Double Dip??

[mockney piers]

"The press are doing a good job of talking us into a double dip"

I agree. Obviously credit crunch had a very real impact on us, but much about a recession is caused by a loss of confidence and a downturn in domestic consumer activity which makes up something like 65% of our GDP.

I think we had the press to thank for that and may well do so again.

Interestingly our combined exports to India and China total less than we do to Ireland.

[Huguenot]

London's almost a thousand kilometres closer to Beijing than Sydney is.

[Brendan]

And you can get a train there.

[Loz]

drew Wrote:

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> Its like Sydney can never be London.

Good. Sydney is a vacuous bint of an Australian urban centres. The Paris Hilton of cities.

> London will be back: you cant kill the City.

Some people certainly sound like they want to try. "Let's tax the banks until they squeal" "Make the banks pay"

Yep, until they more somewhere else...

[SeanMacGabhann]

It isn't just the uk that's unhappy with the banks part in all of this. Most countries are having similar debates. Where are the banks moving to?

[Jeremy]

HSBC moving to Hong Kong, Barclays possibly moving to New York...

[louisiana]

Well, the *former chief exec* of HSBC said he moved to HK earlier this year. Which is not quite the same as the entire ant hill that is HSBC towers at C Wharf moving to HK. In any case, HSBC has had a substantial presence in HK for many years.

Meanwhile Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu says it's moving its HQ to London from Switzerland.

[SeanMacGabhann]

Money is always threatening to do this. It's always worst case scenario

But given the parlous state is the us economy and political landscape I wouldn't bet on it

[mockney piers]

Plys if you earn loadsamoney you really dont want to hang around in the most boring country in the world.

New York I just about buy it if it wasnt for visa issues etc etc, Hong Kong, just doesnt have the expertise and people wouldnt move wholesale.

Ultimately its something of an empty threat.

That's not to say other financial markets wont eclipse us in time, but in the short term its bluster. Poppycock I say!!

[woofmarkthedog]

Top Tip ?

Bankers

Move to Northern Iceland, they're far to polite to slag you off

( & in the winter there's 20 hrs of dark to hide out in )

W**F

Double dip ? is that when you go to the toilet only to find you need a second go minutes later, or am I thinking the Common Wealth ( ha, common & wealth in one sentence ) Games

[Mick Mac]

woofmarkthedog Wrote:

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> Top Tip ?

>

> Bankers

>

> Move to Northern Iceland, they're far to polite to

> slag you off

> >

>

> W**F

>

Polite? Feckoff ...woof.

[woofmarkthedog]

So from that ...

We learn that Mic Mac is not from Iceland

W**F

[Brendan]

louisiana Wrote:

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> In any case, HSBC

> has had a substantial presence in HK for many

> years.d.

The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation? Never.

Anyway I'm with McMockney on this. Poppycock. Complete poppycock. And even if a few self important wankspaners do decamp to make some sort of point this country easily has the capacity to replace them 3 times overs.

[katie1997]

Please tell me I am not the only one on the forum thinking of those orange and cherry sherbets you used to get :-$

[daizie]

It immediately made me think of a porn film I once saw

[mockney piers]

Wankspanner? Was it good, don't tell me, doorbell goes, mechanic is at the door.....

[katie1997]

Well, I was going to say that a double dip recession is a real possibility - nominal GDP decline, weakening outlook in Europe posing a threat to the financial markets, policy tightening in China, waves of protectionist activity along with lacklustre growth perpetuating the UK job market etc but hey, I'm not that good at maths and I reckon there'd likely be two mechanics at that door :-S

[louisiana]

Brendan Wrote:

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> louisiana Wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------

> -----

> > In any case, HSBC

> > has had a substantial presence in HK for many

> > years.d.

>

> The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation?

> Never

Funnily enough the HSBC building on the Bund in Shanghai does not belong to HSBC and is occupied by a completely different bank. So things not always what they seem.

[Pearson]

^ clutching at straws ;)

[????]

I reckon we'll probably avoid a 2 quarter double dip....but we've years of austerity left to reduce everyone's debt....unless we inflate our way out of it - which is my suspicion of what will happen. Ireland/Spain/Portugal/Greece look like basket cases to me. Germany will own their ass soon.

Thank god....and, rarely for me, Gordon Brown, we're not in the fooking Euro or we'd be in as bad a shape as they are.

[louisiana]

Pearson

Jeremy made the claim, apparently in all seriousness: "HSBC moving to Hong Kong". *That* claim was nonsense, as we all know. To make a claim of a trend on the basis of two examples where one is false and the other is a "possibly" seems pretty non-rational. Something which you know all about. I hear waynetta's got a troll fest planned for the Pearson-Tarot axis B)

Jeremy Wrote:

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> HSBC moving to Hong Kong, Barclays possibly moving

> to New York...

[Huguenot]

I know what you're saying louisiana, and it has great merit!

I don't know if you're being a bit too specific though. Location, or relocation of businesses is made on very tight margins, and not a little bit of prejudice. Cash also has a habit of wandering from office to office.

XX% of our GDP is from financial products, and I don't think we should be playing fast and loose, or making marginal gambles, on an inherently mobile industry.

[????]

That's exactly the point Hugenot - if you add in the Business Services legal/accountancy etc that the expertise the City of London brings in it contributes nearly half of our current balance of payments defeceit on the plus side of the ledger....the UK would be an absolute basket case withot this business and yet people would potentially risk it all for actually minimum benefit 'cos it's all their fault'. God hopes 50% of the population don't "get what they wish for"...

This doesn't mean we shouldn't try and re-balance our economy and/or get GLOBAL co-ordinated action to stop excess but peole swallow the hard truth, we need the City to be up and firing on all cylinders for now and the forseeable future to get us out of this hole...

[ratty]

Can you explain "inflate our way out of it" for me please?

[????]

Globally (but especially in the west) - countries, companies, individuals have a lot of debt, much of this is underpinned on overpriced assetts (largely commercial and domestic property); without incomes going up (govts, corporate or personal) and in a scenario of poor growth, job cuts, tax increases the only way of dealing with this debt is to hope inflation erodes it...piss poor for stability, economics, those on fixed incomes with savings, but if we don't get much economic growth the only alternative is even more cuts and the spiral gets worse (see Ireland) so, I believe governments will take the 'easy' way out - inflation or eventually we'll see economic catasrophe and potentially major social and political disorder in western countries. Everyone in the west owes far too much underpinned by false and propped up asset values and there's no sighn of this getting better (the debts - the asset prices are being propped up by QE etc).

We, the west, badly need some significant economic growth.

Or simpler if you owe ?100 quid and inflation is at 10% after 5 years you owe (some one do the maths please) about ?35 in real terms; if you owe ?100 and inflation is at 2% after 5 years you owe about ?85 in real terms.