Re: is the uk economy on the turn?

On Tue, 10 Feb 2009 11:09:20 +0000, Maria <fedupwoman@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

abelard wrote:



Not in my opinion? You seem unduly optimistic.

no
1)i'm asking a question...
2)i'm doing it as an offset for the ridiculous pronouncements
of the likes of balls

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2009/feb/05/halifax-house-prices-rise
"House prices rose by 1.9% in January, Halifax said today, putting an
end to months of falls and taking many commentators by surprise."

'Many commentators' forget that people still need to move home, and
people with half their mortgage paid off won't have problems moving to a
similar home and won't need to find a 40% deposit.
It may also be that serious discounting has begun in an effort to shift
property that has been on the market for too long. Certainly you can now
buy a three bed house in my town for £60k, which was double that 18
months ago.

ie, the market is correcting

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/retailing/article5697384.ece
"In results that confound City predictions of a deep and long-lasting
consumer slump, the BRC figures today indicate that the total value of
sales at the shops last month was up by 3.2 per cent from a year
earlier.

This marks the first spending growth recorded by the BRC survey since
last September, and the strongest since a 4.6 per cent gain last May,
when trading was boosted by sunny weather."

It was the January sales! If you went out on the streets then, you could
see shops shifting stock at 25% of the original price, and also
Woolworths was in its death throes with shoppers packing in getting the
last bargains. Not only that but the job losses hadn't bitten yet - only
now around here are companies actually closing, and you've still got to
give people time to spend their redundancy money.
The streets were heaving with people - they aren't now...

1)25% reduction is still a profit for bulk buyers
2)the removal of weaker players means more market for those remaining

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/banking_and_finance/article5697765.ece
"Barclays sparked surprise yesterday as it disclosed that it had
expanded its balance *** by a mammoth £900 billion over the past
year, making it significantly bigger than the entire British economy.

Total Barclays assets and liabilities each mushroomed to more than £2
trillion, both now larger than UK gross domestic product at £1.4
trillion, mostly because of hundreds of billions of dollars of
derivative positions acquired alongside the September acquisition of
the North American assets of the bankrupt Lehman Brothers."

I'd like to know what their assets are compared to their
liabilities...but it's not surprise that they have expanded, since other
banks have closed.

that is essentially good news then?

IMHO we can go one of two ways now - either a gentle slide into
recession (if the banks free up credit), or a dramatic collapse (if they
don't). The change had better come soon because at the moment it is
looking like the latter will happen to me.

there has already been a massive fall in asset prices...

those i talk to.....and i regard as able to think!....are generally
much the most worried that government interference and
meddling will cause vastly more problems than allowing
the corrections to work through...

i remain undecided on some details

regards

--
web site at www.abelard.org - news comment service, logic, economics
energy, education, politics, etc 1,552,396 document calls in year past
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