Oh forgive me I missed this . . .

Insults ? Here's a request - I'm waiting for my apology. I insulted no one.

Advice - "Wise men don't need it. Fools don't heed it."

That said - cash is King. A few currencies look particularly vulnerable to reduced valuations. Do YOUR homework. Or consult a banker.

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Orange, it's the new black.

Here's a suggested way to find an honest banker.
It was told to a German friend of mine who was thinking of buying a home in the south of Spain, a few years ago, right when it was discovered that most recently-built homes were illegal and had to be bulldozed.
She was looking for a real-estate lawyer she could trust to do an honest transaction with a seller who really owned the home and the land.

Local Spanish friends told her:
"Go and live in the area you're interested in. Visit the local church. Go to mass on Sundays. Chat to the priest. Get to know the congregation for a couple of months. When you've become accepted as a member of the congregation, ask if any lawyers are members. That way you may find an honest one.... maybe - quizás."

Yep, do LOTS of homework. Maybe this approach will get you good advice, from a banker as well as a lawyer....

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TTR250 - London to Cape Town

Boring I know, now that the daylight is returning to the north and the snow has all but melted (unless you are in the Scottish mountains).

Tonight on UK TV is a documentary about the guy Dave Fishwick who tried to set up his own bank, got caught in all the rules and regs to the point that he can't have a "bank", and he now does what amounts to peer-to-peer lending.

Bank of Dave - Channel 4

About Us | Burnley Savings and Loans

According to the pre-programme blurb/publicity, the UK banking vested interests are trying to close him down while it is also said that his model for such commercial investment/banking is very similar to that used in Germany.

In the meantime, back in the "real" world of UK banks, the latest suggested initiative (from a BoE official I believe) is negative interest rates - apparently this has been tried in some Scandanavian countries, but no one I have heard has commented on how successful this was.
As far as I can tell, what it amounts to for the high street customer is that you would pay charges for storing your money in a bank account; the whole idea, as ever, is to get you to spend cash rather than save it.

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Dave

I suspect you are old enough to know, and remember, that this is how banking used to operate, back in the days before computer technology made it possible to do the things that have been highlighted in here, in earlier postings.
I have never forgotten how I was grilled by a local building society manager (a building society equates to a bank in the UK for anyone who doesn't know the term); he personally interviewed me for what seemed like for ever in order to ensure that I could repay the loan.

From the Bank of Dave website FAQs:-
"Do you credit score?
No, we manually underwrite every application. You obtain a decision from a person, not a computer."

Says it all really.

Great documentary tonight by the way; it confirmed for me the suspicion I have that the UK can't rely on what goes on within the capital; this guy Dave Fishwick (DF) took his fight to the authorities (financial services authority in this instance) who were sat on their hands and, initially, just said no to his initiative, guts and determination to succeed.
Amazingly, the FSA thinking was that Dave's bank would be more acceptable to the authorities if the loans on offer were to provide greater risk for the customer. DF underwrites all loans from his own resources with insurance cover for the small number that default - but, the main point is that the local community trust each other in assessing what risk does exist.
Go figure.

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Dave

That's right, my first mortgage, early 70s, interview with the Building Society manager.
But it was starting to go rotten even then. Huge pressure had built up to persuade borrowers to opt for those strange things called 'endowment mortgages'.
A device that had no risk for the Building Society, nor the insurance co. All the risk was on the borrower, if his/her circumstances demanded a move of home before the maturity of the insurance. Or a while later, when insurance yields were failing to pay off the mortgages during a time of falling stock markets. A huge scam that caught so many people in its trap.

Each time (over about 4 mortgages as I moved house over the years) I just did a simple set of sums for the B.S. manager - what my repayments would be on a straight re-payment mortgage. Then I'd ask the manager to do the same for the endowment set-up.
It was always the same: "Oh, what a surprise, the repayment mortgage is cheaper, your circumstances must be unusual, well done on spotting that, we'll sign you up for a straight repayment mortgage then!"
The adverts were unregulated and stressed how 'secure' the endowment mortgages were - even convinced my wife at the time - "Isn't it risky having a repayment mortgage? - they say the endowments are much more secure."
Until, that is, friends who had to move house well before the insurance term - found all their premiums swallowed up in charges while they had paid zero off of the capital borrowed over however many years the mortgage had run for.

The promised "with profits" payouts only materialised if you kept the mortgage for almost the whole 25 years. It was well known to anyone who did the research that the average length of a morgage in those days was 7 years.
If you did continue for the whole 25 years from those days, you were then at the start of the stock market depression when insurance yields, even with profits, were starting to drop below the sum owed.

Enough of that, someone's just directed me to this website.
Analysis-News

What a laugh! Have a look at the bottom of the page, commencing "Some Quotes from People Who Understood ....."
One stands out, from Sir Josiah Stamp, director of the Bank of England, 1928 onwards - "The bankers own the earth. .... if you wish to remain the slaves of bankers and pay the costs of your own salary, let them continue to create deposits."

Plus ça change ....! There'll be growth in the spring!

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TTR250 - London to Cape Town

Yep, Spring is fast approaching and the governments of Europe, in particular, continue to peddle the notion that they can wave a wand and generate growth.

I've now read that link and it makes a lot of sense; however, I have read some of the other bits of the main website and there are some "kooky" views in there - definitely a conspiracy theory repeats itself. Nevertheless, it's an interesting link.

We've had a few views expressed in this thread about what has been going wrong, especially since around 2007-08, but here is a forecast of "the next big thing":-
Private equity crash could trigger next wave of financial crisis, Bank warns | Business | The Guardian

And that article led me to:-
Home - Positive Money
Which, for once, offers some solutions to the current impasse; or so I believe - I have yet to dig into this particular webpage in any depth, but one of the links therein points to a published book that has some ideas about money supply (naturally, those who equate money with national wealth will have little interest in such alternatives).

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Dave