Posting again so soon.
I'm having a day off work (more or less), waiting for correspondence to come in and doing some admin. such as filing my Companies House return.
I've been prompted to post by the news about the government of the Irish Republic's decision to guarantee all the bank deposits of Ireland's six biggest banks.
I can see that this is a short-term plan to prevent a run on these banks - albeit rather beggar-your-neighbour (as Gordon Brown seems to think). What I can't understand is how this works out in the long-term. Say, lots of wealthier UK citizens do decide to move lots of cash deposits from UK banks to Irish ones. What happens if something triggers a mass simultaneous withdrawal of those same deposits. It may stop in its tracks but isn't it more likely that the depositors say to themselves 'my Irish bank doesn't actually have that cash (that I want back) to hand and Ireland is a relatively small country so it can't afford to make good its promise to compensate all the depositors.'
It's simply not true that governments never go bankrupt. There are numerous instances of governments not honouring their financial promises down through history. So I would think carefully before taking the Irish government up on its offer.
Having said that I think the UK government should do something to improve the deposit guarantees for small companies and maybe allow lawyers to deposit cash with the Bank of England when dealing with people's big ticket transactions (like selling a house or a business).
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Another strategy to alleviate the financial crisis that puzzles me is the plan to remove the 'mark to market' accounting rules in the United States. Granted that these rules aren't very helpful when asset values are going so low. But nothing is worth more than people are willing to pay so this looks like disguising the problem rather than making it go away.
Maybe companies could measure asset values in other ways as well as mark-to-market but these figures should be side by side; don't get rid of mark-to-market altogether.
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Yesterday I had another walk. This started at Quell Lane with a stop at the Noah's Ark for a pint of Abbot's Ale at Lurgashall and back via the hamlet of Hillgrove and Bullock Lane. Bullock Lane doesn't look as if it was ever a proper road.The walk has some great views and there's a particularly enjoyable stretch between Jobson's Lane and Roundhurst Lane. Before you get to Hillgrove there's a wood call Upper Barn Hanger with a stream with what appear to be lumps of coal in its bed.
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I forgot to say that we went to see Les Miserables on Monday last week. I've not been before and it seemed a nice way to celebrate my publication date. It was great.
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I'm trying to find out more about corticosteroids and sneezing.
Hopefully, I may keep up with more frequent posts and have something more to say about the crisis.
