UK/North economy

[johnnycool]

The enemy isn't the scroungers. People aren't good at putting numbers into perspective. The enemy is the 50 families who are richer than the 34 million people at the bottom.

The *real* problem is that a few wealthy people who are very adept at avoiding tax can never ever make up for 10s of millions of people earning decent wages and spending that on goods and services.

You are getting confused, there are no good tax dodgers. Cooking the books because you can afford it and cooking the bookies cause you are a lazy Cnut is the same..

The system is broken by those who can afford to hide their earnings and those who refuse to earn, thus leaving those who go out to make an honest wage end up paying for poor services they receive..

Stop separating things

Theres a world of difference in a boy scrounging a few thousand and corporations cleaning us for billions. Neither are right but one is on a different level

No, neither are right, if we all took the same attitude where do you think the place would be?

Even if everyone in the occupied territories cooked the books it wouldn't make a difference.You could fit 50 families into one of your "leisure centres" . They have more money than the rest of England North of Luton. That is the problem. Focusing on what your local scumbags do is missing the point.

Again, start a thread in the 50 families please. Start a thread about how the government can take their money.

But save me the shite, are you saying take their money and give it to the dolers?

Close a lot of these tax avoidance/evasion schemes and fund the NHS properly, fund schools properly etc.

I'm waiting on Channel 5 running a few TV series on people like this as well as the likes of Benefit street etc.

We're being conditioned to look down at the issue rather than look up and see the bigger shower of spongers at the high end of the tax tree avoiding billions.

[Milltown Row2]

The enemy isn't the scroungers. People aren't good at putting numbers into perspective. The enemy is the 50 families who are richer than the 34 million people at the bottom.

The *real* problem is that a few wealthy people who are very adept at avoiding tax can never ever make up for 10s of millions of people earning decent wages and spending that on goods and services.

You are getting confused, there are no good tax dodgers. Cooking the books because you can afford it and cooking the bookies cause you are a lazy Cnut is the same..

The system is broken by those who can afford to hide their earnings and those who refuse to earn, thus leaving those who go out to make an honest wage end up paying for poor services they receive..

Stop separating things

Theres a world of difference in a boy scrounging a few thousand and corporations cleaning us for billions. Neither are right but one is on a different level

No, neither are right, if we all took the same attitude where do you think the place would be?

Even if everyone in the occupied territories cooked the books it wouldn't make a difference.You could fit 50 families into one of your "leisure centres" . They have more money than the rest of England North of Luton. That is the problem. Focusing on what your local scumbags do is missing the point.

Again, start a thread in the 50 families please. Start a thread about how the government can take their money.

But save me the shite, are you saying take their money and give it to the dolers?

Close a lot of these tax avoidance/evasion schemes and fund the NHS properly, fund schools properly etc.

I'm waiting on Channel 5 running a few TV series on people like this as well as the likes of Benefit street etc.

We're being conditioned to look down at the issue rather than look up and see the bigger shower of spongers at the high end of the tax tree avoiding billions.

You won't get anyone arguing about hitting the global companies with the proper use of collecting tax, no one, that's not ever been in dispute, but stop using it as an excuse to excuse others doing it

The government have all the money they need to pay into the NHS, the problem is its been mismanaged and hasn't been run properly for many years and has not moved with the times be it technology staffing or the increase of people coming to the country or the increase people living longer..

Schools and education, nothing has really changed to be fair, class sizes are the same more or less since I was at school, the schools were in worse condition to the standards they have today, teachers are doing less teaching and more paperwork the curriculum has too much on it and the stretching of that means (for me) diluting the subject just to put more into it for some reason..

And if they ever hit these big companies for more tax and get it off them, can you trust the governments to do the right thing with that money, because in the last 30 years I've yet to see proper infrastructure in the north that's made a big improvement. ,

Whether its 000.1% of the dole cheats and 25% of the global companies are taking, they are both wrong. If the vast majority of people are working they are creating more money and its put back into the economy rather it being taken out 

Here in lies the gamble, if I'm a MD of a global firm and I'm going to get hit with these big increased taxes, I'm (if able) moving my company to a cheaper tax haven country, that in turn brings business and revenue out of the economy. lowering the ability to take billions to pure it into those areas you have mentioned, is that fair? No, but its business

Short and curlys 

[trueblue1234]

For all the poorness in the country, i never seen as many people driving fancy cars. Where i live, more than half the houses are rented out but top range Audi,BMW, jeeps etc.

Range rovers, holidays to Dubai, botox, mounjaro, 60inch TVs. All of them everywhere.

