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One man’s opinions, not a
financial expert’s although as a former engineer I was trained to study
company accounting, but those of a very concerned Brit, a retired person, who forecast what was likely
to happen, in writing, (but who listens?) four years before it has.
See also www.spainvia.com/britfindis.htm
We are all quite rightly now
in dread of the financial crisis that we in and is expected to get far
worse with what the leaders, both political, commercial and financial ,are saying
will continue for a few years now. Millions are expected to be jobless; in the
UK nearly two million are already (Jan 2009).
Only those who have been out
of work in their lifetime can know the misery, not just the lack of money but the feeling of
inferiority, the los of dignity because, especially as a married man with a family to support, you
tend to
consider yourself "worthless". Millions will also lose their homes as a
result and many will lose much more because they fell into the trap of
buying a home that was over-priced with a heavy mortgage granted by
financial institutions, many of whom who broke their own rules when granting
t loans. How? Well,
when you buy a home you sign a contract for an amount of debt to be repaid
over a finite period of time with set payment periods (although the amounts
may vary each month) with your new home used as
collateral so if you default on the loan and the home is then repossessed
causing it to be sold, as most will in such a recession, for far less than the
loan amount. But you are still liable for the balance of that amount.
Banks do not like owning property as they have to pay a lot of money to
maintain and secure them so they will off-load repossessed homes as quickly as
possible because their product they sell is money. And in addition, if you do not pay
the monthly mortgage amounts before the home is repossessed, the interest
compounds and is added to the loan amount.
Simple
and I guess that all of us realise these facts. If not, be aware now
and concerned.
We have all probably heard of Mr. Micawber, the character in Charles Dicken’s book, David Copperfield where he
states, “Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen and
sixpence, result happiness: annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure
twenty pounds and sixpence, result misery” Well, many people everywhere
have in recent years ignored that fact of life and now must pay the price,
literally.
Many have
borrowed wherever they could (credit cards, loan sharks?) perhaps thinking
subconsciously that they would not have to pay the cash back. Britain,
as an example, has debts per person that are higher than at any time in its
history, some have reported almost £15.000 for every adult person and
remember that many university students are starting their working life now
with heavy tuition debts that have to be paid back. And the
banks encouraged the debts because many lenders owned, or were about to,
homes that could be taken as collateral in a market that was to the sensible
(and I include my wife and I in that bracket) thus forming a "financial
bubble" but even the banks that helped cause that bubble did not realise
their exposure to the current disaster (or if they did they are doubly
guilty of fraud). Plus the interest rates were penurious, so high that
only the financially inept or desperate would normally agree to them.
But, hey! “We can always buy NOW that really unnecessary item or
overseas holiday, (or home) etc on credit and pay for it over next few
months/years for tomorrow never comes”. But for far too many, the
interest became compounded as payments were missed due to personal problems
and any lack of any emergency savings so that £5.000 loan soon became
£50.000 and the same has happened in many other countries as the “must-have”
fever took hold. We have seen actual ,examples of such ineptness on
TV programmes.
My parents never bought
anything they could not afford and the principle was brainwashed with
advertising and encouragements from salesmen who made big commissions in the
meantime, our (your?) hard-earned cash. When my wife and I bought a new car recently, we paid for it with
saved cash (the salesman’s face was a picture, the only car he sold that
week - at a main dealership too) as we did the one we bought seven years
previously. But I now cry with anger when I see our Sterling
savings devalued due to the lack of leadership by the political and
financial "experts".
We sold our “old car” to a
young man, a new expat Brit who had just arrived in Spain in September 2008. He told us that he had worked at a
big bank in the UK and had on many occasions been ordered to grant up to
150% mortgages to applicants who would, by the banks own long-time rules,
qualify for as little as 60%. Do you see the point? The
bank senior staff and some more junior who lacked the courage to question
the actions must also be held responsible for the current crisis and greed
(commissions and bonuses), with the politicians and their employed
inspectors and controllers, at great
cost to the tax-payers, experts whose jobs were to vet the financial
institutions to prevent such a crisis occurring. Of course, we all realise
that the main reason that houses and property really rocketed in asking
prices was because the financing was easy to get and the inept fools in the
“ivory bank towers” rubbed their hands together in glee and broke their own
trusted rules. Now those buyers who did not say, “Never will I pay that
for such a property as it is not worth that much,” must also be at fault.
