Community

What was she thinking!   What kind of legit expenses total up to £2.5m.  It doesn't sound like a very sophisticated fraud, just brazen claiming and poor accountability?

Why, when it was so easy for countries to join the Euro, is it somehow impossible for them to now leave without all the hohah.  It represents a failure, a bankruptcy, walking away from debts which the Eurozone have to write off, and starting again with severe difficulting in transacting business outside Greece as a result.  Its like a family handing in the house keys to the bank because they cannot afford the mortgage any longer and there's no bank of mum and dad to help.

As with everywhere else, there is plenty of money tied up in Greece, and plenty owned by Greeks in US bonds or whatever, and they will have to run away or bring it back into the new currency.  And still the average Greek will suffer, prompting a 3rd world and civil order catastrophe which Euro countries will have to help with like a Social Services handout.

The money in Greece got sucked up like a sponge, but spent. Spent paying loans and buying goods.  Buying goods probably mostly from Euro-producers, in Euros, so the money floats around the monetary system and ultimately may have to be used by the richer countries to prop up the deficit Greece has. Like in life, when you spend more than you earn, its miserable, especially when you seen no immediate prospect to earn more and balance the books, and when the 'state' stops helping you out, you sell up what you have and start again.  You'll still need handouts, but at least your costs will be cut.

Nice info.

Continental footballers seems to relish the play-acting to 'win' penalties and red cards from the opposition - its endemic, and I think the Chinese culture-of-copy is the same.  Add to that the regime there, always manoevering to keep control and fiercely competitive with the West and they will use all means possible to get information (remember, China does not have the powerhouse of education and thinktanks and R&D that the West has, but they have smart people that want acess to it).  Its always been this way between people, its just that here we suspect  coordination by the government, which in China claims to be the people.  In short - it wont stop, ever, whoever is doing it.

Who knows what backdoor code and trojans exist in Chinese and many other software products.  Laying there latent until triggered by time or event.  Never detected during testing.  Buried in the compiled core and not open to inspection.   But when cost comes first, procurement don't seem to value the element of trustability.

As they say, no such thing as bad publicity?

Surely those additional costs are relatively incidental and more than covered by the increased margins now seen on mortgage rates?  Previously lending margins were tiny and now are very healthy indeed. 

I am not in the business, so I really don't know it, but it seems that mortgages now show be very lucrative for bank lenders if only they can find customers that meet the new lending criteria.  I am also a sceptic that the sub-prime mortgage sector 'caused' the entire collapse.  I don't believe that's where the biggest holes where ('leveraged' investments made with invisible funds which when unravelled and the investments went south could not be repaid up the chain, i.e. plain smoke and mirror fraud).  And those costs are still being passed on to the man in the street because its not possible to recoup from those that took the historical 'profits' out (i.e. when the previous bank gambling paid off, they took the 'profits' paid all the fees and agents along the way and the bonuses too, and went back for more).  The man in the street benefited only by being goaded with cheaper lending in order for banks to keep increasing their leveraging capability.

But I digress!  Reducing the 'default' period is supposed to stop banks getting in trouble with its residential mortgage lending, but I never believed that to be the main problem in the first place, as above.

Ketharamen - users really are switching to local SIMs because of the EXHORBITANT roaming costs charged by operators; this truly is a flawed system, broken by the mobile operators themselves.  And the regulators who refuse to force them to get realistic about inter-network termination charges.  Its nearly as rigid as banking.

Yet another 'stick my credit card to a mobile' scheme.  We need proper mWallets, digital cash and virtual cards.

lol Funny.  #7 might happen in about 50 years!  Seriously I want NFC to work now, but it will take while yet and cash will be king for a bit longer.

Agreed, but you would do those things if you stood to be able to collect some points, redeem some coupons etc in the same tap.  That's why NFC is about more than the payment itself, but the bigger picture of the customer and the merchant experience.

How many times have we waited behind someone paying with cash (say) who then spends 30seconds looking for his loyalty card to be stamped.

I think they need to accept that snail mail will continue to reduce, and focus their attentions on getting more of the many, many other things they can take on instead.  They are much better 'positioned' than the banks (PO in many high st's), and have the potential via connectivity, to perform many more of the types of transactions that the banks do, if only the banking regulators would let them compete.  Unfortunately, the Bankers behind the banking regulators don't seem to want this competition and would rather see the PO reduced to rubble.

Popping in to a PO to get something done is a lot easier than trying to get to a Bank branch to do the same.  Vote with your feet!