Exchange rate

[AnOther]

[quote user="Bugsy"]Despite the fact that it is index-linked I'm down

about 350€ a month with the worst drop being this month of 47€[/quote][quote user="Bugsy"]As someone whose only source of income is a small NHS pension[/quote]

Don't mean to be personal Bugsy (you did publish the numbers [:P]) but with the £ losing about 20% over the past year a loss of €350 equates to a pension of something around €1750 which is now now dropped to perhaps €1400.

I do honestly sympathise with your pain, and with everybody else in the same boat, and I guess you're maybe talking relative too, but can I have a 'small' NHS pension too please [:D]

[Bugsy]

There is an error somewhere in those figures Ernie because I too would be very happy with a pension of that amount. My actual pension is quite a bit less than that.

As previous posts have demonstrated, I'm not known for being very good at maths..................[:D][:D]

I'm going to have some porridge and then have another look..............[:P]

[krusty]

[quote user="Bugsy"]

I'm going to have some porridge and then have another look

[/quote]

bread and dripping for me [;-)]

[AnOther]

[quote user="Bugsy"]I'm going to have some porridge and then have another look..............[:P][/quote]Here's hoping you don't feel even worse afterwards [:-))]

[Chancer]

I guessit doesnt matter how big or small your pension or whatever UK based income is a drop of 30% is hard to shoulder unless you were already living on only a fraction of it.

Myself I have to make do with the rental on a small UK property (that is when I have "paying" tenants grrr.....) the current one asked if I would be putting up the rent, I told him I would not dare in the current market (also they are good tenants) and in any case I would have to raise it by £250 per month just to get back to where I was this time last year.

Bugbear

I thought that you were a retired garage proprietor? how did you manage to juggle the two?

[Sunday Driver]

[quote user="J.Rs gone native"]

Bugbear

I thought that you were a retired garage proprietor? how did you manage to juggle the two?

[/quote]

He used to repair ambulances?  [:D]

 

 

[Bugsy]

[quote user="J.Rs gone native"]

Bugbear

I thought that you were a retired garage proprietor? how did you manage to juggle the two?

[/quote]

Easy really..................

24 years & 6 months in the health service (Ambulance Service Fleet Manager)

8 years with my own garage. (Independant VW/Audi Specialist.

[mint]

1.1699 when I last looked.  Hel.............................p!!!

[AnOther]

1.622 on HiFx, gul............................p

[Jonzjob]

1.14+ if you wanted to transfer some today from HIFX!![:-))]

[mint]

Oh la la! C'est  très serieux![:(]

[krusty]

I wonder if they make these with pounds ...about all they are fit for [:P]

[IMG]http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o75/sweetpea10000/Tote%20Bags/P8120027.jpg[/IMG]

[bigears]

hi

I would now expect there to be a run on the pound.

[JohnRoss]

Talk about gloom and depression! I am beginning to wish that I had not started this!......................JR

[ausibattler]

Lets have a sing a long around the joanne to cheer us up.

After me 1,2,3....

" Land of hope and glory, mother of the free......

Hello, hello........

[WJT]

Great! [:(]

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/4/20081204/tuk-fresh-interest-rate-cuts-predicted-dba1618.html

[bigears]

the uk doesn't need europe or the euro, bring back the empire, rule britannia

[AnOther]

[quote user="WJT"]

Great! [:(]

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/4/20081204/tuk-fresh-interest-rate-cuts-predicted-dba1618.html

[/quote]I am no economist but it seems to me that the blunt instrument of the BoE interest rate has time and time again proved utterly ineffectual and needs a ground up rethink.

Since the link between the BoE and LIBOR rate is now completely divorced what we need now is interest rate RISES. People need to be SAVING not SPENDING so whack it up to 5%  or higher and tell the banks and other lenders, who for the most part are already charging that and more for SVR lending not to put their rates up in response - or else !

[ausibattler]

Your going in the opposite diirection !!!!!

Free international trading markets (without Government interference) need consumers and cash flow., not savings locked up in Bank vaults- that's assuming you have something to sell!!

