Are we in a recession? Is there a recession on the way? I don’t know, but I do know that the current financial crisis has brought attention to some amazing silliness that goes on in the banks and other financial institutions. For one thing, it means that the government can suddenly turn a blind eye to worrying about things like monopolies – of course Lloyds can buy HBOS!
But that’s a minor gripe compared to the things that are being brought to public attention in the UK news at the moment. Basically, banks and financiers borrow money from other banks and financiers, then lend it to you. So the bank goes into debt so that you can go into debt. Now I’m puzzled!
But then we find out that an incredible amount of money can be made or lost, not by buying or selling tangible products or services, but by pure speculation on what will happen to a stock/share in the future. This type of speculation is known to the man in the street as GAMBLING, and is generally not seen as such a good thing. And we are not talking about a little flutter here, we are talking huge amounts of cash. And all this money is being made by people who are neither buying nor selling anything of any use to anyone whatsoever.
OK, I will admit that I am totally puzzled about how all this actually works, but a bit like my previous post where a ‘Woman is killed by rat’, I really don’t want to know – I just know that it would all be terribly puzzling, and ultimately depressing.
Like the existence of something called ’short selling’, which I’d never heard of before. This seems to involve stock market ‘gamblers’ betting that a certain share price will go down in a certain time – and somehow they make a mint of money from this?? What it actually means at a time like this, is that if a financial institution, or in fact any business, is in a little trouble, the short sellers go to work and in no time have turned that ‘little trouble’ into BIG trouble. They can basically bring these institutions crashing down whilst making a pile of cash. These people are as close to criminals as it is possible to be and can the law touch them? No, it is all legal!
Puzzled and broke.
Recent Comments