This was sent to me earlier in the week by the finance dept of a multi-national company;-

If you had purchased £1000 of Northern Rock shares one year ago it would now be worth £4.95 .

With HBOS, earlier this week your £1000 would have been worth £16.50, £1000 invested in XL Leisure would now be worth less than £5.

However if you bought £1000 worth of Tennents Lager one year ago, drank it all, then took the empty cans to an aluminium re-cycling plant, you would get £214.

So based on the above statistics the best current investment advice seems to be drink heavily and re-cycle.

Amen, brother!

WE MUZ HAV 1 TWO!!1

Please, please, PLEASE stop blindly following America into every poorly thought out, badly researched, knee-jerk scheme they come up with.

Don't buy the Aircraft carrier, don't make the child database, don't roll out national ID cards, and SAVE THAT £250bn. Put it into the NHS, reducing taxes, and for God's sake let the free market stabilise naturally instead of trying to force it with frozen interest rates and bail-out plans for failing small businesses.

As an employee of a small business that undertakes in-house development we are entitled to tax credits - one of .gov.uk's ways to help SME's fund uk based devlopment work.

However by the time we have spent N man *months* filling in the paperwork and collating and checking copies of all payslips, weekly work sheets etc we will be making an overall loss *if* we ever get any tax credits.

We worked out that if we pay south americans to do the development, it will be *cheaper* than paying Uk staff and then paying to claim part of the tax back - if we get part of the tax bill back.

I should have done what some of the other directors/staff did - pack up and move abroad!

... they won't have any cash left for ID cards and other bollocks...

> However if you bought £1000 worth of Tennents Lager one year ago, drank it all, then took the empty cans to an aluminium re-cycling plant, you would get £214.

I believe your story originated with American names and dollar amounts.

But even so, show me the aluminium recycling plant that would pay £214 for ~1000 aluminium cans!

The government's rescue of the banks may stabilise the global financial crisis temporarily, but where the far bigger problem of economic stagnation and decline lies firmly upon the horizon now. The reason, with the US's total debt when all is taken into account at the end of 2007 was $51.1 trillion (projected to increase to around $53 trillion by the end of this year), sheer interest payments estimated at over $2 trillion a year, estimated toxic debts of financial institutions of over $4.1 trillion and total global debt exceeding $100 trillion (approx. 2-years of total global GDP output), no amount of capital injection will save the global economic system from eventual collapse as it is being pursued today. I give it no more than 18 months to fail.

The only situation that could bring global stability to the economic system is the influence of China and its direct intervention. Unfortunately pride by Western politicians will not allow this to happen, but where eventually they may have no other option but to take this decision to save the world economy from decades of economic stagnation. That is what we risk now with uncoordinated political indecisiveness in the West. These are plain truths and no more.

Dr David Hill

World Innovation Foundation Charity (WIFC)

Bern, Switzerland

Following the problems in the sub-prime lending market in America and the run on HBOS in the UK, uncertainty has now hit Japan.

In the last 7 hours Origami Bank has folded, Sumo Bank has gone belly up and Bonsai Bank announced plans to cut some of its branches. Yesterday, it was announced that Karaoke Bank is up for sale and will likely go for a song, while today shares in Kamikaze Bank were suspended after they nose-dived.

Samurai Bank is soldiering on following sharp cutbacks, Ninja Bank is reported to have taken a hit, but they remain in the black. Furthermore, 500 staff at Karate Bank got the chop and analysts report that there is something fishy going on at Sushi Bank where it is feared that staff may get a raw deal.

> show me the aluminium recycling plant that would pay £214 for ~1000 aluminium cans!

Oh, for heaven's sake, stop being such a pain! It's funny, it says a lot about how much stocks are currently valued, and franckly, you know what? Who cares!

I am spreading this joke around... the best I have seen in a long long time, and we all need a good laugh! :)

Paris 'cause I say so!

Ooo look we're pulling money from thin air again, never seen that before, don't know the consequences of it, oh lets not talk about it or ask Parliament for approval, because discussion of how we magic a £600 bn bailout for a country with £600bn public expenditure budget in a world with no viable source of world borrowing has no place in Parliament.

No sir.

So Shush!

> ...show me the aluminium recycling plant that would pay £214 for ~1000 aluminium cans!

If you spent a grand on beer and ended up with only 1000 cans of Tennants, then you thoroughly deserve the Northern Rock shares you could've bought instead!