I remember when the the BMW X5 and Q7 came out, a big purchase at the time but when you look back they were a standard model.  Now everyone seems to be the X drive / Quattro version and pimped within an inch of it's life.

If I traded my current wagon in I would not get £1000 for it as it has over 200k miles but I have 18 months left on my mortgage so happy enough I have got my priorities right.

Lot of debate whether you should fully clear your mortgage or not. Some recommend keeping a small amount against your property as it provides better security against fraud and improves your liquidity. We stopped overpaying the mortgage and started investing (Nothing significant I might add). But hard to know what the right option is anymore for the long term.

[Milltown Row2]

For all the poorness in the country, i never seen as many people driving fancy cars. Where i live, more than half the houses are rented out but top range Audi,BMW, jeeps etc.

Range rovers, holidays to Dubai, botox, mounjaro, 60inch TVs. All of them everywhere.

I remember when the the BMW X5 and Q7 came out, a big purchase at the time but when you look back they were a standard model.  Now everyone seems to be the X drive / Quattro version and pimped within an inch of it's life.

If I traded my current wagon in I would not get £1000 for it as it has over 200k miles but I have 18 months left on my mortgage so happy enough I have got my priorities right.

Lot of debate whether you should fully clear your mortgage or not. Some recommend keeping a small amount against your property as it provides better security against fraud and improves your liquidity. We stopped overpaying the mortgage and started investing (Nothing significant I might add). But hard to know what the right option is anymore for the long term.

I've a few years left, maybe 7 or so but in the process of adding to the mortgage when I can to drop the rate, probably on the same mindset of leaving a small amount there but she wants it gone..

[imtommygunn]

Cleared it and also not sure on the right answer for it. Glad to not have been hit by higher rates so probably happy enough. I know ones who swear by leaving a small amount on it.

[LC]

For all the poorness in the country, i never seen as many people driving fancy cars. Where i live, more than half the houses are rented out but top range Audi,BMW, jeeps etc.

Range rovers, holidays to Dubai, botox, mounjaro, 60inch TVs. All of them everywhere.

I remember when the the BMW X5 and Q7 came out, a big purchase at the time but when you look back they were a standard model.  Now everyone seems to be the X drive / Quattro version and pimped within an inch of it's life.

If I traded my current wagon in I would not get £1000 for it as it has over 200k miles but I have 18 months left on my mortgage so happy enough I have got my priorities right.

Lot of debate whether you should fully clear your mortgage or not. Some recommend keeping a small amount against your property as it provides better security against fraud and improves your liquidity. We stopped overpaying the mortgage and started investing (Nothing significant I might add). But hard to know what the right option is anymore for the long term.

Never heard this before, can you explain.

I always thought if you had no mortgage you could still use it as leverage to borrow if funds were needed down the line as you are coming from a place of 100% equity.

[armaghniac]

For all the poorness in the country, i never seen as many people driving fancy cars. Where i live, more than half the houses are rented out but top range Audi,BMW, jeeps etc.

Range rovers, holidays to Dubai, botox, mounjaro, 60inch TVs. All of them everywhere.

I remember when the the BMW X5 and Q7 came out, a big purchase at the time but when you look back they were a standard model.  Now everyone seems to be the X drive / Quattro version and pimped within an inch of it's life.

If I traded my current wagon in I would not get £1000 for it as it has over 200k miles but I have 18 months left on my mortgage so happy enough I have got my priorities right.

Lot of debate whether you should fully clear your mortgage or not. Some recommend keeping a small amount against your property as it provides better security against fraud and improves your liquidity. We stopped overpaying the mortgage and started investing (Nothing significant I might add). But hard to know what the right option is anymore for the long term.

Never heard this before, can you explain.

I always thought if you had no mortgage you could still use it as leverage to borrow if funds were needed down the line as you are coming from a place of 100% equity.

A little cash is easily accessed, whereas borrowing takes time. Also a little cash ensures no need for credit cards, paying annually rather than monthly to get the discount etc

[LC]

Thanks.

Plan is once the mortgage is cleared we plan to split 90% of that monthly payment between savings, emergency fund, pension etc.

It was always dead money so if we can continue to tip away based on current incomes we should be ok.

[trueblue1234]

Having a mortgage can help with security against property title fraud as they maintain an interest in the property. As the lender has security checks in place that a fraudster would find harder to bypass.
Also for liquidity, if you've saved/ invested money it's easier accessed if you need it urgently. It's that opportunity cost of overpaying the mortgage.
But I'm not saying or advising which is better as I haven't a clue and would depend who you speak to. But always good to be aware of options.

