Three New Banks coming to UK High Street & Running out of Gas in Hours

November 1st, 2009 by maxkeiser

Stacy Summary:  Thoughts?

Tags:   25 Comments

25 responses so far ↓

  • doomandbloom
    Nov 1, 2009 at 4:00 am

    i think its a good thought……

  • Mongo
    Nov 1, 2009 at 4:12 am

    I think it’s too late.. too bad.. and probably done with other intentions than doing good.

  • Bonn
    Nov 1, 2009 at 4:17 am

    ROFL Laughing is the UK Public Senile PMSL They getting kicked in the face ROFL and they are like “whos your Daddy?” and the UK Public is me me and one more Kick in your face comming up ROFL PMSL I wonder whos Gonna buy em i heard Richard Branson frm Vergin ??

  • Joe
    Nov 1, 2009 at 4:31 am

    Halloween financial horror stories

    In 1995, my husband’s employer in Pensacola, Fla., sold to a company in Bowling Green, Ky. The economy was strong, and we were enjoying our Florida home and thinking about retirement. But my husband took a consulting position with the Kentucky company.

    More from Yahoo! Finance:

    • What to Do With $1,000 Right Now

    • Bank Fees You Should Watch Out For

    • Why Wages Are Falling For Top Earners
    Visit the Banking and Budgeting Center

    We took equity from our residence in Florida and bought a small home on a large lake in Kentucky. We planned to downsize, sell the Florida home and travel after my husband completed his work.

    Then, two hurricanes hit our Florida area, causing rental losses for months. Next, the company we thought was stable and friendly had an unfriendly takeover. My husband took a huge pay cut and my hours as a nurse could not replace our losses.

    It is now 2009. Our Florida house finally sold, but there was a substantial prepayment penalty. We also could not pay off our credit cards, throwing us into default.

    If we had the chance to do it over, we would rent instead of using the equity to buy in Kentucky. Eventually, we would have returned to Florida to manage the first property. Instead, we have to file Chapter 7. Perhaps your readers can learn from our mistakes.

  • Palantíri
    Nov 1, 2009 at 4:32 am

    Still waiting for a full reserve bank to be opened. Until that happens, banks dressed in different color are still the same bank.

    @Bonn – what is up with all the PMSLROFL shorting? It looks foolish.

    TARP sounds so friendly and unimportant – Troubled Asset Relief Program sounds a bit more serious worthy of noticing. We should stop shorting things and use the proper name.

  • Joe
    Nov 1, 2009 at 4:32 am

    Credit Card Shock

    We all have been lured by the “low interest for the life of the loan” credit cards. They were great for short-term loans — no hassle, no fuss, just fill out the check and you are set. Oh, but don’t forget the fine print!

    I am very good about paying my bills on time via the Internet. However, by accident I once transposed the $243 amount due to $234. I was hit with a $36 late fee, but the real big hit was watching my 2.9 percent interest rate zoom to 27 percent. My heart dropped to my stomach.

    I called the credit card company and was told that if I was good about future payments, they would drop it 1 percent (to 26 percent). Now what to do? I scrambled to find the money needed to pay the total amount due on the card from every nook, savings and friend I knew. Eventually, I paid it off. I paid everyone back and got my credit card back on track. I signed up for payment alerts and I double check my math to make sure I don’t do this again.

  • Phil
    Nov 1, 2009 at 4:38 am

    @Joe ….. was that your story, or someone else’s ?

    I have NOT owned or used a CC for over 35 years, and only use DD cards if cash is not accepted. I have probably avoided 50,000 Euros of interest payments over that period when I see other people’s CC experiences.

  • Joe
    Nov 1, 2009 at 4:42 am

    @Phil
    just copied & pasted some stuff i found on yahoo finance. I agree I have avoided CC’s as well. Many of these stories are pretty insane but self-inflicted due to ignorance in most cases.

