As someone who Basically lives off his UK Forces pension plus lifetime savings and Investments I am always interested in the Value of The Pound Sterling.
Two years ago I could get 73 Baht for One Pound a week ago 50 if I was lucky now 52, I am assured by Brits out here.
Twice in my adult life I have watched Labour shaft UK's economy and this time they have done it rather well.
The Fabian Society must be working hard on an award for Gorden Brown.
Try this artical from last week
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/...okes---were-galloping-into-a-mega-crisis.html
Very long article worth reading.
A couple of quotes
âAs millions of consumers are discovering, there are phases in the build-up of unaffordable debt when it is possible to imagine that living way beyond one's means is a legitimate and sustainable option. For a while, doomsters' warnings of disaster are readily ignored. The time bomb is ticking, but without an explosion the dangers can be passed off as undue pessimism.â
âFaced with the horror of expulsion from the Commons â and the prospect of finding a proper job, without a cornucopia of expenses â they demand bribes for the electorate, even though mounting bills will destroy the budgetary independence of future generations. The position of these MPs is nakedly selfish: we'll enjoy the goodies now; someone else can pay later.
As the voice of integrity on Labour's backbenches, Frank Field rightly says: "We're sleepwalking into a mega-crisis. It is irresponsible to leave the public finances in this state until after the next election."
âThe Chancellor says that his borrowing will top £700 billion over the next five years. If correct, that would stretch the country's credit rating to breaking point. But, without urgent remedial action, the total will almost certainly be much more, proportionally far exceeding that of any other G8 country. We are on course to spend annually a greater sum on interest payments (£43 billion in 2010-11) than on defence.
Even the Treasury Select Committee, with its Labour majority, has lost faith in the Brown-Darling magic show. The old tricks no longer fool the audience. The MPs say that the Chancellor is "too optimistic". The unpalatable truth is that unless the Prime Minister discovers a thick seam of gold running under Whitehall, we will all be required to work longer and harder and save more.
State spending must be cut â there cannot simply be a slowing of growth â and tax increases reversed. Hitting the so-called rich with a new top rate generates precious little, except a vindictive smile from Harriet Harman. History tells us that higher earners pay more in taxes when rates are low. Even the Treasury expects two thirds of those in the new 50 per cent band to find ways of dodging it. Set against the Chancellor's annual expenditure of £671 billion, the sums involved are tiny, probably less than £1 billion. It is, in effect, an envy tax.
A Cabinet minister once told me that this Government will never get to grips with the pensions crisis because it involves telling people that they must endure pain today for jam tomorrow, precisely the opposite of what Mr Brown and his acolytes regard as the recipe for self-preservation. They will always try to buy time with taxpayers' money. Unfortunately, both are running out.
End quote.
I have said before on this board George Bush bought his second term in Office by keeping Borrowing Cheap and encouraging Banks to lend to folk who could not afford the Loans, for Money does have it's own Price.
Tony Blair used the same trick to buy his second and third elections.
The Pound will fall and it will beyond my time on Earth before it recovers, if ever.
john