[armaghniac]

Thanks.

Plan is once the mortgage is cleared we plan to split 90% of that monthly payment between savings, emergency fund, pension etc.

It was always dead money so if we can continue to tip away based on current incomes we should be ok.

A pension with tax relief has a lot of merit.

[seafoid]

Thanks.

Plan is once the mortgage is cleared we plan to split 90% of that monthly payment between savings, emergency fund, pension etc.

It was always dead money so if we can continue to tip away based on current incomes we should be ok.

A pension with tax relief has a lot of merit.

Pension funds all use one quantitative model for all risk and lose shedloads to inflation and volatility. They lost around 50% of assets between 2020 and 2025. I am looking at a Swiss pension fund that lost 25bn CHF between 2020 and 2025.
https://www.ft.com/content/1fcb4d60-b1df-11e8-99ca-68cf89602132
Now, risks lie in bloated asset prices, levered investments, and in pension funds that hold them. The next crisis will not be about banking, but the insidious danger that pension funds deflate, leaving a generation without enough money to retire.

[tiempo]

Thanks.

Plan is once the mortgage is cleared we plan to split 90% of that monthly payment between savings, emergency fund, pension etc.

It was always dead money so if we can continue to tip away based on current incomes we should be ok.

A pension with tax relief has a lot of merit.

Pension funds all use one quantitative model for all risk and lose shedloads to inflation and volatility. They lost around 50% of assets between 2020 and 2025. I am looking at a Swiss pension fund that lost 25bn CHF between 2020 and 2025.
https://www.ft.com/content/1fcb4d60-b1df-11e8-99ca-68cf89602132
Now, risks lie in bloated asset prices, levered investments, and in pension funds that hold them. The next crisis will not be about banking, but the insidious danger that pension funds deflate, leaving a generation without enough money to retire.

Paste that article across if possible
Piling into my pension atm, conscious also that the macro-economics could just as easily tank the value of it any time, the later the worse and all

[seafoid]

Thanks.

Plan is once the mortgage is cleared we plan to split 90% of that monthly payment between savings, emergency fund, pension etc.

It was always dead money so if we can continue to tip away based on current incomes we should be ok.

A pension with tax relief has a lot of merit.

Pension funds all use one quantitative model for all risk and lose shedloads to inflation and volatility. They lost around 50% of assets between 2020 and 2025. I am looking at a Swiss pension fund that lost 25bn CHF between 2020 and 2025.
https://www.ft.com/content/1fcb4d60-b1df-11e8-99ca-68cf89602132
Now, risks lie in bloated asset prices, levered investments, and in pension funds that hold them. The next crisis will not be about banking, but the insidious danger that pension funds deflate, leaving a generation without enough money to retire.

Paste that article across if possible
Piling into my pension atm, conscious also that the macro-economics could just as easily tank the value of it any time, the later the worse and all

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   https://www.ft.com/content/1fcb4d60-b1df-11e8-99ca-68cf89602132?syn-25a6b1a6=1

   In a crisis, sometimes you don't tell the whole story
How after the fall of Lehman Brothers we came close to a full-scale bank run
JOHN AUTHERSAdd to myFT
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John Authers

PublishedSEP 8 2018

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Back in September 2008 a failure of AIG, many believed, would mean an instantaneous collapse of the European banking system, which held much impaired US credit © Bloomberg
It is time to admit that I once deliberately withheld important information from readers. It was 10 years ago, the financial crisis was at its worst, and I think I did the right thing. But a decade on from the 2008 crisis (our front pages from the period are at ft.com/financialcrisis), I need to discuss it.

The moment came on September 17, two days after Lehman declared bankruptcy. That Wednesday was — for me — the scariest day of the crisis, when world finance came closest to all-out collapse. But I did not write as much in the FT. 

Two critical news items had broken on Tuesday night. First, AIG received an $85bn bailout. It needed it because it had to pay up for credit default swap transactions it had guaranteed. Without those guarantees, bonds sitting on banks' balance sheets and assumed to be of no risk would instead be deemed worthless. That would instantly render many of the banks holding them technically insolvent. A failure of AIG, many believed, would mean an instantaneous collapse of the European banking system, which held much impaired US credit.

That the US had coughed up so much money suggested that AIG's guarantees could not be trusted — so what collateral could possibly be good for a loan?