    Another funny story below:
    Opt-Out Alarm

    I had a credit card with a high balance. The company informed me that I had two options. I could continue to use the card while the interest rate increased. Or, I could stop using the card and the rate would stay the same until I paid off the balance. I opted out — stopped using the card and kept the old rate.

    It seemed easy in principle. But I forgot that more than two years ago, I had used that card to register at Blockbuster; when I forgot to return a movie, they charged the card! My rate went up instantly and now I’m stuck.

  • Richard@lattitude30N
    Nov 1, 2009 at 4:44 am

    @Palantiri: try in USA the Lakota Free Bank..deposits are held in silver ( a small penalty for removal before a year and 7.34% interest per annum )…it is a non-fractional reserve bank…

  • Bonn
    Nov 1, 2009 at 4:49 am

    @ Keep Laughing cause i am Largely Safe in my investements so even if the DOW Jones hit 4000 i will not be affected though i lost my Job. Till date my family has always Saved and Bought Stuff We Dont have any Loans and if the neighbour buys a 7 Series BMW we dont get all crazy and say we need to buy one as well. Neighbours Envy is why people are in trouble they dont know that their neighbour is in trouble as well One of my Friends whos Ego got in his way tried Competeing with my Lifestyle is 120,000 $ in Debt now . Only 2 alternatives for him Run or a shot gun.Hes Driven himself into poverty in 8 years when he had his own house which hes had to sell now cause the banks are tightening the noose on him
    So if i wanna Laugh i will i have’nt said anything to anyone but about british accents and the overuse of words when trying to communicate something ROFL

  • AM
    Nov 1, 2009 at 4:51 am

    It’s the arsonists making money with extinguishing the fire they started; first of all the taxpayer paid way more for the assets because the value was artificially high, politicians count on the same price. second it depends on which assets are sold, which assets are kept off balance sheets and to whom the assets are sold. third; Under the deal, the new institutions will not be allowed to be taken over by any purchaser which currently owns a British retail bank. Ministers will stop this happening using their powers as controlling shareholders in Lloyds, RBS and Northern Rock, rather than by new regulations.” end quote; the problem is regulations and regulators; there is no clear oversight. Notice any purchaser which CURRENTLY owns a BRITISH retail bank. Just an accident waiting to happen (again). The banks should not get anything for their bad bets, speculatingandinsurance on that , not even allowed to survive with “good” assets; too big to fail? how about too fucked up to continue… But nice that the government decided to stop the “monopoly”; while doing nothing about the underlying problems. Does anyone believe that splitting it up will create more competition and better prices? remember standard oil? (that worked great, sarcastic) Probably dumping all bad assets on the publicly owned banks, starting fresh with clean balance sheets to reset the monopoly game or just let the banks with bad assets go belly up. beside the taxpayer already paid so many times; with devaluation of money, bigger deficit, stolen pensions, foreclosures, interest over own money (2x) lost of jobs and so on. Quite sad actually that this is presented as the solution/answer to the biggest robbery in history. (not that any other country is doing better/good, yet if it looks like poo and it smells like poo; it is most likely poo)

  • Bonn
    Nov 1, 2009 at 4:53 am

    @ Palantíri
    The Chick Elizebeth in charge of overseeing the TARP funds herself on thedailyshow plus Bill Maher show has stated that She doesnt know where the first 350 Billion Dollars has gone.
    TARP – T ake Everyting
    – A nything
    – R ip of the public
    – P luder as well
    The general public is anyway watching “So you think you can Dance”
    ROFL PMSL

  • Bonn
    Nov 1, 2009 at 4:56 am

    And Personlly i feel along with what peter schiff has to Say the Dow Jones needs to be at 4000

  • Joe
    Nov 1, 2009 at 4:58 am

    @AM

    Very well said. These solutions being proposed are just the illusion that government is coming to the rescue of John Q public. Would love to actually see how low prices would go if they weren’t kept overly inflated especially in Real Estate.

