Tag Archives: Credit Crunch
What is Sovereign Debt?
In recent weeks the term Sovereign Debt has been bandied about by the media leaving many people puzzled as what it actually is. What it isn’t is money owed by a King or Queen of a country – Republics do have Sovereign Debt; you don’t need a Monarch! Joking aside, in simple terms Sovereign Debt [...]
Full StoryThe Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (or “FSMA” 2000)
The Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 is the Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom that created the Financial Services Authority (FSA) as a regulator for insurance, investment business and banking. This was the Act by which Gordon Brown removed responsibility for regulating the banking industry from the Bank of England, a decision that [...]
Full StoryBusiness and Personal Bankruptcies Soar
Official figures release today show that there have been massive increases in both personal and business bankruptcies as the credit crunch continues to bite. The lack of working capital, usually provided by bank overdrafts or secured lending together with the problems of obtaining credit insurance have been blamed for a 98% increase in companies going [...]
Full StoryBurying Yet More Bad News
The UK Labour government has a well earned reputation for timing announcements it knows will be unpopular to coincide with major new stories so that the bad news gets buried. Remember the infamous memo on 9/11 “[today] is a very good day to get out anything we want to bury” sent by Jo Moore, advisor [...]
Full StoryIt is official: the Isle of Man is NOT a Tax Haven
As promised by Gordon Brown at the end of the G20 summit today, the OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) has provided a detailed report on progress by financial centres around the world towards implementation of an internationally agreed standard on exchange of information for tax purposes. The list is split into four sections [...]
Full StoryIsle of Man Praised by OECD Despite Attacks by UK Government
Whilst Gordon Brown, Alastair Darling and Barack Obama attack the Isle of Man as a “Tax Havens” the OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation & Development) praise the Isle of Man. If proof were ever needed that the bully boys of the UK and USA are attacking small offshore countries just to divert attention from their [...]
Full StoryWhat Is Quantitative Easing? (Printing Money)
The Bank of England today announced that it was commencing a programme of “Quantitative Easing” designed to stimulate the economy. For a few weeks now the term quantitative easing has been bandied about. Sometimes this is also referred to as “printing money”. Now I don’t know about you but I can’t see why just printing [...]
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