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When George Soros Broke the British Pound (2014)

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Re: When George Soros Broke the British Pound (2014)

#131

Post by tomatocracy »

scaphandre wrote: post #96
m-i-l wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good spot. I must have been either using the British definition of billion (million million) rather than the US definition (thousand million), or failed to spot that the 25,700 taxpayers in the referenced document actually represented 25,700,000. Anyway figure corrected. Thanks.

Billion has meant 10^9 in both the US and the UK in most common usage since the 1970s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_and_short_scales#cite_not... There is no modern British definition that is different from the US definition.

One consequence of the historic distinction I quite like is that traders in the UK (and possibly elsewhere, I don't know) still call 10^9 a "yard" (short for "milliards").

Re: When George Soros Broke the British Pound (2014)

#132

Post by lanevorockz »

skokage wrote: post #118
Despegar wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Eurozone is fatally flawed because they share a currency but have no transfer payments between rich and poor members. So you have countries like Germany that are effectively subsidized by poorer countries. It's been a great setup for 20 years if you've been in the German capital class, not so great for anyone else.

>So you have countries like Germany that are effectively subsidized by poorer countries. Could you explain this comment further, or have links to stories that go in depth on how that works? Not saying you are wrong, but I don't understand how germany, which is an economic powerhouse and exports a lot of goods, are being subsidized by poorer countries.

Very simple, open markets means that products from Germany can flood other markets. This kills any national business and creating a dependency to Germany. Money flows in one direction.

Re: When George Soros Broke the British Pound (2014)

#133

Post by bleuedejapan »

atmosx wrote: post #107
gumby wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They fellout of the EMS because their economy wasn not as tightly coupled to the rest of what became the Eurozone (whether that level of coupling is good or bad is a matter of disagreement). So if this incident hadn't happened it's likely they would have had a touch time under the Euro. For a weak economy IMHO the Euro is worth the disadvantages (and I happen not to consider the inability to do competitive devaluatio…

There is not an economist I know of, left or right wing, who believes that joining the EUR was beneficial for weak economies. Especially for Italy, proved to be catastrophic. Greece was always a basket case but Italy was doing pretty well before joining. Joining the EUR means literally giving up sovereignty. The Iron Lady explained that very concisely in her last speech as a PM in the House of Commons: “He who contro…

Italy's problem was never the Euro.

Italy is the largest political mess of Europe, and the amount of structural problems is staggering.

Its industries kept it running, and China's growth as a manufacturing centre, together with the accession of countries with less structural problems have taken a toll on the Italian industry.

If there was no Euro, Italy would still be ruined anyway.

Re: When George Soros Broke the British Pound (2014)

#134

Post by lanevorockz »

devtul wrote: post #111
jamiegreen wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We should leave the EU because it was voted for by the majority

No, we should do a second vote, maybe even a third vote in case the second vote result is wrong again as the first one. Sometimes democracy doesn't work you know, so we have to try harder.

And a third and a fourth because it’s only right when the rich people say so

Re: When George Soros Broke the British Pound (2014)

#135

Post by aaronblohowiak »

jonplackett wrote: post #121
mc3 wrote: post #88

Ah those poor boomers! Paying 15% interest on their £40,000 mortgage. These millennials don't know how easy they have it, paying 3% on their £200,000 mortgage.

Problem was it divided people into the ones who could afford the hike in interest and the ones who couldn’t. Either you could keep up and were rewarded by a house going up in value massively, or you went bankrupt.

They didn’t have fixed rate debt?

Re: When George Soros Broke the British Pound (2014)

#136

Post by Jamwinner »

willyt wrote: post #119
jamiegreen wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We should leave the EU because it was voted for by the majority

...consisting of ~1/4 of the population. Parliament represents the interests of all 65 million of us.

I understand its unpopular, but throwing out democracy because your side chose not to vote is asinine.