Why aren't they handing their massive bonuses and other perks back as a sign of contrition? Why am *I* bailing them out of *their* mess?

The banks have all lent or borrowed too much, so the govt. is going to lend them more, so they can keep borrowing and lending to er... Wait. What's wrong with this picture?

Throwing good money after bad. Horse bolted, jerking of knees and so on...

This is the nature of capitalism, it's one big pyramid sale, boom and bust is required by the system, all we can do is get by, unfortunately some people will take it too seriously, shrug your shoulders and move on, 5 years from now we'll be through it, if you want a big house, huge TVs, two holidays abroad a year and general excessive consumption then you're in the firing line.

The credit crunch and banking crisis will have almost no effect on British SMEs bacuase they got no financial support from the banks anyway.

Britian is a medium sized country with an Imperial sized financial infrastructure, yet, UK businesses have always found it hard to raise capital or get reasonably priced credit.

Even in the boom times a request for funding say a new software business would always be met with an "Of course you can have the money we, just need your house for security and that will be an extra two percent interest as you are self employed".

As banks are now funded by UK tax payers can we please make it ilegal for banks to give all our money to the next American con man who bamboozles them with a power point presentation.

FTA

"The Treasury believes there is no need for Parliamentary legislation for the multi-billion bailout to go ahead."

Because if they did that, then the figure would be set in stone.

"The figure of £250bn in financing is thought to be a fluid one, essentially plucked from the air and liable to change as the situation changes."

Would have to be able to go up or down as the situation changes, which is why it cannot be set in stone.

Give the Treasury free reign to give away money and insure loans and debts as it sees fit?

Sounds like what Bush demanded from Congress.

It's a bit worrying, because the UK GDP is around £1.5 trillion - of which only about £750 billion can be taxable realistically.

Leaves £250 billion for schools, hospitals, military defence etc.

That's before the price goes up...

LOL - that was great :)

Isn't it funny how things change. One the US was part of the British Empire. Then they beat you into submission, gained their independence and the UK is now part of the US Empire.

Hahaha. Funny.

Brilliant.

They're all around you mate. Just have a look. That is what you meant, isn't it? Just another massive transfer of money from your pocket to the gubment to the already wealthy. I read something the other day that the merkins have 335 billionaires in new yawk city already. Just look at the frikkin' banks over there getting 2% money from the fed and won't lend any of it out; even at their normal outrageous compound interest rates. And we're paying for this why?

What ever happened to personal responibility, fiduciary trust, and all that? did someone suspend all the laws of morality?

burn the witches - burn them all

>Isn't it funny how things change. One the US was part of the British Empire. Then they beat you into submission, gained their independence and the UK is now part of the US Empire.

Nope, the US was never part of the British empire, American independece was declared in 1776 whereas America didn't become the united states until 1865 when the 13th amendedment was ratified, but I wouldn't let it worry you, most americans don't understand history, like how the highest proportion of settlers were actually german, most people that fought on the british side were actually 'american', often changing sides to gain rank or as the fotunes of the battles changed, most british people 'back home' were completely indifferent to the war, even going as far as not recognising victories in battle on regimentary colours etc.

The financial alignment with the US has been valuable in recent years, however, the EU brings stability (i.e. the UK won't go to war with them), and more importantly closer links with the east will bring new allies for a strong financial future, but the US will be scared by the athiest, communists, instead happier living in their 'the world is 6000 years old' bubble, thinking that they are the richest nation just because they have the largest debt, the UK has a future, but the US doesn't.

"thinking that they are the richest nation just because they have the largest debt, the UK has a future, but the US doesn't."

Haha Mike. You Funny Man, make Good Joke.

Anyone else noticed that the banks in trouble are all Scottish or Northern. Is it because they are based outside of London that they didnt really understand what they were buying?

I've started re-reading Galbraith's book on the 1929 crash. Then, as now, the banks fell over themselves to lend money to people who had no way of paying it back. Governments and the business community propped up the system for as long as they could, to preserve the illusion of prosperity, but in the end the collapse overwhelmed them. The controls that were put in place to prevent this happening again were swept away by the Thatcher/Reagan monetarist alliance of the 1980s and the only thing that is surprising is that it took so long. Giving money to the banks now to continue the insanity will only postpone the inevitable.

........Now in colour.