It's good news week...
...and this time all the colour is in the sunshine in my own garden in Kent after all that snow and wind and rain and greyness. Pity we can't say the same for those alleged green shoots of economic recovery that the business minister was going on about 2 weeks back: Lloyds Banking Group can hardly be seeing those on the day that it announces that the HBOS bank that the Treasury encouraged it to swallow and rescue has announced a £10.8 billion loss for the PRE-recession year - and that came not just from dodgy mortgages but even more from its corporate lending (plus a bit of foolish gambling and some of the own-account equity investment of the kind that banking used not to be about, explicitly). The sun won't last in the garden (this is England) but the rural Spring looks more enduring that any mythical economic one this year. Just hope I can keep up my mortgage payments long enough to see through the many seasons till the economic thaw happens.....!?! A couple of other little fact for today: the US economy shrank by 6.2% in the last quarter, UK house prices went down 15% in a year (good but only for the 12 people still left able to get and service anew mortgage.... and Ryanair's ever-so-cuddly boss announces that they are considering charging us £1 to use the loo on their planes - to maximize cash-flow (not ours though!.
In other words, IT'S GOOD NEWS WEEK. No doubt someone's also dropped a bomb somewhere, not to mention contaminating atmosphere and blackening skies.... :)
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#319 on Explore, Tuesday, March 3, 2009
It's good news week...
...and this time all the colour is in the sunshine in my own garden in Kent after all that snow and wind and rain and greyness. Pity we can't say the same for those alleged green shoots of economic recovery that the business minister was going on about 2 weeks back: Lloyds Banking Group can hardly be seeing those on the day that it announces that the HBOS bank that the Treasury encouraged it to swallow and rescue has announced a £10.8 billion loss for the PRE-recession year - and that came not just from dodgy mortgages but even more from its corporate lending (plus a bit of foolish gambling and some of the own-account equity investment of the kind that banking used not to be about, explicitly). The sun won't last in the garden (this is England) but the rural Spring looks more enduring that any mythical economic one this year. Just hope I can keep up my mortgage payments long enough to see through the many seasons till the economic thaw happens.....!?! A couple of other little fact for today: the US economy shrank by 6.2% in the last quarter, UK house prices went down 15% in a year (good but only for the 12 people still left able to get and service anew mortgage.... and Ryanair's ever-so-cuddly boss announces that they are considering charging us £1 to use the loo on their planes - to maximize cash-flow (not ours though!.
In other words, IT'S GOOD NEWS WEEK. No doubt someone's also dropped a bomb somewhere, not to mention contaminating atmosphere and blackening skies.... :)
View Large On a Black Background
#319 on Explore, Tuesday, March 3, 2009