll find out after 4pm today when they vote...I think they will push this through (probably with an exemption for those with very small savings) tbh as I don't think they have any other choice.
I know it might sound melodramatic, but I think so far this century has been the death of liberties we struggled to achive towards the end of the last one.
The phrase You wouldn't expect a 'western' nation to do such a thing is becoming more common. We saw even more clearly yesterday how Blair arranged his evidence for war. We've got a de-valued education system which has slipped in real terms over the last 30 years. We've got a pile of debt and a population that thinks its owed something.
Meanwhile, the BRICs the Eastern worlds, with all its obvious corruption is suffering none of this. Education is improving year on year, they have no debt, their quality of life is improving and the population know they are entitled to nothing.
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Its the drive towards short term, instead of long term planning.
Education - get as many good results as possible, in the fastest and cheapest way.
Banks - generate as much money as possible, reap it before the bubble bursts.
Politics - make yourself look good today, because tomorrow you may be nothing.
The EU has shown its true colours. This is truly bad. I hope people wake up to how important this issue is. The EU political elite and banksters are prepared to steal YOUR money to keep the EURO and their dreamed up federal Europe. If they can do it to Cyprus nothing stopping the from Spain Ireland, Portugal & the UK. But its ok your saving are safe up to £85k the British government say so! Thats the same British government that by 2015 will be £1.7 trillion in debt!
I see today its caused so much outrage that the Cypriot Finance minster has gone cap in hand to the Russians. Why the Russian? Because Cyprus sits on large reserves of natural gas. Oh how Putin's Gazprom would love to get there hands on that and supply Europe with energy. You think your Gas bill is high now!!?
Well actually there is an awful lot stopping them. The UK is not under the control of the EU anything like as much, there's no way they could 'steal' our money.
Nope, it's because between a third and a half of the money in Cyprus banks is from Russian depositors, of varying legitimacy.I see today its caused so much outrage that the Cypriot Finance minster has gone cap in hand to the Russians. Why the Russian? Because Cyprus sits on large reserves of natural gas. Oh how Putin's Gazprom would love to get there hands on that and supply Europe with energy. You think your Gas bill is high now!!?
Maybe EU can't but that doesn't stop the British government of course!
So the Russian's will just give the Cypriot government $5 billion and thank them for not taxing their 'investors' without even a glance at the Aphrodite gas field.
Politicians always looking to steal your money in taxation or via various other methods. Link to qustion asked in US in 1941 about the same subject. http://edconway.tumblr.com/post/4560...king-about-the
Why can't they force the cause of the problem onto Cypriot BORROWERS? If you own money on a personal loan, you now owe more money to the bank. i.e. penalise the buggers who bankrupted them in the first place.
Because they can't pay it back, that's why they're in debt. The people with savings can pay, right now.
So frugal savers that put money away are punished & left to pay for wreck-less borrows that are unable to pay. This causes savers to withdraw their money from the bank to stop it being stolen. Then you get a run on the bank aka Northern Rock and things get messy very messy. Tax payers cant afford to bailout the banks again!
Yes, but we established that quite a few posts back.
Not really. There is no actual reason the amount they owe can't be increased. Debt is at the lender's discretion.
Yeah but if the lender has no confidence you can pay it back either the interest rate one the debt will be so high it will unaffordable as you are considered a risk or they will just stop buying your debt! UK's current debt repayments are £45 billion about half the entire NHS budget.
You're not getting my point. If they increase everybody's debts, that money won't be realised for years if they don't increase monthly repayments. If they do, then the money will be realised slowly over the next few years. To realise it quickly, they'd need to dramatically increase repayments, and then most would probably default.
Taking savings means all of the cash, in one day.
There's a big difference.
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