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Posted: 11-08-2012 18:13 Post subject:

Please read:
http://www.renegadeeconomist.com/news/how-the-bbc-is-misleading-the-public-about-the-financial-crisis.html

Posted: 11-08-2012 18:19 Post subject:

I have had a stroke of good fortune at last - just landed a new full-time job.
Timing is good, as my money is close to running out.

Phew! Cool

Posted: 11-08-2012 18:54 Post subject:

Congratulations!

Posted: 11-08-2012 19:12 Post subject:

Posted: 11-08-2012 20:16 Post subject:

Haha, thanks - but I never joined the Masons. Laughing

Posted: 11-08-2012 20:18 Post subject:

He joined the Carpenters.

Posted: 11-08-2012 20:27 Post subject:

Posted: 11-08-2012 20:30 Post subject:

Posted: 11-08-2012 22:16 Post subject:

Good luck Myth, hope all goes well.

Posted: 12-08-2012 10:00 Post subject:

Is there light at the end of the tunnel? An upsurge in British manufacturing! Can this be true? Shocked

How Britain won the global car war
The surprise renaissance of the nation's car makers shows British industry the road ahead.
By Jeremy Warner, Associate editor
4:30PM BST 11 Aug 2012

For Europe's beleaguered car makers, news of vast losses at Peugeot and, to the dismay of the French political class, the closure of one of its flagship plants, was an all too familiar story.
It's partly a "Made at Peugeot" problem, but the company's travails are also part of a deeper malaise at the heart of the Continental auto industry.

From General Motors to Fiat and Renault, most of the big household names are struggling. Poor demand, crippling overcapacity, and increasingly intense competition from foreign entrants have combined with a structural shift in the market to premium and value vehicles to squeeze established marques.
For some, cash is fast running out. With credit scarcer than ever, major restructurings and state-funded bail-outs – possibly even full-scale bankruptcies –are just around the corner.

Yet amid this tale of decline is one unexpected bright spot. Remarkably, the UK car industry seems to be enjoying something of a renaissance. So remarkable, in fact, that industry veterans – hardened by years of failure – keep pinching themselves to make sure it's real. The full range of good-news stories over the past year is too long to list, so here is just a taste.

Last month alone, Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) announced a further 1,100 new jobs at Castle Bromwich, in the West Midlands, to support the launch of new Jaguar models, while BMW confirmed a further £250m of investment at its Oxford, Swindon and Hams Hall facilities to expand Mini production.

These announcements come hard on the heels of major new investments by JLR at Halewood, Nissan at Sunderland, Honda at Swindon and Vauxhall at Ellesmere Port. At the elite end of the industry, McLaren Automotive is also investing heavily in a new facility at Woking.

Over the past 18 months, virtually all those involved in the British automotive industry have announced expansion of some form, a collective total of around £4.5bn of new investment.
This is prompting a host of matching initiatives in the supply chain. The surge in activity is virtually unprecedented, with car production this year expected to top 1.5m vehicles, more than at any time since the late 1990s.

For the first time since 1976, the UK exports more cars by value than it imports – amid supposedly the worst downturn since the Great Depression.
The previous peak for UK car production was back in 1972, when the industry sold 1.9m cars. Such has been the intensity of new investment that the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders is confident this record will be surpassed within three years, assuming there is no meltdown in the eurozone.

To understand this resurgence, it is necessary to go back in history and explore what went wrong in the past with the British car industry, once the thriving heart of UK manufacturing.

etc...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/jeremy-warner/9468981/How-Britain-won-the-global-car-war.html

Posted: 12-08-2012 10:38 Post subject:

More good news, but I guess this could be more short-lived...

Team GB's success boosts retailers
Olympics effect sees surge in bicycles and TV sales, and patriotic customers buy British-made merchandise
Julia Kollewe
guardian.co.uk, Saturday 11 August 2012 12.04 BST

Team GB's gold medal haul and Britons' national pride in the London 2012 Olympics have brought people flocking back to the shops, with soaring sales of bikes, sportswear, picnic foods and TVs.

Last week in London the West End – usually buzzing with tourists at this time of year – was described as a "ghost town" as people were put off travelling by warnings of potential transport chaos. The widely feared travel disruptions never materialised, and shoppers were this week back out in force. Shopper traffic increased by more than 13% in the West End on Tuesday compared with a year earlier, according to the latest footfall figures from Experian, which credited the impact of the triathlon. Having witnessed the historic victory for the Brownlee brothers from Yorkshire, spectators then hit the shops.

