There's ONE BUNCH OF 'EUROPEAN' BASTARDS who LIKE WALKING AROUND THE STOCKMARKET NAKED, waving their shorts around.Just as I had mentioned in the summer, the British government is holding up
EU legislation against short selling, which everybody knows is toxic to markets.
The reason? The London City Corp. makes a lot of its money this way.
The King of Markets WASHes its HANDS OF THE POOR & the middle class, around the world.
by ignoring the ethical choice, they are hoping to take advantage of all the suffering and revolutions the world over.
Under the guise of statesmanship, the British PM decided to capitalise on the suffering.
As soon as Mubarak fell, the he flew over to sell more armaments.
-Costick67 ~(8^P
checkitout: 2 stories
despite the risk to the economy, exposes the cynicism of the Conservatives
o Share2245 [that number's a clear message- Costick67]
Comments (836)
o George Monbiot
o The Guardian, Tuesday 15 February 2011
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/feb/15/condemns-naked-short-selling-not-treasury
"You think you've seen the worst of it; you haven't. Last week I wrote about how the British government, while imposing extra taxes and devastating cuts on ordinary mortals, has quietly engineered a new tax exemption for the banks and corporations, which also encourages these businesses to shift some of their operations overseas. I thought that was as bad as it got. I was wrong.
On the day I wrote that column the Conservatives were doing something just as repulsive, and far more dangerous. On Wednesday George Osborne told the House of Commons "we will make sure we learn every lesson that needs to be learned – so that this [the financial crisis] never happens again". Two days before, his government demonstrated that nothing has been learned at all. Let me first explain the context.
Most people obtain shares or bonds or other securities in the hope that their value will rise. Short sellers hope their price will fall. They might borrow, for instance, 10,000 shares and sell them for £1 a piece. Then they pray that the value collapses. If they're in luck, and the share price halves, for instance, they can buy the same number as they sold for 50p each. They return the shares to the broker who lent them, and pocket £5,000 (minus fees).
It's a controversial practice. Some people say that it helps markets find the right price for their wares. Others maintain that it exacerbates risk, as the sellers are using assets they don't possess to take on potentially unlimited liabilities (while share prices can't fall below zero, there is no fixed limit to their increase in value). Short selling also creates an incentive to try to drive down the price of securities, amplifying or even creating economic crises. An example was the Asian financial crisis of 1997, triggered by a co-ordinated attack by short sellers on the Thai baht. It destituted tens of millions.
You don't like the idea? Then take a look at naked short selling. In this case sellers not only don't own the assets they're selling, they haven't even borrowed them. They sell a promise of shares, hope the price falls, then try to obtain the shares they've sold. In the surreal traditions of modern finance they're effectively selling securities that don't yet exist (perhaps they should be called insecurities). Naked shorting may grant short sellers golden opportunities to wreck companies and economies, by flooding the market with low-cost ghosts.
Almost everyone condemns naked (also known as uncovered) short selling and wants it banned because of the huge risks it presents to the economy. It has been prohibited in the US, Japan, Hong Kong, Australia and Brazil: none of which are renowned for draconian regulation. The European parliament has drafted a directive to bring it to an end within the EU. I did say almost everyone, didn't I? There's one group frantically seeking to protect naked shorting and strangle the directive: the British Treasury, and Conservative MEPs acting on its instructions.
At a committee meeting in the European parliament last week, Tory MEP Syed Kamall inveighed against the ban. When I asked him how he justified this position, he claimed that ending naked short selling "will reduce liquidity, meaning that borrowers will insist on higher returns, pushing up the cost of borrowing. This will lead to governments spending more money on servicing debt and less on state-provided public services." This, as far as I can determine, is rubbish: perhaps the polar opposite of the truth......"
Prime minister lands in Cairo and becomes first leader to visit Egypt since ousting of Hosni Mubarak as president
* Nicholas Watt in Cairo
* guardian.co.uk, Monday 21 February 2011 12.06 GMT
David Cameron has flown into Cairo amid tight security, becoming the first world leader to visit Egypt since Hosni Mubarak was ousted as president in the revolution 10 days ago.
A news blackout was lifted as the prime minister landed in the Egyptian capital for a five-hour stopover that was hastily added to the start of a planned tour of the Middle East.
Cameron arrived as the second month of protests across the Arab world continued. Violence has intensified in neighbouring Libya, with the loss of hundreds of lives.
The protests began in Tunisia, Libya's neighbour to the west, in January.
The prime minister – who made clear soon after arriving in Downing Street last year that promoting British trade [new deals for arms!- Costick67] should be a top foreign policy priority – will attempt to show that he is in tune with the new times.