By refusing to pay the high costs they could have stopped the rot but they
were mostly seduced by the promised false paper increase in values of their
properties by estate agents and developers. Now most of them are suffering
now as well, but this could be described as self-inflicted.
These senior bankers are also the very people that should be walking the streets
now looking for a job, any job as long as it is not connected with banking.
The senior bankers at the institutions
concerned are also those who recommended buying the debts of the sub-prime
mortgages in the USA.
What are/were these sub-
prime mortgages? The US government, especially back in the days of Pres.
(Democratic = Labour) Clinton, decided that every American should own his or
her own home irrespective of being able to afford one which seems admirable, so the two main mortgage providers who
also supplied many of the myriad banking institutions in the USA with mortgage finance, known
popularly as Fannie Mae and Fannie Mac, were reportedly, coerced by
the politicians into lending to as many as millions of people who were
unable to afford the repayments and they could have already been buying if they
could have (although many were people who are not the types to do so anyway so
they needed "encouraging" with unsustainable financing) and would normally
not buy a home anyway for various reasons. Some aggressive
salesmanship was used here as well. So the interest rates were
artificially lowered for a while to levels where these people were seduced
into buying (cheaper than renting?) but also many were people
who had had records of being unreliable debtors but no, give them the loan
was the call of the day.
When they defaulted, as many
did, the misery began. But the finance houses in their wisdom (and I
really mean that) decided to sell-off the debts and anyone who knows such
financial documents such as a balance sheet, used to show the financial
status of a company, will know that if they are secure, debts count as
assets and they are a good thing to have as long as they are in
proportion to the other amounts in the sheet and can be sure of repayment in
full on time. But the buyers of these debts, including British banks,
did not send over competent experts to survey fully the implications
of such debts, or if they did, their finding were ignored by the senior
banking staffs. and so when many, a lot of whom were what we would call here
ethnic minorities, defaulted, there was no chance of recovering the debts
and who wants thousands of empty homes in a “foreign” country. The
poor aggrieved and seduced buyers lost their homes they had just become
comfortable in and to cap it all, they had massive, especially for them,
debts as well (as explained above) with little chance of paying them off or
even, because perhaps of their attitudes, any intention of paying them and
who can really blame them. They had been sold with "fast talking" and
if people in Britain were taken in, what chance did these people have?
It could be argued that it was not their fault they were “pressured” into
buying the homes and it is difficult to argue with this. As we know, the
losses were/are astronomical but the blame must lie with, for our
situation in Europe, especially the UK, (and especially for us expats in
Spain with the depreciating Pound Sterling, the British), the greedy and inept financial institutions, for what
would be obvious to many of even us non- financial people; very bad
investments. Gambling in fact with other's cash to earn big
bonuses (commissions).
Now the politicians:
especially the now
not so esteemed Gordon Brown, who has always revelled in the warm light of
being considered by his peers as a "financial wizard" has shown, by his
gross mistakes in this and other matters, that his feet are indeed made of
clay and they are in what must be the final stages of finally crumbling
away.
In other
words, a general election must and is being called for in Britain.
Even the most ardent but blind and deaf socialist must now realise this
with the rest of us now literally poor mortals. Couple this
disaster with the breakdown of social cohesion, serious violent crime,
alcoholism especially amongst young people, the unbridled allowing of masses
of (many illegal?) immigrants into Britain, many of whom are openly hostile
to the British and our way of life.
Many, who in the main are
beneficial to Britain, have already suffered major upheavals in their family
lives when they were forced out of places like the Asians in Uganda and many more have yet
to suffer as African leaders strive to rid the African continent of all
non-indigenous African peoples, especially te whites who made the continent
prosperous. The ex-African Asians have in the main proven to be
very beneficial to (once Great) Britain and must now be considered British,
as they do themselves.
