What's happened to the GBP value?

We look at the GBP vs AUD daily as we plan on a move (still in the getting paperwork/skills etc done phase) and just sigh ... daily.
 
xxalxx said:
We look at the GBP vs AUD daily as we plan on a move (still in the getting paperwork/skills etc done phase) and just sigh ... daily.
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These things do change and yes, of course, sometimes not in the way you want. If you're very serious about the move then bank what you have at the highest rate and most flexible options you can get until the rates pick up. Also consider taking a hit on your pounds if you can afford it. Work out if the very real difference in return is worth more or less than the life you'd have if you were in Aus. Opportunity cost, I believe the Economists call it :)

It's a bugger, to be frank. Best of luck to you whatever you do.
 
We sigh daily, but are not put off :)

At the moment we are waiting on an employer reference so that we can send off the skills assesment. Then onto the application for state sponsership ... and so on ...
 
I went to the states a couple years back and got $2.05 to the £.

Bought loads of stuff including some headphones which were $300 state side selling for £250 back home :)
 
We sigh daily, but are not put off

At the moment we are waiting on an employer reference so that we can send off the skills assesment. Then onto the application for state sponsership ... and so on ...
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It's hard and expensive work. It'll be worth it though. Australia is an absolutely amazing country; a fantastic place. We're heading over there for Easter, actually :)

Ok, back to topic now :)
 
Duke said:
Good for our exports though :p
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Absolutely hilarious.


Anyway back to the OP.

Currency has been losing value for the past 3 years against anything that isn't the euro and dollar, and now it loses to the euro and dollar also.

Quantitive easing, is basically devaluation of the pound, but done in a slow and steadily controlled manner, and avoids the political indignity of actually devaluing and announcing as such. The business community has let the government off thus far, as it doesn't directly affect them, exports do import in theory (we'll see how in practice works when demand doesn't increase due to other countries failign economies). In country sales are unaffected as they can slowly increase the price of things, leading to higher inflation, and this will eventually be curtailed by increasing interest rates.

Basically the tax burden that quantitive easing and borrowing will place upon us, will be with us for 15-20 years, the pound won't get back to normal for many many years.

Take a dump of a currency like the indonesian rupee, several yearsa go one would have got 20000 to the pound, last year one could get 16000, now xe rates you won't get 14000, closer to 13000 if you actually do a physical exchange of money. 20k to 13k, in 3-4 years, thats proper devaluation, it makes our pounds worthless abroad, and as there is little demand for our exports, the country is in slow hidden decline.

We'll crawl out of it, but we shall need many many years of cut services and increased taxation. The current blip is fear they might not get a governemt with enough of a majority to actually enforce the changes and delay the start of repayment a year or two. Either way it'll take a good 15-20 years. Or children will still be paying for what happening now.
 
rypt said:
How is that a bad thing, it will force the gits in Westminster to stop acting like children and to work together which can only be a good thing.
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I think it would be in a more normal time. Unfortunately we're in a position at the moment where we are going to need difficult and decisive action after the election to cut the deficit. A hung parliament would probably just mean perpetual arguments without getting anything done while the situation get worse and worse.
 
groen said:
not just the £ it is pretty much all the currencies are flaky at the moment.
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eh?

do you understand how FX works - one ccy is valued against another (often USD)

if the JPY is weak against USD then USD is strong against JPY

you can't have a situation where all ccys are weak - what would they be weak/flaky against?
 
clv101 said:
Don't believe the hype. The UK's financial situation is considerable worse today than it was two years ago. We are one of the most indebted counties in the world.
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THe problem isn't our debt, its our ever shrinking economy, lose of industry and complete inability to pay off the debt. yes if we spend ayear with no public services at all and pay of a chunk of debt, it would help, however its not possible, even more so now that a huge percentage of the population has been shifted to public services. We're now sitting on a house of cards that is growing so fast that it will probably topple before we get the chance to fix it.

Whoever gets in power needs to go around, begging, offering favours, massive tax breaks, handies under the table, their wives, anything, to get some business's to build new factories and create new jobs here.

Theres really no other option, we have to have more private sector jobs, that generate real profit that gets taxed in some way here. Even if we offer such huge tax breaks the companies get taxed very little themselves, if they bring 1000 jobs with them, those workers will all be taxed on their salaries and everything they spend.

Problem is we quite literally need millions of jobs now, and to throw the waste of space off the public services wage bill, get them into proper jobs and MASSIVELY restructure our public services, or more to a point, get rid of all the jobs created to hide unemployment, and remove all the extra work we made up just to fill their time. Kill all the ridiculous public sector "inititives" made to create jobs, like the ID card scheme, refuse to pay companies who are late and over budget, military contracts, NHS IT systems contracts and the like. Even after doing all that it will take years, and years and years to pay off even a small amount of our debt.

