The great interest rate rip off part 1

interestrateripoff · March 3, 2010

Greece Adopts Plan for New Taxes and Pay Reductions

By NIKI KITSANTONIS 11:00 AM ET

Simela Pantzartzi/European Pressphoto Agency

Greek pensioners tried to force their way past a riot police cordon blocking the way to the prime minister’s office during a protest in Athens on Wednesday over new austerity measures aimed at narrowing the nation’s budget deficit.

The new measures aim to save $6.54 billion in order to help defuse Greece’s debt crisis.

Greece’s Plan Brings Some Calm to Markets 9:45 AM ET
Britain Grapples With Debt

Greece’s New Plan Brings Some Calm to Markets

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS 12:41 PM ET

Indexes on Wall Street opened quietly after Greece announced more tax increases and pay cuts in its effort to control its deficit.

News Analysis

Britain Grapples With Debt of Greek Proportions

By LANDON THOMAS Jr.

Without a strong political majority to tackle Britain’s lumbering fiscal problems, the stage could be set for a potential double-dip recession, if not worse.

E.C.B. Readies Further Steps Away From Crisis Lending

By JACK EWING 25 minutes ago

The European Central Bank may be ready to return to competitive bidding to set the interest rate on three-month loans, which would raise costs for banks in the euro area.

Growth in U.S. Services Sector Tops Forecast

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS 43 minutes ago

The services index, which rose to 53.0 last month from 50.5 in January, grew at its fastest pace in more than two years.

interestrateripoff · March 4, 2010

BBC News - US economic growth modest, says Fed's Beige Book

The US economy has continued to grow this year, but only at a "modest" pace, according to the Federal Reserve's influential Beige Book.

Despite a "slight improvement" in consumer spending, growth was hampered by "severe snowstorms" in many parts of the country, it found.

The book also reported labour markets remaining weak across the country.

But the book did highlight growth in the manufacturing sector, and an increase in demand for services.

"Manufacturing activity strengthened in most regions, particularly in the hi-tech equipment, automobile and metal industries," it said.

It seems everyone is now following the UK and blaming the weather. Financial crisis to be blamed on the wrong type of snow soon.

interestrateripoff · March 4, 2010

Breaking news:

Interest rates held at record low after one year at 0.5%

The Bank of England's monetary policy committee today left interest rates at 0.5% and kept its quantitative easing programme on hold. By Heather Stewart 73 comments
[*] New car registrations up 26% on 2009

New car sales accelerated ahead again last month - rising 26.4% on the February 2009 total, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) said today 13 comments
[*] Babcock and VT begin merger battle

Fight over merger that would create a defence group big enough to rival BAE systems begins after VT agrees to give Babcock financial documents

[*] Flat white froths up Costa Coffee chain

Coffee popular in Australia and New Zealand has helped the cafe chain increase sales by almost 10%

Greece should sell islands to keep bankruptcy at bay, say German MPs

Outraged Greeks are boycotting German goods after an interview in Bild newspaper suggested Greece should sell off its islands and ancient ruins to cut debts 261 comments
- Business blog: What could Britain sell off?
- Greece unveils radical austerity package
[*] Mandelson attacks Obama's bank plans

Business secretary says Obama administration should focus on principle and practice of regulation, not the size of banks
- Treasury plans to set out £11bn spending cuts

More business news

interestrateripoff · March 4, 2010

No fresh aid for economy from rate-setters

Rate held at 0.5% as Bank leaves quantitative easing unchanged at £200bn.

Agile, smaller enterprises are leading a revival in the industry

Excessive focus on big manufacturers is a distraction from the sector’s real innovators

Econoblog: No surprises from the Bank of England

The Bank of England likes to be boring - being interesting usually means a crisis or a cock-up - and the next few months will give it an ideal chance to do just that.

interestrateripoff · March 4, 2010

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Greece secures €5bn bond sale ahead of Merkel meeting

Meeting with German Chancellor likely to be tense after her allies' suggestion that Greece should sell some of its islands to reduce debt.

UK 'would still be recession' without £200bn cash injection

Bank of England's £200bn asset purchase scheme has boosted GDP by as much as 3pc say economists, as MPC votes against extending it.

Ten years of 'neglect' for industry by Labour

UK refusal to join the euro is a 'blessing'

Prudential bankers spread risk for $21bn rights issue

Qatar and Singapore investors join syndicate of 30 lenders underwriting record rights issue behind $35bn AIA acquisition.