It is now not considered safe
to walk in many of the streets in the towns of Britain for fear of being
stabbed, shot or just kicked to death outside your own home by often drug-crazed, (or drug-dealers)
feral people. It has been joked that stylish stab-proof vests are to
be on the cat walks soon for retailing in Britain. For us
older folk, a gun may soon be a needed self-protection accessory there.
But
just as there are quite a few many "nasty Brits" as well as many who are the "salt of
the earth" that I remember from my younger days and that I still meet
here in Spain and these expats who are just as angry as I am, the
few "nasty" expats here who live in misery with their policies
based mainly on brainwashing techniques used by the British far Left where
they openly argue with (not debate to see others opinions as they are just
not interested in the facts as expounded by those+ those who
speak the truth based on actual experiences, not just armchair theories.
If
the others' opinions are not totally in line with those of the bully PC brigades because they
are different to their hard " fascist" opinions, they do wish to debate but use
ad hominem to shout all others down down, the wise ones because
over the last 50 years, these wise ones have been proven right,
time-and-again especially in Africa. So we need to all learn to
reject those who suffer from this brainwashed disease they have, the
inability to think except on racist terms where their opinions have more
often than not resulted in non-white people (Zimbabweans and soon South
Africans) living and dying in abject misery as we learn to use our God-given
"intelligence" to decide on the best plans for all in such Third World
regions for the medium to long terms, or we will as we already have and are,
pay the heavy prices in massive numbers of deaths and financial costs (our
tax money?) later. In Zimbabwe and a couple of years ago in South Africa,
cholera has been the scourge that some could say has been sent by the
Almighty to punish them all there, but the real criminals, the murdering
terrorists who grabbed the countries with the West's help, are OK as they
live in luxury, even go on luxury shopping trips around the World while
their citizens starve. It is the terrorist leaders
(for they never change their murdering ways) who are the guilty ones, and I also
specifically refer to Gaza where the British Govt. has just announced that
it will give (our tax money in these very hard times) £25 million to the
Gaza Palestinians, cash that us perceptive people know they would receive
from us stupid Westerners if they caused the "war" that has
just occurred. How can our leaders be so stupid? The terrorist
group Hamas (Hide Among Mosques and Schools) are directly responsible for
the deaths of their citizens whether it be by firing rockets into Israel
for many years thus forcing the reaction when the UN et al did nothing to
stop them, or the long time brain-washing and sending of their women and
children, the same "weak and vulnerable ones" they now accuse Israel of
killing, as suicide bombers into Israel to kill the people there as well as
the poor Palestinians carrying the bombs.
How can anyone be fooled into thinking that
HAMAS really cares about their own people? they are only interested in
wiping Israel off the face of the earth so they can satisfy the wishes of
their masters in Iran, etc. but then they cry out for financial and
logistical help from The West when they inevitably lose any conflict they
started.
But,
back to the UK crisis, let us make no mistake about the
British politicians’ being also greatly responsible for our descent into
abject misery for a few years (although like the senior bankers, most
MPs will not suffer financially with excessive tax-free expenses), misery where many of us will be robbed by
criminals, a few of the expats here in Spain will inevitably commit suicide due to the despair of being unable
to survive even keeping warm in their old ages on their greatly devalued Sterling life-savings
and pensions that for many years they have worked so hard. Many who have retired here in Spain will be forced to return
to the UK but
unless they have relatives there to stay with, they will wait in vain for “council”
accommodation, much of which they have paid for with their lifetimes of hard work
paying taxes there only to see that now many such homes are occupied by
immigrants, many illegal, many with a multitude of children, who have paid
very little into the British economy. This is not a
racist statement as many of the "politically correct brain-washed" people will
cry, it is a fact of life, but also we must hope that the PC brigade
and left wing fascists will now quickly fade away as their theories will be debunked at last by the
suffering masses. A good thing too!