  • Joe
    Nov 1, 2009 at 5:03 am

    More Halloween Horrors

    Student Loan Outrage

    For a year, illness left me unable to pay my bills. I owed the Department of Education for a student loan. I kept them informed of my circumstances and tried to make payments as long as I could. I usually paid double my agreed-upon sum, so the government decided double was my new contractual obligation — without clearing that agreement with me.

    I was able to work very little as I recovered. The government told me it was illegal for them to hold my tax refund or garnish wages as long as I was making payments, so I made sure to do so. Lo and behold, the Internal Revenue Service held my tax refund anyway.

    Neither the IRS nor the Department of Education can account for the thousands of dollars they have kept. I refuse to send them any more money until they can tell me what happened to the money they lost. And who is hurt because of that? Me and my FICO score. I hired a lawyer to help me get this sorted out. After a year, he quit because he said it was too frustrating.

  • Bill Stewart
    Nov 1, 2009 at 5:14 am

    Well, running out of gas will not help McDs or the Burger King — but in Iceland that is now moot …

    http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/afp/091031/oddities/iceland_economy_us_food_company_mcdonalds_offbeat

    REYKJAVIK (AFP) – Noisy crowds, long queues, and traffic jams plunged McDonald’s restaurants in Iceland into a state of siege Saturday, as the chain served its final burgers on the island.

    Icelanders flooded the three branches of the US fast-food restaurant in Reykjavik several hours before the outlets shut for the last time, forced to close after the island’s economic collapse caused running costs to soar.

    Extra staff were deployed to reinforce the outlets, whose disappearance after 16 years means Iceland will be one of the few Western countries without a presence of the ubiquitous eatery.

    Customers in one branch faced a 20-minute wait to be served and snaking lines of cars caused traffic jams at the drive-in.

    “I have worked here for six years, and I have never worked as hard as in these final days,” one staff member told AFP.

    Jon Gardar Ogmundsson, who heads the firm Lyst which operates the Icelandic branches, said at one point there was even a shortage of the chain’s trademark Big Mac burger.

    “We are here to say goodbye,” said Orri Hreinsson, who was sitting with two friends at a table covered with 12 cheeseburgers.

    Ogmundsson announced on Monday the closure of the McDonald’s branches as a result of the dramatic economic collapse last year, which pushed the country to the brink of bankruptcy.

    McDonald’s requires all resources for its restaurants, including packaging, meat, vegetables and cheese, to be imported as the Icelandic market is too small to produce the required products.

    Ogmundsson said the restaurants imported their goods from Germany, but costs had doubled because the country’s falling krona currency had made imports prohibitively expensive.

    He plans to run the restaurants under another name in order to be able to buy cheaper Icelandic products.

    ========
    I have a hunch a Mini McDs will re-open on the US Air Force base there in the future … with product flown in from the USA. That will be it.
    ========

  • Bonn
    Nov 1, 2009 at 5:26 am

    Elizabeth Warren Pt. 1
    Elizabeth Warren details how much taxpayer money Wall Street received and what they’ve done with it.

    http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-april-15-2009/elizabeth-warren-pt–1

    Bill Maher 2009 05 15 elizabeth warren tarf
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KssmLxoaTes

    ROFL We dont know where the first 350 Billion Dollars went . ROFL

  • frances snoot
    Nov 1, 2009 at 9:03 am

    “Friedman, who characterizes his own views as “Rawlsian libertarian”, traces the disaster to bank capital rules. According to an account in Critical Review by New York University professors Viral Acharya and Matthew Richardson, international accords written in Basel, Switzerland and implemented between 1988 and 2007 allowed banks holding AAA-rated tranches of “collateralized debt obligations,” as the bundles of mortgages were dubbed, to back them with less capital than other investments — a huge opportunity for profit. So from February 2006 to late summer 2007, banks such as Citigroup and UBS loaded up on these CDOs backed by subprime mortgages, with Citigroup taking $55 billion worth alone. And all this while the housing market was sinking and subprime lenders had begun to expire.”

    http://miller-mccune.com/business_economics/did-financial-rules-mandate-a-meltdown-1564

  • frances snoot
    Nov 1, 2009 at 9:10 am

    Does it seem like the too-big-to-fails are just cutting their losses through division? And the taxpayers will be stuck with the smelly fish? Because this sentence smells:

    “Many of their assets will be sold off in deals which ministers will present as fulfilling Gordon Brown’s promise that the taxpayer would get “pay back” for the multi-billion pound Government bail out of the sector last year.”