But as long as the country can show growth in real jobs, growth in economy and significant cuts in public spending, we'll essentially be classed as a "viable" economy long term and other countries will stop being worried about our situation and eventual collapse, because that is what they are worried about now.

Basically, we don't have to pay off a significant portion of our debt(though it will help obviously) but we have to show some signs of eventually being able to do so, right now, today, the only signs the world see's is a growing debt we have no way at all of reducing.

Its like right now, West Ham are only £40m or so indebt to banks, but have a revenue of £80m, its not a great situation but a perfectly serviceable debt when managed correctly. Pompie were the opposite, they had higher debt than their revenue for the year was expected to be, significantly, with no real way to service it, so they are screwed.

The UK is closer to Pompie than West Ham, we have debt thats too high and not servicable with a reducing(effectively) revenue and increasing debt yearly. We have no way to increase revenue right now or reduce the debt, its a train with no brakes right now and completely out of control, and the rest of the world knows it....... the only person that doesn't is Brown, and the only people that don't care are the people he hands out billions to a year to not work.
 
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we need to end central banking and have multiple non national currencies that are backed by actual reserves, that is the only way imo to get back on to the correct path and heading in the right direction.

at the moment the fiat currency and QE just allows the government to spend money it doesn't have and that would not be such a problem if they didn't feel the need to bail out private corporations that hand them some cash on the side.
 
dowie said:
you can't have a situation where all ccys are weak - what would they be weak/flaky against?
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How about something which has been a financial 'anchor' for thousands of years: gold. Or how about something a bit more relevant to most people's modern lives, and fundamental to everything we do: oil. Seen the price of both those over the last decade?

Or how about... you get the idea. Stuff. Solid, real, tangible stuff that you can't double in quantity overnight by editing a central bank spreadsheet.

Five years ago I thought money was real. That a fiver in the bank was worth having, and a tenner was worth having even more. Now I just see cash as a liability which can be manipulated by global financiers and the governments in their power (either directly through lobbying or indirectly through the hidden manipulative mechanics of the market).

It has been a long, depressing journey to get to this viewpoint. I wish I hadn't had to take it. A daytrip to Skegness would've been more enjoyable. :-)

Andrew McP

PS No, you can't have my cash, even if it is a liability. :-p
 
Andrew_McP said:
How about something which has been a financial 'anchor' for thousands of years: gold. Or how about something a bit more relevant to most people's modern lives, and fundamental to everything we do: oil. Seen the price of both those over the last decade?
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I don't understand your point.

We said the currency was declining, and then you point out two object oil and gold which suggest exactly the same, you need more pounds to buy the same amount of oil or gold as 2 years ago, just as you need more pounds to buy the same amount of dollars and euro and every other currency in the world bar the zimbam dollar......
 
what i always find interesting is the gold adjusted price inflation figures. (i am not an economists or anything so i try explain best i can)

say you take something that has not decreased in value because of technological advancement or chineese slave labour and a strong pound.

say a loaf of bread and then you go back in time 100, 150 years and get the price, of course the price is going to be way cheaper 100 years ago due to price inflation.

but if you take the price of gold at 100, 150 years ago and then do a relative comparison you will find that gold is still at the same value, it is the currency that has lost its value, which i thought was interesting to learn.

so it is not that gold is now worth $1200 it is that the Dollar is now worth less.
 
anticonscience said:
So the UK really is up to its neck in debt, and things aren't looking rosy for the future?
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Yes and no.

The UK is in no worse a position than a lot of the western world, for example a lot of other countries have a much bigger debt as a % of GDP (the US, France, possibly Germany as well as a lot of the smaller european nations, Spain, Ireland and well known Greece) so we aren't alone in that issue, in fact we are in a better position than most in that respect.

We've also stuck a huge amount of our debt into nationalising banks, which, as long as they are dealt with properly, could make a large profit on their investment, however that is likely to be in the next 5-10 years. It'll be interesting to see how much they sell off the Northern Rock banking companies for and whether that will be more than they spent saving it (which is likely).

What we need however is some hard governance to get us out of the issues we are now in. We need another leader like Thatcher, who loads hated because she didn't just carry on with the status quo and got rid of the stuff keeping us down.
 
Britain's debt bubble is the poisoned chalice for whichever party wins the election. The need to raise taxes will bring massive resentment. Even the Tories can't honestly promise tax cuts this time.
 
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