Jace Tyrrell at the New West End Company said: "We know from other Olympic cities that it definitely builds in the second week." Compared with the first Olympics weekend when footfall was down 9.1% in the UK as a whole and 21% in London year on year, the second Games weekend saw a pick-up in shopper numbers, according to Springboard. Saturday 4 August saw national footfall rise 5.4% and London footfall 8.3% and Sunday 5 August maintained this uplift with 1.8% and 5.4% respective rises in year on year growth.

Britain's higher-than-expected medal haul in a variety of disciplines has prompted a jump in people taking up those sports. Cycle and sports shops and department stores have reported a surge in sales of bikes and accessories, running, swimming and tennis gear and rowing machines. Halfords, the biggest seller of bikes in the UK, reported higher sales of Boardman and its own-brand road bikes. A Victoria Pendleton-designed bike range for women saw sales rise more than 70% this month.

Evans Cycles has enjoyed a 35% increase in the sale of road bikes and a surge in visitors to its website in the week after Bradley Wiggins' triumph in the Tour de France, followed by his Olympic gold medal. The cycling chain said the last few days have been the busiest of the year, with higher sales in every region across the UK. Bikes costing between £700 and £2,000 are most popular. Getting kitted out like Britain's cycling hero would set customers back £7,400, with a similar bike costing nearly £7,000, plus shorts, helmet and shoes (minus the sideburns). Cool

Even though gold eluded Brits in the swimming, with Rebecca Adlington having to settle for two bronzes, swimming costumes and goggles are flying off the shelves. John Lewis sold 77% more men's Team GB swimming trunks last week than in the previous week, as well as 44% more goggles, and 34% more Monster Beat headphones, sported by many of the Olympic swimmers when walking up to the pool.

Ben Rogers, sports buyer at John Lewis, said: "Olympics fever has really gripped the nation and we have seen an increase in people buying the equipment to try to emulate their favourite stars."

Rowing machines have seen a 106% surge in sales week-on-week, while running clothes and trainers are up 41% on a year ago and tennis gear has risen 14%.

As the nation got together to watch the Olympics at home or on one of the many outdoor screens around the country, sales of beer, snacks, ready meals and celebration cakes have jumped.

etc...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/aug/11/team-gb-boosts-uk-retailers

Posted: 14-08-2012 08:02 Post subject:

Posted: 14-08-2012 10:37 Post subject:

Truly good news!

Posted: 01-09-2012 10:08 Post subject:

Back to doom and gloom:

US 'will return to gold standard', says Euro Pacific Capital chief Peter Schiff
A major US investor has predicted the world's leading economy will return to the gold standard, giving further weight to Republican moves to set up a commission to look at the issue.
By Andrew Trotman
2:22PM BST 31 Aug 2012

Peter Schiff, chief executive of Euro Pacific Capital, has argued that the US is heading for a currency crisis, and an immediate move to peg the dollar to gold is needed as the economy is caught in a "phony recovery".

"Eventually we will be back on a gold standard, not because politicians want it, but because the public demands it and the situation requires it," he told King World News.
"We are headed for a currency crisis, and the only way we’re going to stop it is by putting real value back into the paper dollar. So we have to tie it to gold.
"The sooner we do it the better because the sooner we start to repair the problems the easier it is. The longer we wait, the bigger the problems get. But I think it’s happening soon [a return to the gold standard]."

The economy is so bad, Mr Schiff argues, that despite Ben Bernanke's speech today in which he is expected to dampen hopes of further monetary policy stimulus, the Federal Reserve chairman will soon be forced into another round of quantitative easing.

“QE3 is coming. You know we’ve got a phony recovery, so it’s going to fail. So we are going to get more QE. It’s not that we need it, but if we don’t have QE3, then we are back in recession," said Mr Schiff, who ran as a candidate in the Republican primary for the US Senate seat in Connecticut in 2010.

"We have a lot of problems, and if we cure them it’s going to mean a short-term recession as we repair the damage. Until the Fed lets us have a real recession, as painful as that may be, we are never going to have a recovery."

Added to North America's economic woes, a "fiscal cliff" is looming. A number of tax increases and spending cuts are due at the end of the year that are expected to weigh heavily on growth and possibly drive the economy back into a recession.
Mr Schiff believes this will push the US into currency and debt crises, paving the way for a return to the gold standard.

etc...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/investing/gold/9511886/US-will-return-to-gold-standard-says-Euro-Pacific-Capital-chief-Peter-Schiff.html

Posted: 30-11-2012 23:00 Post subject:

Full text at link.