UK 's struggle to find site for £12bn nuclear waste storage

Man Utd owners complain to Goldman about Jim O'Neill

How the British car industry is being electrified

City headhunter warns of banker exodus

Greek debt crisis: spotlight falls on the ECB's role

Don't trash capitalism – the message from M&S

UK refusal to join the euro is a 'blessing'

Bank of England leaves interest rates at record low

Greece must make £4.4bn cuts before EU bail-out

Bank unlikely to extend money-printing programme

UK debt markets: demand slips slightly

interestrateripoff · March 4, 2010

Scottish & Southern Energy cut gas bills by 4%

Operator follows British Gas by reducing tariffs for its ten million customers who will save an average £30 a year 11 Comments

SSE profit hard to understand, say critics

Customers pay SSE’s legal bill for pylon probe

Bank holds rate to mark a year at record low

The cost of borrowing stays at 0.5% while the Monetary Policy Committee keeps the brakes on the Bank's money printing scheme 18 Comments

MPC likely to hold rates amid fiscal flux

Services sector revival pulls back sterling

Citigroup chief thanks US taxpayer for bailout

Vikram Pandit said the bank owes a large debt of gratitude to US taxpayers and the Government for its $45bn rescue 1 Comment

Pandit paid $11m after $45bn Citigroup bailout

Citi's Pandit halts personal use of jet

Greece attracts strong demand for bond issue

Greek government tests the market after announcement of austerity programme with new €5bn syndicated 10-year issue

Civil service bonuses slashed in Greek cutback

Greece demands EU payback for new austerity cuts

Toyota drivers say cars still faulty after fix

Ten complaints to regulator raise fears that repairs may not bring an end to cases of uncontrolled acceleration

'Flat white' coffee lifts Whitbread revenue

The owner of the Costa coffee chain reports a 5.4% rise in revenues, helped by demand for the alternative latte

VT Group opens books to predator Babcock

Shares in the defence contractor rise as investors bet that a deal between the two companies will go ahead

VT Group walks away from bid for Mouchel

Babcock given April 12 deadline for VT bid

Aggreko lit up by demand for temporary power

Group sees profits rise by 29% last year and it identifies new opportunities in filling developed world's energy gap

Rupert Soames, chief executive of Aggreko

Tempus: Aggreko set to keep running

Ex Cazenove broker 'skilled at share picking'

A lawyer for Malcolm Calvert, who denies 12 counts of insider dealing, said he has "the ability to pick a winner"

US jobless claims fall but recovery fears remain

The number of people signing in for benefits shrinks as investors prepare for crucial government employment figures

Mitsubishi shares plunge as Peugeot talks fail

Japanese carmaker's financial problems weigh heavily after promise of vital investment from French group evaporates

Peugeot Citroën is catching spluttering Toyota

Peugeot and Mitsubishi near electric car pact

Civil service bonuses slashed in Greek cutback

A fresh wave of austerity measures were unveiled in return for assurances that the EU was preparing a rescue plan

Standard Chartered to be listed in Mumbai

The bank revealed its plans for the sub-continent after reaping a profit of more than $1bn there for the first time

The Pru must play fair by all its shareholders

Today’s slide pointed to a volatile ride for the Pru in the three months it will take to get its financing nailed down

Once More, with Riga

A new wave of Eastern Europeans has arrived to enrich British life

interestrateripoff · March 4, 2010

Scottish and Southern cuts bills

Scottish and Southern Energy will cut its gas bills for domestic customers by 4% from 29 March, the company announces.

Energy firms' profit margins rise

British Gas cuts gas prices

Bank keeps interest rates on hold

The Bank of England has kept the cost of borrowing at a record low of 0.5% for the 12th consecutive month.

Greece bond issue oversubscribed

Greece sees strong demand for government bonds in a vote of confidence for the country's debt-ridden economy

More at the link.

WebFerret · March 5, 2010

The Labour governments great solar panel rip-off!

Are we really going to let ourselves be duped into this solar panel rip-off?

source: Are we really going to let ourselves be duped into this solar panel rip-off? | George Monbiot | Comment is free | The Guardian

Plans for the grid feed-in tariff suggest we live in southern California. And at £8.6bn, this is a pricey conceit with little benefit for the UK.

Those who hate environmentalism have spent years looking for the definitive example of a great green rip-off. Finally it arrives, and nobody notices. The government is about to shift £8.6bn from the poor to the middle classes. It expects a loss on this scheme of £8.2bn, or 95%. Yet the media is silent. The opposition (Conservatives) urges only that the [problem] should be expanded.

On 1 April (no joke!) the government introduces its feed-in tariffs. These oblige electricity companies to pay people for the power they produce at home. The money will come from their customers in the form of higher bills. It would make sense, if we didn't know that the technologies the scheme will reward are comically inefficient.

