Member Info for skier1

FTSE100 is being dragged down by UK inflation, UK borrowing costs, strong US jobs report, US interest rates, Eurozone recession, Germany recession, France on fire, China in a depressive slump it can't get out of, and a general global sell-off this week.

The banks are a useful barometer of where UK biz tax has been, is, and will be going.

The red Tories have spiked corporation tax to a greedy 25%.

Bank surcharge tax on tax at 3%.

Bank levy tax on tax on tax at 1%.

Bank DPT tax on tax on tax on tax at 31%.

Marxist Labour windfall envy tax on tax on tax on tax on tax incoming at 5-50%.

Prepare for more tax here.

Lol.

We've been thru this a thousand times already.

Stop listening to these pathetic doom-loop "forecasts" of hysteria from bitter Remainers and leftwing ultras who lost and are desperate to talk the UK down into decline.

Note the word "forecasts". They are NOT facts. These are deliberately-negative forward "predictions" of misery. Because that is what the hard-left want to foment. They want you to be miserable -- as revenge for losing Brexit and losing every UK national election since 2010!

Brexit, Trump, unemployment, recession, interest rates, inflation... it goes on and on and on... their "forecasts" are wrong, year after year after year.

Stop giving them credence.

Lol.

The KDR share price today has plunged an astonishing -95% since that 2016 audio-clip.

And, 7 years later, nearly a decade on, KDR still has zero diamonds on sale!

One born every minute ;-)

Come on, nobody takes the Bank of England seriously as a forecaster anymore!

Brexit, unemployment, housing, recession, inflation, interest rates, the BoE is wrong -- wildly wrong -- year after year after year. Almost every major forecast they make nowadays ends up proven wrong. By a lot.

This will almost certainly be another mis-forecast.

Be careful what you gloat and wish for.

If Farage can be un-banked for his politics today, so can you and your family tomorrow.

This looks like the foothills of a social credit score -- like China.

Nothing wrong with landlords and landladies.

Europe's biggest economy is a rental one (Germany). Europe's richest major economy is a rental one (Switzerland). China's richest sub-economy is a rental one (Hong Kong). Africa's biggest economy is a rental one (Nigeria). Plenty of countries thrive with a landlord and landlady sector.

Millions of citizens are happy to outsource their housing to an experienced supplier.

It is time to stop the politics of envy. Just because someone else is a success, it doesn't mean we have to steal from them, or tear them down.

And be careful what you wish for... Labour is going to raid assets with vicious taxes (such as stocks and shares), and not to mention a likely windfall tax on banks (such as LLOY)...

I'd like to see LLOY drop the dividend altogether, to zero, and divert tens of billions into a transformation to an AI fintech bank. Double the revenue, halve the cost base. The LLOY share price would be £1-2 within months.

Wish we'd stop talking about the SNP on here. The separatist dream is over. And Scotland is but a tiny ~5% of the UK economy. It's time to move on.

Regarding the recent jump in UK biz confidence -- that won't be a surprise to anyone who reads the threads on here. It's been clear for 2+ years that the UK economy is in much better shape than the hysterical anti-Britain propaganda would have us believe. For example, the UK is the world's fastest-growing G7 economy for 2 years in a row, while Germany and the Eurozone plunge into recession, and France is on fire and on the brink of civil war.

Apple -- which has 165k employees -- will shortly be worth more than the entire Indian economy of 1.4 billion people. $3.0T vs. $3.1T. Really quite staggering. Apple is the greatest company mankind has ever known. We are living through a key moment in history.

Not sure Farage is a nutter. He's the clear and victorious winner of the biggest free democratic vote by the British people that the UK has ever seen in its entire 1000-year history. It's a fact, he's a political genius, a one-man band that single-handedly beat the entire EU supra-state and its bitter UK vassal "elite" who lost.

As for "politically motivated denial of bank accounts" -- that is (sadly) inevitable. The UK today is already seeing politically motivated denial of freedom to travel, drive, party, eat, speak, post, and debate. It's only a matter of time before the state starts to take political control of your cash. The march of digital currencies (like Britcoin) will see to that.

London is not just the tech, finance and tourism capital of the world, it is now well on the way to becoming the AI capital of the world.

Google DeepMind (Bard) has effectively moved its main AI base to London. Anthropic and Palantir, two data giants, are already in London. And, now, OpenAI (ChatGPT) is joining them, with its first overseas base. This is a huge landmark win today for London (and Brexit).

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/06/28/chatbot-creator-openai-london-office-first-outside-us/

Finance is (by far) the world's single biggest industry. The career opportunity is gigantic. Banking, retail or wholesale, remains a great sector to work for. Know someone with just 5 GCSEs, but they've managed to bounce between UK banks every 2-5 years, half a dozen of them, inching up the career ladder with every move, targeting head offices where the money is, and they're now nudging 100k a year. Very few sectors in the UK where a low-education employee can make a high(ish) salary like that. Wouldn't hesitate to recommend finance for someone just joining the workforce today. Even with AI banks on the horizon, people and firms will still need to save or borrow money.

Rather bizarre to gloat over a UK organization losing half-a-billion pounds. That's not good for the UK economy.

Regarding landlords -- the UK (and the world) is moving to a rental economy. Younger folks want to rent their home, car, Airbnbs, music and movies. A rental life in a rental world. Landlords, small or big, are the future.

At least 5 water companies now rumoured to be in line for yet another Cuba-style bailout and state nationalisation. Thames, Southern, Yorkshire and others. Like the rail industry, we are back to the 1970s.

It's the same old self-inflicted "cycle of death" for British brands. Over and over again.

Sell the family silver off abroad on the cheap... load it over the max with needless debt... pay yourself a fat dividend or bonus (from the debt)... become a multimillionaire (again)... run away while the "company" and staff crumble to oblivion under the weight of that needless debt... Laugh at the suckers who fall for it every time... Rinse and repeat.

Great to see a new buzzword here. Those magnetic signatures sound important. KDR has been digging for sparklers since the last century, and it's defo getting closer.

As predicted, months ago, HFEL now tumbling under the 240p level. A bearish sign. Looks set to retest the next lows, of 15 years ago, around 230p.

Overloaded reckless debt, overpaid "managers", overpaid dividends, billions sent away forever overseas, underinvested in pipes, underrepaired systems, sewage dumped in rivers, yet more taxes for us all to give Thames unlimited free cash in a USSR-like state bailout.

The UK should let Thames go bust. Let the debtholders bail them out. Let the free market sort it out.

Great to see the UK and EU signing today a new financial services deal.

London is (officially) the financial, tech and tourism capital of the world. The EU knows it must do a finance deal with the UK. Step by step, Brexit is bedding in.

https://www.cityam.com/jeremy-hunt-to-sign-milestone-financial-services-agreement-with-eu/

Virgin Money is offering a 5.2% cash ISA fixed for 3 years. For a top-rate taxpayer, that's 9-10% gross. We are back in a (relative) golden era of savings rates.