2008-10-01 UK News Highlights


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Yes, demand is weak over there but the last one, below, is of particular interest to me.

Seems the banks around the world need USD rather than their local currency.

Another failure of banking regulation that they probably still don’t understand and therefore won’t address going forward.

I’ve been watching external debt bring down governments (and their banks) for over 30 years and it still isn’t part of bank regulation.

Highlights

U.K. Manufacturing Shrinks the Most Since 1992
U.K. Services Industry Growth Stalls for First Time Since 2002
BOE Emergency Rate Meeting Is `Possible,’ Morgan Stanley Says
Financial crisis: Can the Bank of England’s Mervyn King survive?
Bank of England Offers $40 Billion in Dollar Auctions Today

Bank of England Offers $40 Billion in Dollar Auctions Today

Oct. 1 (Bloomberg) The Bank of England offered $30 billion of one-week funds and $10 billion overnight as part of a global coordinated emergency effort to stem the financial crisis.

The bank also will auction another $30 billion in one-week money on Oct. 3. At that sale and in subsequent dollar operations, the bank will accept the same extended collateral eligible for its three-month long-term sterling operations.


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2008-07-28 UK News Highlights


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Highlights:

U.K. Hometrack House Prices Fall the Most Since 2001
Brown Says He Won’t Turn to ’70s Agenda After Defeat
Darling Considers Expanding Mortgage Bond-Swap Scheme, FT Says

 
 

U.K. Hometrack House Prices Fall the Most Since 2001

by Brian Swint

(Bloomberg) The average cost of a residential property in England and Wales slipped 4.4 % in July from a year earlier to 168,500 pounds ($336,000), Hometrack Ltd. said. Prices fell 1.2 % from June. “With no immediate end in sight to the current uncertainty, activity levels are likely to remain suppressed with prices remaining under pressure into the autumn,” said Richard Donnell, director of research at Hometrack. Prices “are now back to levels last seen in October 2006.” Demand for housing has declined 20 % in the past three months, Hometrack said.

Note how much higher prices are vs the US.

It’s another case of going up very fast and now working its way down towards a more historically normal trend line.

But as in the US, they never come down quite that far before turning up on a new path from a higher base as much of past ‘inflation’ remains indefinitely.


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