The people who sell solar photovoltaic (PV) panels and micro wind turbines in the UK insist they represent a good investment. The arguments I have had with them have been long and bitter. But the debate has now been brought to an end with the publication of the government's table of tariffs: the rewards people will receive for installing different kinds of generators. The government wants everyone to get the same rate of return. So while the electricity you might generate from large wind turbines and hydro plants will earn you 4.5p per kilowatt hour, mini wind turbines get 34p, and solar panels 41p. In other words, the government acknowledges that micro wind and solar PV in the UK are between seven and nine times less cost-effective than the alternatives.

It expects this scheme to save 7m tonnes of carbon dioxide by 2020. Assuming – generously – that the rate of installation keeps accelerating, this suggests a saving of about 20m tonnes of CO2 by 2030. The estimated price by then is £8.6bn. This means it will cost about £430 to save one tonne of CO2.

Last year the consultancy company McKinsey published a table of cost comparisons. It found that you could save a tonne of CO2 for £3 by investing in geothermal energy, or for £8 by building a nuclear power plant. Insulating commercial buildings costs nothing; in fact it saves £60 for every tonne of CO2 you reduce; replacing incandescent lightbulbs with LEDs saves £80 per tonne. The government predicts that the tradeable value of the carbon saved by its £8.6bn scheme will be £420m. That's some return on investment.

The reason for these astonishing costs is that the government expects most people who use this scheme to install solar panels. Solar PV is a great technology – if you live in southern California. But the further from the equator you travel, the less sense it makes. It's not just that the amount of power PV panels produce at this latitude is risible, they also produce it at the wrong time. In hot countries, where air conditioning guzzles electricity, peak demand coincides with peak solar radiation. In the UK, peak demand takes place between 5pm and 7pm on winter evenings. Do I need to spell out the implications?

We have plenty of ambient energy, but it's not to be found on people's roofs. The only renewables policy that makes sense is to build big installations where the energy is – which means high ground, estuaries or the open sea – and deliver it by wire to where people live. But the government's scheme sloshes money into places where resources are poor and economies of scale impossible.

We don't need to guess the results: the German government made the same mistake 10 years ago. By 2006 its generous feed-in tariffs had stimulated 230,000 solar roofs, at a cost of €1.2bn. Their total contribution to the country's electricity supply was 0.4%. Their total contribution to carbon savings, as a paper in the journal Energy Policy points out, is zero. This is because Germany, like the UK, belongs to the European emissions trading scheme. Any savings made by feed-in tariffs permit other industries to raise their emissions. Either the trading scheme works, in which case the tariffs are pointless, or it doesn't, in which case it needs to be overhauled. The government can't have it both ways.

A week ago the German government decided to reduce sharply the tariff it pays for solar PV, on the grounds that it is a waste of money. Just as the Germans have begun to abandon their monumental mistake, we are about to repeat it.

Buying a solar panel is now the best investment a householder can make. The tariffs will deliver a return of between 5% and 8% a year, which is both index linked (making a nominal return of between 7% and 10%) and tax-free. The payback is guaranteed for 25 years. If you own a house and can afford the investment, you'd be crazy not to cash in. If you don't and can't, you must sit and watch your money being used to pay for someone else's fashion accessory.

Had this money been spent instead on insulation or double glazing, it could have helped relieve fuel poverty at the same time as cutting emissions. But the feed-in tax is both wasteful and regressive. The government has now decided not to oblige people to improve the efficiency of their homes before they can claim a tariff: you'll be paid to put a solar panel on your roof even if the roof contains no insulation.

Though there's a system to ensure functioning devices are installed, it can't be long before thousands of petty criminals discover the perfect carousel fraud, bypassing their solar panels by connecting the incoming wire to the outgoing wire. By buying electricity for 7p and selling it for 44p (if you sell power to the grid rather than using it yourself, you get an extra 3p), they'll make a 600% profit. Amazingly the government has decided not to measure how much electricity people are selling, but "to pay export tariffs on the basis of estimated (deemed) exports". Elsewhere in its report it boasts of "encouraging a risk-based approach to audit and assurance". Come on in, you crims, the door is wide open.

So who is opposing this lunacy? Good question. The Conservatives, Liberal Democrats, Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace have lined up to denounce the government for not being generous enough. The only body to have called this right so far is the loathsome TaxPayers' Alliance, but nobody listened because it has cried wolf too often.

There appears to be a cross-party agreement to squander the public's money. Why? It's partly because many Tory and Lib Dem voters hate big, efficient windfarms, and this scheme appears to offer an alternative. But it's mostly because solar panels accord with the aspirations of the middle classes. The solar panel is the ideal modern status symbol, which signifies both wealth and moral superiority, even if it's perfectly useless.

If people want to waste their money, let them. But you and I shouldn't be paying for it. Seldom has there been a bigger public rip-off; seldom has less fuss been made about it. Will we try to stop this scheme, or are we a nation of dupes?

