Post Budget Blues or Pre Election Reds - Playing Risk with Your Future!
So Alisdair Darling delivered his pre-election budget to a crowd of disinterested Brits yesterday and effectively opened the floodgates for the six week marathon of Polls, Accusations, Taunts, Cajolery, Calumny and Political Bollocks that culminates with you putting your X in the box of damage limitation and patting yourself on the back for being Democratic. (Especially if you are from an extremist party such as the BNP)
So what are the
choices?
Hmm - A pompous inexperienced public school prat of the Harry Enfield mold with zero social conscience or a one eyed Scot with questionable religious motives whose already been given the chance to 'change' things and failed miserably in some quarters!
Yep, I can hear you all shouting that there are other choices, but my yellow friends you are kidding yourselves. I want you to all return to your constituencies and prepare not to govern!
This is a straight Two horse race like it or not - although it may, like the pathetic Lib/Lab pact of the Seventies not decide the outcome at the first hurdle.
In fact with all these Tory created Strikes and Industrial actions leading up to the election I keep getting flashbacks that I'm in 1979.... God help us all....
So today unpolitical but always controversial Insurance Blogger, nails his colours firmly to the mast and asks you the British people.....
NOT TO VOTE FOR CHANGE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Why?
Because in case you haven't noticed the UK Economy is on the brink of slipping back into recession.
The Interest Rates need to be kept as close to zero for at least another five years if the Japanese Economy recovery experience of the Nineties is to be followed.
A Conservative Government would naturally interfere with Interest Rates and the Bank of England monetary policies.
The Conservative party simply cannot be trusted not to inflate the rates to protect their own and their core voters savings!
Look what happened to the UK the last time they were allowed to Govern!
Lest we forget that quickly?
SELLING ENGLAND BY THE POUND
The Bank of England who along with the major European Insurance Companies, are currently doing a mighty fine job of managing UK Debt.
Insurance Companies can't buy enough UK Government debt in the shape of gilts!
The last offering of UK debt this month was 3 times oversubscribed as the
Insurance Illuminati rushed to defend Britain!
It looks like the UK Government are managing the debt pretty soundly!
Truth is, where else do you put your money? Greece? The Euro??
So if Insurance Companies (who BTW own everything including the banks) have faith in the Status Quo - - then So do I!
A vote for Cuckoo Cameron would be utter Madness. Cuckoo BTW because he hasn't got any policies of his own!
Answers, objections and biased opinions in the comment box below please!
XLabels: Bank of England, Cuckoo Cameron, David Cameron, General Election, Gordon Brown, Quantitative Easing, UK government
Euro On The Point Of Collapse - Victim Of A Trojan Horse?
If the Franco-German alliance fails to bail out the Greek debt then the Euro will most certainly collapse!
Mass Devaluation.
Cheap Holidays in the Sun!
Suddenly Europe will not be worth half as much as it was!
Worse still for the Euro Bankers is the fact that the amount of Greek debt appears unquantifiable due to some smart bookeeping by the previous conservative government who were incumbent for most of the credit crunch and the subsequent recession.
This is not going to impress those financial entrepreneurial illuminati who have their money tied up in the Euro and itchy fingers on the sale button!
Europe is supposed to be growing itself out of recession faster than the UK or USA.
Some say that this is a mirage and was a temporary bounce due to the Eurobankers encouraging consumer spending coupled with the christmas seasonal factor.
The overall trends appear to be down!
If the Euro collapses on the money markets, all participants will pay the price of the Greek tradegy.
I can already hear the British Euroskeptics say 'I Told You So!' as the Irish economy collapses.
So what will it mean for the UK and in particular the
UK Insurance Industry?
Well Insurance Blogger thinks it could be a very good thing for the UK financial services industries as a whole.
After all when the Money markets sense a tsunami coming; the smart money always runs to the safest shores!
Of course the right wing euro-sceptics will claim victory in the advent of a Cameron led election victory; but the real praise must go to
Gordon Brown and Barack Obama for not following the Euro pump priming recovery route.