Meanwhile, the Reserve Fund, the largest US independent money market mutual fund, announced a loss on its holdings of Lehman bonds. As a result, its price would fall below $1 per share. 

This was terrifying because money market funds, which hold short-term bonds, were treated as guaranteed. No money market fund had ever "broken the buck" (or fallen below a price of $1). 

The funds were vital customers for short-term debt. Without them, how could banks or big companies fund themselves? Investors rushed to pull money out of money funds, while the funds' managers dumped corporate bonds for the safety of Treasury bills. 

This was a run on the bank. The solvency of Wall Street's biggest banks was in question. Amid chaos, the yield on Treasury bills fell to its lowest since Pearl Harbor. Desperate people needed safety; interest rates did not matter. 

Unlike 2007's run on Northern Rock in the UK, none of this was visible. Queues do not form around the block to buy T-bills. But Wall Streeters I spoke to thought the banking system was at risk of failing. 

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Five surprising outcomes of the 2008 financial crisis

As it happened, I had a lot of cash in my bank account, at Citibank. I was above the limit covered by US deposit insurance, so if Citi went bust, a once inconceivable event that I could now imagine, I would lose money for good.

At lunch hour I headed to Citi, planning to take out half my money and put it into an account at the Chase branch next door. That would double the money that I had insured.

We were in midtown Manhattan, surrounded by investment banking offices. At Citi, I found a long queue, all well-dressed Wall Streeters. They were doing the same as me. Next door, Chase was also full of anxious-looking bankers.

Once I reached the relationship officer, who was great, she told me that she and her opposite number at Chase had agreed a plan of action. I need not open an account at another bank.

Using bullet points, she asked if I was married, and had children. Then she opened accounts for each of my children in trust, and a joint account with my wife. In just a few minutes I had quadrupled my deposit insurance coverage. I was now exposed to Uncle Sam, not Citi. With a smile she told me she had been doing this all morning. Neither she nor her friend at Chase had ever had requests to do this until that week.

I was finding it a little hard to breathe. There was a bank run happening, in New York's financial district. The people panicking were the Wall Streeters who best understood what was going on. 

All I needed was to get a photographer to take a few shots of the well-dressed bankers queueing for their money, and write a caption explaining it. 

We did not do this. Such a story on the FT's front page might have been enough to push the system over the edge. Our readers went unwarned, and the system went without that final prod into panic. 

The next crisis will not be about banking, but the insidious danger that pension funds deflate, leaving a generation without enough money to retire

Was this the right call? I think so. All our competitors also shunned any photos of Manhattan bank branches. The right to free speech does not give us right to shout fire in a crowded cinema; there was the risk of a fire, and we might have lit the spark by shouting about it.

A few weeks later, the deposit protection limit was raised from $100,000 to $250,000 via an emergency economic stabilisation bill passed by Congress.

Ten years on, US banks are virtually the only players in the financial world plainly more secure than they were before. They have delivered and built up capital, and the risk of a sudden collapse is now far more distant. 

The problem now is that disposing of that risk has obstructed the task of reducing other risks. Now, risks lie in bloated asset prices, levered investments, and in pension funds that hold them. The next crisis will not be about banking, but the insidious danger that pension funds deflate, leaving a generation without enough money to retire. 

The bad news is that it is a crisis whose solution can always wait another day. Politicians can ignore it. The good news; I need not stay quiet this time. 

[armaghniac]

That article is 8 years ago. I'm not saying that there is not cause for concern, but a new analysis is needed.

[seafoid]

Thanks.

Plan is once the mortgage is cleared we plan to split 90% of that monthly payment between savings, emergency fund, pension etc.

It was always dead money so if we can continue to tip away based on current incomes we should be ok.

A pension with tax relief has a lot of merit.

Pension funds all use one quantitative model for all risk and lose shedloads to inflation and volatility. They lost around 50% of assets between 2020 and 2025. I am looking at a Swiss pension fund that lost 25bn CHF between 2020 and 2025.
https://www.ft.com/content/1fcb4d60-b1df-11e8-99ca-68cf89602132
Now, risks lie in bloated asset prices, levered investments, and in pension funds that hold them. The next crisis will not be about banking, but the insidious danger that pension funds deflate, leaving a generation without enough money to retire.

Paste that article across if possible
Piling into my pension atm, conscious also that the macro-economics could just as easily tank the value of it any time, the later the worse and all

If you can choose the investment you just need to switch the money into cash when inflation and volatility kick off. This avoids huge losses and you can buy stuff cheap when the markets recover. The returns are much higher. At least 10% a year.