How about the truth coming from the BBC for once instead of its flaming constant attempts to stoke up panic and promote propaganda !

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7807632.stm

Yes, it’s useless to ask I guess.

So the BBC reports that a “dispute between Russia and Ukraine over gas supplies has raised fears that UK energy suppliers could delay long-awaited price cuts”.

It continues to say “Russia’s move to halt supplies to its neighbour has made wholesale market prices volatile”, and quotes some guy who happens to have set himself up as a price comparison site to sell energy connections, as “an expert” in these matters. I mean, this guy, ( Joe Malinowski, from TheEnergyShop.com ), would be a mind reader would he, and be able to tell the world what price it will be paying for Russian gas which is under Russian control and not affected by the fact Russia has not stopped or cut supply of gas to anyone other than Ukraine!

There’s no mention anywhere incidentally that Russia hasn’t been paid any more than usual for its gas, or for the fact that Europe sells it to us for TWICE what it pays and then adds another lump for VAT when it gets here. Nope, none of that is relevant apparently, just the ‘news’ what the BBC want you to hear is relevant.

I wonder when the BBC would like the world to declare war on Russia, seize the Ukrainian pipeline, give it plenty of pictures and 5 star hotels for the 400 reporters it would no doubt send there to prey on the then “nasty west”, or the then “even nastier Russians”, or would it sooner not cover the truth for once and tell the world that Ukraine hasn’t paid its gas bill, doesn’t want to pay its gas bill, hasn’t the money to pay its gas bill, and wants to buy gas at half the price it costs Russia to get it out of the ground and ship it along its pipelines to Europe and the Balkans?

Maybe it could ‘advise us’ of the fact we only buy 20% of our gas from Russia, that the amount it sends us hasn’t been tampered with by anyone other than Ukraine, and that we shouldn’t worry too much because the North Sea is full of it, and the bloke they have as an “expert” is the bloke in charge of a comparison SALES site ?

But I guess that would be too easy.

The pompous and over rated Cable (one of the BBC’s ‘one of us”) also got an easy peasy look in.

As I understand it Darling is getting another softball interview with lab pour luvvie Peston. I think its pretty clear where all Peston’s leaks came from.

Bradford and Bingley assets (deposits) sold off, shareholders get nothing. The debts now held by Government/Taxpayer and shareholders thus pay again.

Its a brave person that will invest in banks under these circumstances.

If you can ignore the “I’m not going to be drawn politically but really I’m obviously a raving Socialist” theme that runs throughout, it gives some very good insights.

Private Equity, Hedge Funds, Royal Mail, Government Pensions Fiasco and Philip G’s attempt at the takeover of M&S.

Disappointingly, I thought the Panorama interview and report was not a patch on Robert P’s book.

PS. If you read the book, ignore Chapter 1 as it will put you to sleep. Go straight to Chapter 2.

An International Monetary Fund (IMF) economist has criticised the UK’s 2.5-percentage-point cut in spending taxes.

Olivier Blanchard, the IMF’s chief economist, said that the temporary cut in VAT would not significantly influence shoppers’ behaviour.

In an interview with French newspaper Le Monde, Mr Blanchard said he did not think the cut was “a good idea”.

And this :-

Peter Jay, who was Britain’s envoy to Washington between 1977 and 1979, said that the definition – two consecutive quarters of negative growth – had no basis in economic theory and was created by the US Government in 1967 to aid the re-election prospects of President Lyndon Johnson.

Mr Jay, who said he was “in the room” when the definition was established, said that Art Okun, the chairman of Johnson’s economic council, acted upon “indications that there might be a recession that year”, which he feared would dent the President’s popularity.

He said: “Art had the neat idea that if we had a definition of recession which meant that people could say we are not actually in a recession, not technically, that would get the president out of a difficulty.

“So on the back of an envelope he invented the idea that in order to call it a recession you had to have had two consecutive quarters of negative growth.”

Who is really slightly interested in watching Darling and his other lackadaisical minions and fudger’s patting themselves on the back in self admiration whilst caring ought for the repercussions of what they say?

As you say Mr Redwood the time is not now and nor is it welcomed at any other time, to jeopardise the early recovery of RBS and HBOS by making stupid unthinking remarks which they should know better not to make at even the best of times least of all for reason to simply give Robert Peston another so called news story.

We care only of the action now.
There are plenty of thing I’m sure many could have said before now of the actions they seek to glorify, but they haven’t. Why? Because they’re not stupid and know they’ll be dropping stuff on people toes by doing it.
Which leaves only one thought in my mind, which is when will this clown stop making a mess of our economy, and you can fit any name you like into that question.

I disagree. It is not correct to say the market is not functioning. It may not be behaving in the manner you would like, but the market is right now busy finding the correct price of everything being offered for sale. It is doing this after a decade during which the authorities around the world deliberately attempted to inflate the value of nearly all assets classes.

Government is to blame for this mess, not ‘the market’ nor Capitalism. By the way, we should have had a recession when the .com bubble burst back at the begining of the decade, if we had taken it then, we probably wouldn’t have had to face it now.
At least not nearly so severe as this will be.

When Northern Rock approached the BofE as lender of last resort, that news being put on the airwaves (Peston) resulted in a run on the bank. Presumably with their highly leveraged position, withdrawal of cash reserves had a very bad effect on them.

Clearly, if the Bank got it wrong, the government got it wrong. The Bank is the responsibility of government, even if the Treasury chooses to allow it some independence.

We also have to remember that the Bank did very well at hitting its inflation target until comparatively recently. The problem is that this target had become meaningless when Brown decided to exclude housing costs. So Gieve was actually being too modest: the Bank was very good at the meaningless job Brown had given to them.

“He subsequently broke his own sensible rule, and told us RBS and HBOS were especially in need of treatment.”

I agree perhaps he shouldn’t have mentioned specific cases, but the problems at RBS and HBOS are well known. I own shares in those banks, and Gieve certainly didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know!

I have looked at hundreds of charts on the web, searching for where it all began to go wrong. Gordo and Co tell us it started in the USA. But, we know a lot of the exotic toxic financial instruments were designed and implemented in London.

There are more technical indicating instruments out there than would fill the dashboard of several Boeing 747s. Interest rate spreads between treasuries; corporates etc etc and the price of Mars Bars. But, then I found the Maloney Panic Meter which actually summed up all the other charts I have collected.

So where and when did the panic actually start? Would you believe Northern Rock? As far as I can gather, the fact that NR was in the UK; the de-facto centre of the financial universe, was the straw that broke the increasingly wobbly camel’s back.

http://www.financialsense.com/fsu/editorials/2008/1219.html

May I also thank you for this outstanding blog in 2008. It was one of the very few places one could come to realise that not everyone in the world was mad. I think your analysis of nearly all the major issues has been more or less spot-on, so thank you very much.

Lets hope Mr Cameron joins Mr Brown as a regular reader!

In this case it sounds like Sir John is trying to get some revenge in whist he still can against his detractors in the BoE. Saying “we” didnt know is essentially saying Mervyn King “didnt get it”!
I would imagine most people would agree the bank has been pretty useless as soon as the going has gotten tough especially as anyone with a small understanding of economics could see the credit market was out of control.