Labels: Bank of England, Barack Obama, Currency Exchange, Euro Bankers, Gordon Brown, Greece, Greek Economy, Money, MoneyMarkets, pump priming, UK government, UK Insurance
UK Health Insurance- From the Cradle to the Queue
Health and Wealth! Isn't that what eveyone drinks to?
A look at
UK Health Insurance and National Wealth.
Britain was still reeling from World War Two when the National Health Service was launched in 1948, sweeping in an era of social change and expectation.
Gone were the days of ‘bring out your dead’ if you couldn’t afford to pay.
Despite many changes over the sixty one years and its recent flirtations with Private
Health Insurance companies, the so called postcode lottery system and other structural difficulties, the NHS has remained true to the ethos of access for all.
No system is perfect and spatial differences in levels of access and quality of care still need to be radically addressed.
In the UK when the National Health Service was finally implemented in 1948 as part of Labour Prime Minister Clement Attlee's 'cradle to the grave' welfare state.
A nationwide system of free healthcare was finally launched by Aneurin Bevan the then Minister of Health, which promised us access to health care cover and treatment for all.
The cradle to the grave speech mentality had set the standards for social healthcare and access to treatment for all.
To date, despite its recent structural changes, and despite the healthy criticism and debate that the subject of the NHS always brings, if you look at the system in performance and social cohesion you have to say that it appears to work much better as a form of national health insurance than do comparative systems in so called developed countries. This development in healthcare is always a subject of great debate in the lead up to a General Election, and no doubt will take greater stage in the months to come
Everyone working in the UK has to pay National Insurance contributions as part of their income in order for the system to work, and facilitating everyone in the UK with medical cover.
However National Insurance contributions are not a good solution for a number of reasons.
They increase the costs of labour.
By definition this makes them inflationary.
The costs of production are passed onto the populace en masse
The contributions are by no means equitable
Many sections of the population are able to virtually opt out of the contribution system
The NHS is heavily subsided by the tax contributions of the healthy and wealthy forty percent plus payers.
Whether the United States Government is able to take what could be seen as a major left shift to achieve better social cohesion and consequently improved GDP, remains to be seen.
Are the workers prepared to subsidize the shirkers and the misfortunate? There needs to exist a situation both economically, socially and mentality, of desperation and hope that existed in the UK in 1945, in order to see a fiscal response to the current situation, biting the healthcare bullet that the USA is so afraid to bite. Providing the ultimate National Safety Net!
The States is in the difficult situation of how to deal with chronic sickness, the recession, the role of PMI as an underwriter of GDP and the political influence and lobbying power of the large Health Insurance companies. Rather you than me Barrack!
Gordon Brown should note that
Private Health Insurance became one of the first things people were encouraged to buy when her who’s name shall not be spoken came to power in 1979.
Labels: Barack Obama, Gordon Brown, health insurance, health insurance quotes, medical insurance, NHS, PMI, private health insurance, Private Medical Insurance, UK government
Government Loans for First Time buyers
Those self serving suits from around Threadneedle Street who we saw exposed in Channel 4's excellent documentary on non-executive banking directors, have been racking their brains recently on how to get the first time buyer market moving.
Laughing into their cafe crappe they must be rubbing their hands in glee that the public furore has shifted onto their erstwhile employers - the MP's of Westminster or as Sky TV would have us call it 'The Rotten Government'
So on the back of the Speaker Bashing, the Government in the guise of Lloyds TSB has today launched a new first time buyer mortgage product called- ‘Lend a Hand’ (who thought of that?) - offering 95% loan to value (LTV)
‘Lend a Hand’ or 'Cop for Your Kids' as it is soon to be known, which is obviously aimed at the middle classes with kids still at home, offers first time buyers a 95% loan to value (LTV) mortgage by taking a legal charge on a savings account belonging to their parents, grandparents, rich friends or anyone else willing to cough up the dough to get the kids a place to live.
The new product is a fixed rate mortgage at 4.39% for 3 years, and is nearly £100 a month less than the industry average 90% mortgage rate at 5.98%.
Hmm - isn't the base rate currently 0.5%?
Lloyds are still looking for a 25% deposit but they are allowing this to be made up through a combination of a minimum 5% deposit by the first time buyers and the remainder from the parents or backers savings account.
