How Exposed are We to a Greek Default?

I've only got time for a quick note, but here's a conundrum:

The BBC keep reiterating that our exposure to a Greek default would be in the region of £9Bn. Which is true, if you only count the money we've guaranteed as part of the bailout plan.

Channel 4 have it a bit more accurately. They mention a figure of £366Bn which includes not just the bailout cash, but also the liabilities of our banks by way of loans and credit default swaps. Yes our old friends credit default swaps rear their ugly heads again. They were one of the prime movers in the crash of 2008. They are a sort of insurance against default on a loan and the city of London bought into them big time. Hence the big exposure to a Greek default. If they do default, the city investors will lose billions.

Just how big is £366Bn? Its around a quarter of our GDP: a not insignificant number.

Anyone want to dig out our true exposure to a Portuguese and Irish default? I bet its a huge chunk of GDP.

If all of that falls, we're toast. If Greece fails, we catch a huge cold. So commentators may glibly say let Greece default, but the engine of the economy will falter substantially as a result.

Its interesting to note the difference in figures between the BBC and Channel 4 though. Maybe the BBC needs to stop being a youth employment scheme and get some decent journalists on the ranks that can actually do some journalism.

Lives Wasted for Political Expediency

This report makes my blood boil.

The US are talking to the Taliban about a political solution to the Afghanistan conflict, while at the same time those same Taliban are killing our servicemen and women.

Just why have we put our service personnel in harm's way? Why have over 300 of those personnel lost their lives? What was so important that needed such loss of life that suddenly becomes so unimportant it can now be negotiated away?

If ever there was a definition of a wrong war, this must be it: all along, from the first boots hitting the ground, to now peace negotiations, it has been a war of political expediency. Those in government here and across the Atlantic must be held to account for the hundreds of service personnel's lives that have essentially been wasted to prove a political point. Those same politicians should especially be judged for the crimes against the thousands of Afghan civilians that have been killed during this senseless conflict.

Yet Another About-Turn from the Coalition.

It turns out the rhetoric about enforcing weekly bin collections was just that: another "aspirational" speech from the coalition meant to grab headlines without any legal means of backing it up. People voted in a new set of people, but got the same sound-bite politicians, the same empty rhetoric that we got with the previous lot.

So now after the other half-dozen similar examples, its clear now that this is deliberate policy. The coalition will announce anything and everything they think will win them popularity. This is the basest of the base: politics with no substance, a deliberate policy to deceive the public.

How dare our politicians play us like this? Quite frankly they can because the majority of people don't care about politics, don't care that they basically lie to us.

This country deserves the liars, cheats and swindlers it currently has in office, because that's who you get if the majority of people don't care who holds the power.