[allanb]

[quote user="ErnieY"]... what we need now is interest rate RISES. People need to be SAVING not SPENDING...[/quote]What are you trying to do, Ernie, drive us even deeper into recession?

Saving doesn't generate employment; spending does.  The UK needs low interest rates (a) to increase employment by encouraging spending, and (b) to reduce the cost of making the investments that make the employment possible.  Unfortunately this means encouraging borrowing, some of which will turn out to be bad; but I think that's part of the price you pay for digging your way out of a recession.

Sadly, it's bad news for people trying to live in France on a sterling pension.  But we are a minority, and it was our decision to leave, wasn't it? 

[Quillan]

Well it's going to be a cut of 1% they say which brings the rate down to the rate on the day the BOE started its life.

There are two camps on interest rates both at opposite ends and both equally as passionate. I'm in the other camp, I believe people should be encouraged to save and not spend, thats how the US got out of trouble in the 30's and from what some expert bloke from the US says is the way forward. Spending your way out of debt today is OK for you but does nothing for your children as it is they that will have to pay. It will be down to the tories to sort it out again, that will be twice in my lifetime and of course nobody will like the medicine just like lastime. When their job is done they will be thrown on the rubbish heap while everyone goes and spends the money they put in the bank. Now that is real boom and bust, the tories boom the socialist bust, they never learn and neve does it seem does joe public.

The UK manufacturers very little, most of the stuff you see in the shops is manufactured by cheap labour in the far east (even that great British inventor Dyson manufactures in the far east). Its often things outside of the UK that effects it. Woolies is a typical example, its actually a sound proposition in the UK but not globally. Strangely the other big stores are fighting to buy Wollies because they want the locations to sell their own stuff, that therefore means that the big stores can't be really suffering coz wheres their money coming from if their profits are down?

The UK does need investment but to get investment you need to look at two things, how much you get back (% rate) and security. At the moment the UK offers neither of these. If you are an investor where do you put your money?

By the way, slightly different but mentioned early on in this thread I said, and some agreed, that the big fluctuations happen every time somebody in the government or BOE opens their gob. I don't want to sound righteous but I think the last 8 weeks have proved me pretty much right, even today is an example, interest rate likely to go down by 1% they say and the Euro looses about 5 cents inside 24 hours.

[Pierre ZFP]

Wasn't it Callaghan that said 'You can't spend your way out of a resession'?  If so, it was about the only sensible thing he said.

As for where to put your money (if any), I see that gold is pushing €20K per kilo again and the trend is upwards.

 

Some of you more well versed in economics will enlighten me but isn't this Spend, Spend, Spend and Print money as fast as you can attitude just a recipe for eye-watering inflation a couple of years down the line?

[allanb]

Ah, good, there's plenty to argue about here.

[quote user="Quillan"]I believe people should be encouraged to save and not spend, that's how the US got out of trouble in the 30's...[/quote]I think that's completely wrong.  The two things that did most to pull the US out of depression were (1) the New Deal, which was the government borrowing huge amounts to finance public works, and (2) World War II, which was the government borrowing even more enormous amounts to finance armaments and pay the armed forces.

I'm not recommending war, by the way, but whether you like it or not, that was one of its major effects. 

[quote]The UK does need investment but to get investment you need to look at two things, how much you get back (% rate) and security....[/quote]Unfortunately people use the word "investment" to mean two different things.  You are talking about "investing" in the sense of putting money into a savings account or something similar.  I was talking about it in the sense of building or renovating factories, buying machinery and equipment, and producing stocks of things for sale. 

[quote]By the way, slightly different but mentioned early on in this thread I said, and some agreed, that the big fluctuations happen every time somebody in the government or BOE opens their gob...[/quote]But you must agree that big fluctuations often happen even when nobody opens his (as you so elegantly put it) gob.  The markets have vastly more information than the bits and pieces that get reported from politicians' speeches. 

[AnOther]

People can't spend what they don't have or cannot borrow.

If those who have money save there is more in the system available for banks etc. to lend.

I did say I'm no economist, not even O-level maths, just seems logical [:$]

[Théière]

Argue some more, its going sparrows up everywhere.

 

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b1492782-c1e7-11dd-a350-000077b07658.html?nclick_check=1