For example,on a £100,000 property, a 95% LTV mortgage of £95,000 is provided by Lloyds TSB at a three-year fixed rate of 4.39% with a £995 fee. £5,000 is provided by the first-time buyer as a deposit for the property, £20,000 is provided by parents, grandparents or friends and held in the Lloyds TSB ‘Lend a Hand’ savings account earning a fixed rate of 3.5% for 42 months.
Why couldn't they offer the rate Tax-free like an ISA if they really want to encourage people to get involved ?
So what are the multiples of salary limits and can the first time buyer really afford the mortgage repayments?
Furthermore Insurance Blogger is amazed that the Government thinks that there are lots of people have got £20 grand to spare during the current credit crisis and recession, plus a possible further five thousand on top if they really want their kids out the house?
At least Lloyds TSB isn't allowed to sell
mortgage payment protection insurance at the point of mortgage sale any more! Granny's pension wouldn't stretch to that!
Labels: credit crunch, Gordon Brown, House prices, housing market, mortgage, mortgage payment protection insurance, nationalisation
Recession latest - Cracks appear as Barrack Brown tonic bites
Now Insurance Blogger always keeps a sceptic eye on things while the other one is open to all sorts of suggestion. Combine them both and you've got a third eye that can come to some sort of rational analysis of whatever the problem or situation is.
So what is really going on in the Economy?
And in particular in the UK Economy?
Are the cracks in the recession that are staring to appear around the globe genuine?
If so and to what amount of the recent Obama and Brown pump priming can we really attribute to the effect?
Moreover is it a tangible upswing in the Global Economy and genuine growth or are the latest figures just smoking mirrors, conveniently released PR for a week either side of the G (how many are there now) Lockdown London Economic crisis Summit.
OK so whats been happening?
The Zeitgeist seems prety upbeat with some recent strategically announced PR from some of the major UK Government owned Banking and Insurance institutions suggesting, that the downward spiral of deflationary pressures has finally bottomed out. Hmmm!
We need to examine some of these releases chronologically to see behind the mirrors!
Two weeks ago - late at night our time, CBS News New York post stories and report that the Obama insistence that the US financial institutions release bale-out capital for mortgages and housing is beginning to have some effect with construction projects starting up and the demand for houses and prices starting to rise.
Halifax - A week ago announcing UK housing prices are moving upward.
Today - Council of Mortgage lenders announce that there are more mortgage schemes available now and the number of live mortgage schemes has increased for the first time in eight months.
Hmm!
Insurance blogger is pleased but cautiously concerned!
Is this just cheesy Blair style PR that we are all supposed to buy into to go around saying how good life is at the moment and dip into our overdrawn accounts and start spending some more?
Well, until the restricted flow of the money supply starts to drip down to the masses and to those holding the system up with debt, one cannot possibly start to argue that the recent so callled 'fiscal measures' are having any effect at all other than to allow the banks to continue operating.
Until the lower level debt is released or absorbed into the reinflation that will eventually occur, there will be no stimulus to demand and pump priming will become just pumping - lets hope its enough to keep us all afloat!
On a global front there have been casualties everywhere - The Ukranian Government has had to go crawling back to its old masters in the Kremlin after its Banking system and Economy collapsed and the IMF and the West refused to bail it out!
Russia itself is beginning to melt. The frosty cold war like demands of recent years and the noises coming out of the renegade capitalist government there, have softened to the broad smile of the Obama machine. Where is Georgia anyway?
Has the Bear finally realised that all its efforts to undermine the Anglo-Saxon banking system has backfired and shot them in the foot. If you can't beat them - join them!
Likewise China, it may well have the largest bank in the world in the HSBC, but if it continues to squeeze and mess with our markets ( The Chinese Government is actively engaged in Cyberwars!), it is the Chinese people that will suffer in the long term, as we will not buy their products, not through protectionism, but through the inability to afford them.
Everybody is running scared of protectionism as it is well known that it was this mentality that depepened the 1930's global shutdown.
Everybody must come to the table!
Labels: Barack Obama, credit crunch, Economy, Gordon Brown