The politicians
who were being
paid to lead and monitor such financial foolishness and should have
officially warned the banks that if they followed their paths to the current
end, they would be penalised with bankruptcy, not given millions in tax
payer’s cash so they could survive while others, the sensible citizens, who
have lost
their savings or a substantial pert of them now so these inept fools must
also suffer by being "sent to the country" for a very long time.
Many who
believe the propaganda preached about the British National Party will be
shocked to see, as is happening now, that they will be increasingly voted
for in elections as the British electorate despairs of the "main-stream
Parties abilities to solve the crisis. As we can see also, some Labour
and other main Parties' councillors are resigning from their Parties and
joining the BNP as they realise that the BNP policies are not as painted by
the now desperate LibLabCon tripartite and as they canvass for votes in
local council elections, the voters are increasingly saying they are going
to vote BNP. There is a true saying that political parties often do
not win elections, they justlose them which makes sense here. Been
taught to hate the BNP without studying their policies? Do yourself a
favour and stop believing all the LIBLABCON and BBC propaganda, without
checking for yourselves. Read their policies and all about them
at
www.bnp.org.uk.
The UK Press reports that this political
web-site is now the most visited out of ALL the UK ones. No wonder the
other Parties are worried.
So what can we
all do now? We
all have to accept that we are going to go through a tough time for about
four plus years as there are no quick fixes as history shows. For many like myself and my wife, who have worked very hard
over a lifetime (I am now 71) only to find that at the time of the expected rest during retirement,
life gets worse instead of better, so we have a right to be very bitter at
those who have caused it. I envisaged a retirement of occasional travel to
those places dreamed of before but also now find that we are ostracised
because many politicians have decided that global warming is an excellent
way to raise even more taxes that can be wasted and that those who are not
politicians (who must travel, of course), are parasites causing CO2
volumes to increase.
Many of
us, including respected climatologists and scientists, believe that global
warming is due to solar activity that has occurred periodically throughout
Earth’s history. But that is another subject.
So get angry and call for a
general election to consign the UK Labour Government to where it belongs,
obscurity,
after their failure to lead properly in the last 10-12 years. They will receive their
gold-plated pensions so do not feel sorry for them. Write letters now to your
MPs and the UK Press.
SO WHO IS TO BLAME?
- The greedy bankers.
- The politicians.
- Those who paid the too
high prices for property but will now lose money if they cannot keep up
the payments or have to sell in these hard times, or if they lose their
jobs.
- Those who live,
and have lived, on credit
far too much and for far too long and now have debts they cannot easily
pay off for a long time.
who will suffer?
-
All ordinary pensioners,
those without a means of increasing the values each years to overcome the
crisis,
-
Those of us who have
savings with the financial institutions/banks or who have invested for
pensions (mostly private ones) as returns are cut and the banks reduce
savings accounts' interest rates to fill their own coffers again and as we
read are paying their staff enormous bonuses with tax payer's support
cash.
-
Those who are working
wondering if they will soon lose their job, those who are battling to find
a job that pays a reasonable salary. New graduates will suffer here
with their student debts as well gathering interest as they cannot repay
them.
-
The future taxpayers who
will have to be heavily taxed over many years to pay for the Government
(tax payers' loans) to the banks, most of whom are, as we all know, the
architects of their own serious problems.
And a possibility is that,
history shows, that not too far afterwards a major (World?) war is a
possibility. But then it could be said that the World is now
over-populated anyway so perhaps that is inevitable.
You should now
think and draw your own conclusions but please base them on intelligent
reasoning and common-sense, not just hearsay, other's Marxist (?)
propaganda, fear and emotion.
If you agree with this item, why not
put a link to it in your web site as the more people realise the facts, the
better for all of us.
www.spainvia.com/BRITWOES.htm
But if you politely disagree with
the above, or even agree, please send me a brief email at
bjdeller@spainvia.com, and put in the subject line so it is not seen as SPAM
and deleted before reading, "BRITAINS' WOES."
last dated
25 Jan 2009
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