This comes into effect 1st April 2010 (no it's not a joke) and has had little or no media coverage, so ppl don't even know about the detail!

Yet another prime example of Rip-Off Briton - Way to go NuLabour

Our leaders have signed up to, on our behalf, a staggering amount of financially destructive policies under the auspices of CO2 reduction, and, while we debate the rights and wrongs of the design of a Hockey Stick, or the inclusion, or not, of the Medieval Warming Period, these rules that we have been signed up to are going to be used to brow-beat us back into the Medieval Warm Period financially.

I fear however that there are many more rip-offs waiting in the wings!

WebFerret · March 5, 2010

Greece should sell islands to cut debt

BBC News - Greece should sell islands to cut debt - Merkel allies

Greece should consider selling some of its uninhabited islands to cut its debt, according to political allies of German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Josef Schlarmann and Frank Schaeffler told Germany's Bild daily that the Greek state should sell stakes in all its assets to raise more cash.

Greek PM George Papandreou is due to meet Mrs Merkel in Berlin later this week for talks about the crisis.

Mr Papandreou has already announced a strict austerity programme.

'Affordable' islands'

"Sell your islands, you bankrupt Greeks - and the Acropolis too!" says the headline in the Bild newspaper.

Only 227 of Greece's 6,000 islands are inhabited

It sounds like the sort of daydream induced by too much ouzo, but the idea comes from two senior politicians in Europe's biggest economy.

Mr Schlarmann is a senior member of Mrs Merkel's Christian Democrats and Mr Schaeffler is an MP for the Free Democrats - the junior partner in the centre-right coalition.

Both confirmed to the BBC that they wanted to start a debate about what Greece could do to help itself and bolster the battered euro.

Those who face insolvency, Mr Schlarmann said, must sell everything they have to pay their creditors. He advised Mrs Merkel not to promise any financial aid when she met Mr Papandreou in Berlin.

According to a poll published on Thursday, 84% of Germans think that the EU should not help Greece out of its debt crisis.

It is true that dotted in the blue waters of the Aegean are some of the country's most valuable assets - about 6,000 islands, of which only 227 are inhabited. Many of them are privately owned by the world's super-rich.

According to a specialised real-estate website, Greek islands evoke images of sunglass-sporting shipping magnates sipping champagne on enormous yachts, but cost as little as $2m (£1.3m).

Relatively affordable, the website says - unless, of course, you're a Greek.

I wonder how long it will be before Gordon Brown considers selling the British Isles (or perhaps he's already working on it - sell & lease back! :eek:

) - LOL

Edited March 5, 2010 by WebFerret

interestrateripoff · March 5, 2010

Breaking news:

US unemployment rate stable at 9.7% as 36,000 jobs lost

Fewer jobs cut than expected, bolstering hopes of US recovery, but White House and labour department split over how much to blame bad weather. By Katie Allen
Goldman economist faces red card

Jim O'Neill is under pressure over his links to Red Knights' bid for Manchester United 94 comments
- Goldman shouldn't give O'Neill the red card
[*] Papandreou and Merkel meet over debt

Amid growing acrimony, Greek leader calls for German support for Greece to borrow on better terms 34 comments
[*] Interest rates held at record low

Bank of England leaves interest rates at 0.5% and kept its quantitative easing programme on hold 89 comments

Icelanders to vote no on debt deal

Resounding no-vote expected on deal to repay money owed to UK and Netherlands after they guaranteed deposits at failed bank Icesave
- Q&A: Icesave crisis
- How the Icesave crisis left British deposits in limbo
[*] Unite ready to agree to pay freeze and 'new fleet' to avert British Airways strike

Compromise deal between airline and union could mean new, lower-paid cabin crew on separate planes

More business news
- Fraud charges for 'America's prophet' who claimed to predict stockmarket
- Unions demand pay rise for Cadbury workers
- Fury at tax deal as Ineos plans move to Switzerland
- Green energy industry asks for £500m
- New car registrations up 26% on 2009
- HSBC chief gets £800,000 rise
- WPP stable after 'brutal' 2009

interestrateripoff · March 5, 2010

Fears grow of double dip for UK housing market

House prices fell back 1.5 per cent in February, the Halifax reveals

Agile, smaller enterprises are leading a revival in the industry

Excessive focus on big manufacturers is a distraction from the sector’s real innovators

David Prosser: Why we have to call the banks' bluff

Outlook The City's scaremongers are at it again. This time it is Robert Walters, one of the square mile's best-known headhunters, who is warning that "hordes of people are leaving certain banks" (specifically, he means the poor souls who haven't had huge bonuses this year because they work at banks with a large taxpayer stake).