  • Dante
    Nov 1, 2009 at 4:16 pm

    Keep worrying about the bankers..meanwhile…

    Reflections on Throwaway Children and Teens
    http://traderfeed.blogspot.com/2009/11/reflections-on-throwaway-children-and.html

    Recession Drives Surge in Youth Runaways
    http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/26/us/26runaway.html?_r=1

  • Dante
    Nov 1, 2009 at 4:42 pm

    How Goldman secretly bet on the U.S. housing crash

    “The Securities and Exchange Commission should be very interested in any financial company that secretly decides a financial product is a loser and then goes out and actively markets that product or very similar products to unsuspecting customers without disclosing its true opinion,” said Laurence Kotlikoff, a Boston University economics professor who’s proposed a massive overhaul of the nation’s banks. “This is fraud and should be prosecuted.”

    McClatchy’s inquiry found that Goldman Sachs:

    Bought and converted into high-yield bonds tens of thousands of mortgages from subprime lenders that became the subjects of FBI investigations into whether they’d misled borrowers or exaggerated applicants’ incomes to justify making hefty loans.

    Used offshore tax havens to shuffle its mortgage-backed securities to institutions worldwide, including European and Asian banks, often in secret deals run through the Cayman Islands, a British territory in the Caribbean that companies use to bypass U.S. disclosure requirements.

    Has dispatched lawyers across the country to repossess homes from bankrupt or financially struggling individuals, many of whom lacked sufficient credit or income but got subprime mortgages anyway because Wall Street made it easy for them to qualify.

    Was buoyed last fall by key federal bailout decisions, at least two of which involved then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, a former Goldman chief executive whose staff at Treasury included several other Goldman alumni.

    http://tinyurl.com/ycyv54e

  • Dante
    Nov 1, 2009 at 5:24 pm

    Former Wall Street Player Reveals the Inside World Behind Shady Bailouts to Bankers

    Prins exposes the revolving door between Wall Street and Washington and shows how it led to a Wild West mentality on “the Street” that allowed the whole casino to flourish for a time.

    And she follows the trillions in direct bailouts, subsidized loans and guarantees shelled out by the taxpayers when the whole thing went belly up, shining a bright light on the shadowy deals that decided which institutions would crash and burn and which others would receive the support needed to stay afloat, feast on the corpses of the fallen and then go on to the record profits and fat bonuses Wall Street’s survivors enjoy today

    JH: Now, we hear a lot about the little people’s irresponsibility in all this — in the collapse. They took on more debt than they could sustain, they thought the good times would roll forever. You argue this was never about the little guy, right?

    NP: Neither the crisis, nor the bailout was about the little guy. Former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson was explicit in stating several times, and in several ways, that the government should not be bailing out homeowners who got in over their heads. And true to those sentiments, it didn’t. Instead, amidst trillions of dollars of subsidies to the industry were made available in the most original and creative of ways, and no heed was paid the jointly humane and economical solution which would have been to find ways to restructure personal mortgages and loans, as opposed to dumping buckets of money over the top layers of the financial community and promising it would somehow trickle down and loosen credit for the “little guy.”

    For the money spent on subsidizing the industry, the government could have bought out every single outstanding mortgage in the country. Plus, every student loan and everyone’s health insurance. And on top of that, still have trillions of dollars left over.

    http://tinyurl.com/yf5zc6b

  • tonyt
    Nov 4, 2009 at 3:52 am

    can anyone tell me the names of theses new banks that are going onto our high street