There is nothing to stop the irresponsible lending which caused the problem in the first place. It will be interesting to see what happens to interest rates. There is a case for increasing them to stop daft lending.

Yep, I’m reassured!
I have enough B&B stock certs to wipe my a*S for a whole year.

Wtih this Governments record with finances I am very concerned that my tax money will be wasted and will not be returned in the near or long term. This means that I will have to pay for other peoples mistakes including the present Government.
Much could be saved by stopping and getting rid of numerous quangos and other pet projects. So I with many other people are very nervous when our present inept Government gets involved in areas in which they do not have the expertise to find a solution

No, I’m not even remote reassured. We need a General Election… NOW!!

While there are people out there with the idea that if you borrow money you can’t afford to repay, it’s entirely the lender’s fault, how can any of us be reassured? Those borrowers are the very people who would have whinged loudest if a loan was refused. A really prudent banker in today’s market wouldn’t lend more than 60% of a property’s value, or let a person on an average salary have more than £500 outstanding on their credit card. Is that what these people really want? It’s quite easily arranged - just tinker with a bit of legislation. Today’s lesson is be careful what you wish for, and what you whinge about.

It is definitely not reassuring!
The decision being made are ludicrous and no one seems to have a clue about how to improve the situation (no real way to do this just need to stick to the economic rules and ride it out)

I did think the way “breakfast” TV tried to explain the economics behind this was quite funny though

The figures we have seen annouced by the Government today are mind boggling but if I am right, the total sum of 400 billion pounds being offered by the UK Government in the bank rescue deal equates to a cost of roughly UKL 6,666 per person in the UK. A 0.5% cut in mortgage interest rate will save most only a few hundered pounds a year so we are going to worse off for some time!

I agree with Nick’s earlier post. The market makers (principally banks!) are continuing to mark shares down at will, because that makes them more money. Bigger spreads, more volume. I know all about supply and demand but when confidnce is at a low, marking prices down encourages selling rather than the reverse. The City kids haven’t learned a thing.

The financial terrorists (hedge funds) have way more that £50bn - or even £250bn - to use to screw the markets whenever they choose. It is but a matter of time. It is only in 32 financial stocks that there is any form of restriction placed on their unscrupulous activities. Think of their managers sailing their fancy yachts into exotic ports having retired at 35, whilst the chap who thought he was going to retire on a reasonable pension is stacking shelves at Tesco to help make ends meet at the age of 70.

The culture of greed continues unabated.

This cannot be a no lose situation. Why should people who took the risk of putting their money in an internet Icelandic Bank (sic) have as much protection as those who kept there money safely onshore

Where is all this money going? it doesn’t just disappear.
The BoE and the Fed, are backed by gilts, i.e private money. We are being robbed to pay back already disgustingly wealthy big bankers.

Having just read through the comments posted here it just illustrates how good we are at talking ourselves into a depession in fact we are a class act at it. So we could all go round sulking forever and where will that get us?

Interest rates: It is absolutely no good the BoE moving interest rates either up or down if the High Street banks don’t follow suit.

Inflation: isn’t it about time we woke up to the fact that we have little control over inflation? Gas prices up, likewise electricity, petrol and food. Perhaps someone could tell me how we can control these.

These factors are reducing people’s disposable income and so they have less money to spend.

Government bank guarantees: increased to £50,000, wonderful. It won’t affect me though because I guess that I am one of the millions of people who don’t have £50,000 in the bank.

I’ll hopefully wake up in the morning turn on TV and watch people try to depress me but it won’t work because I’ll be happy that I woke up and I will get on with life and be happy and confident. Why can’t everybody else do the same. No I’m not living in cuckoo land and yes I have lost money. Confidence, well it beats being miserable.

A lot of very negative comment so far. Personally I think this is a good move by the UK government - maybe not enough but a step in the right direction. The problem is not about money it is about confidence in the markets. Once this is restored we can all get back to normal. Hopefully there will be lessons learned from this sub-prime fiasco that won’t be repeated in future. What amazes me is just how stupid and irresponsible the banks have been in taking on sub-prime debt. Anyone with half a brain could have seen this coming.

We have a joint income of less than 14k net per annum. We managed to save a small amount.We paid all our bills and didn’t borrow a penny. What we don’t have we can’t spend. After living within our means for 30 years I feel cheated by the fact that we have to bail out those who have been on the ‘I want and must have’ train for these past 8/10 plus years. If you can’t afford it don’t try and get it. The fun for us has been the saving for the same goal together. Our misery is just starting because we are suffering for the greed that’s causing all this new stress!

I have kept my redundancy payment in IceSave, and it came as a massive shock when the Icelandic bank stopped me from getting at my money. As a result, among other things, I have had to go into the red with my normal current account, which is with a British bank. It is only now that we find out that with just 300,000 people and a national economy worth £11 only billion, the country’s foreign debts are almost £80 billion. It is obvious that they have been gambling in the money market at our expense. Excellent that Gordon & co are taking legal action against these dishonest people. Hopefully, the British authorities will now scrutinise any Icelandic venture in Britain - new or old - much more thoroughly before they give permission to these speculating Vikings.

matthew on October 9th, 2008
3:23 am GMT wrote:

“Where is all this money going?” someone asks.

There never was any “money”. I have a pint of beer in my left hand. I say it’s worth twenty quid…”…

What Matthew writes is a very good point and one may only add that this happened when investment banks prior to that bought a lot of all available stocks of barrels beer at a time when it was available at 25 pence a pint and then by releasing very very little of that stock at the time, claiming there was a shortage due to high demands of beer, told you that it was now worth 10 quid a pint then going up to 15 quid in the relatively short time of 6months then again claiming it has become 20 quids worth after again a very relatively short time. Remember they bought it at 25pence so even in the worse case scenario they’ll make a profit even if they should sell it at 30pence and in the meantime by starving the market of these assets they will persuade the remaining barrels of beer stock holders that value of their stock is as high as that and they will bring their prices up as well. That will make Banks very happy since at that stage you won’t be able to afford what you did earlier and will be forced into borrowing and you’ll be made aslave to a large amount of debt tieing you to your lending Bank for the rest of your lifetime repaying your enourmous debt…and that even if prices collapse at a later stage. What’s more we are even asked to back up some of the Banks debt that Banks ‘claim’ not to have …where did all their huge profits go???

The experts dont seem to know what is going on or how to fix the problem…Are they just throwing jello on the wall hoping some will stick…August 2003 the dow went down below 7000 then bounced back up over 14000 in about a year…so we may survive this yet…or?