Re: When George Soros Broke the British Pound (2014)

#137

Post by Zenst »

Despegar wrote: post #105
elmar wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes I wonder if this incident didn't happen, would the UK had entered the Euro and Brexit wouldn't be on the horizon today.

The Eurozone is fatally flawed because they share a currency but have no transfer payments between rich and poor members. So you have countries like Germany that are effectively subsidized by poorer countries. It's been a great setup for 20 years if you've been in the German capital class, not so great for anyone else.

>but have no transfer payments between rich and poor members

You do if you count open free trade, least that is the ideology. Though the reality is very disproportional and for countries able and in a position to leverage that, did very well.

So you get some countries doing better than others, how do you balance that out. Well, with a membership fee based upon how well the individual member is doing in relation to other members and using most of that fee to invest in those countries doing less well.

Which seems a simple and fair way. At least on paper when they signed it all off it did.

I will say though, I've always worried about the aggressive QE usage by the ECB. Whilst great for exports, it has equally impacted imports. This with most consumer tech being imported, then it would be more advantages to companies that export outside the EU to have QE keeping the Euro from racing ahead than for importers.

Hence countries with a dominant export outside the EU, have done rather well out of QE and those importing, equally less so.

But then, how QE is not counted as currency manipulation is beyond me.

Re: When George Soros Broke the British Pound (2014)

#138

Post by jeanpierre2 »

nostrademons wrote: post #72
andybak wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That phrase alone gave me a poor feeling about the whole comment. It was unnecessary and glib.

It was chosen deliberately. HN has a wide audience. Of the 4 causes I explicitly listed, most people will shake their heads yes to two of them, feel indifferent to one, and feel insulted by one. This applies regardless of which group you belong to. I have friends that would think "Yes, yes, it's the lazy youth today" and be gravely insulted by the implication that corporate leadership is incompetent; I also have frie…

Maybe people feel insulted by your claim because it's needlessly hostile and judgemental (and wrong by all metrics). That you can offend many people with it doesn't make it any less counterfactual.

> The meta-point I'm making is that every group believes our current problems are somebody else's fault, what we're really facing is a systemic breakdown of the attributes that make for a functioning society

I'm sorry that I have to be frank, but that's just wishful thinking and ignorance of history. There was never a time when "values" or "attributes" where such that society magically worked and everyone correctly assumed responsibility for their problems.

Re: When George Soros Broke the British Pound (2014)

#139

Post by Reason077 »

Despegar wrote: post #105
elmar wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes I wonder if this incident didn't happen, would the UK had entered the Euro and Brexit wouldn't be on the horizon today.

The Eurozone is fatally flawed because they share a currency but have no transfer payments between rich and poor members. So you have countries like Germany that are effectively subsidized by poorer countries. It's been a great setup for 20 years if you've been in the German capital class, not so great for anyone else.

> “The Eurozone is fatally flawed because they share a currency but have no transfer payments between rich and poor members.”

This is incorrect. The EU has substantial transfer payments. Wealthier EU countries (like Germany) subsidise poorer ones (like Poland) on the order of tens of billions of Euros annually.

Regional development (subsidies for poorer areas) is the second largest EU budget line item after agriculture.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-48256318

Re: When George Soros Broke the British Pound (2014)

#140

Post by ClumsyPilot »

tjfl wrote: post #3
ceejayoz wrote: post #2

The "Soros broke the bank" framing I tend to see in discussions of this is really quite odd, as if it were some sort of illegal Oceans 11 style heist. He didn't break the bank. The bank broke itself. > What kept the pound from plummeting in value was the British government’s guarantee that it would keep the value propped up, and the market believed that it would. As long as everyone believed that England would stay i…

> If you build a house on rotten stilts, and some neighborhood kid comes and kicks one of them, it's not the kid's fault when the house collapses. It's at least partially the kid's fault. Don't go kicking stilts under houses.

In a realistic situation, the homeowner or designer could end up in jail for endangering the kid.

Stilts would be expected to resists minor impacts from accidents and general course of life without bring the house down on your head and killing you in the process.

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