![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I really wish that John Reid could hear himself talking, sometimes. What is it about becoming Home Secretary that turns any politician into a raving fascist? OK, I'll accept that, ghastly though Reid is, he hasn't ballsed up the latest securioty operation to the extent that Charles Clarke would almost certainly have managed, but, well really. Yesterday we had Reid talking about "giving up individual freedoms for the sake of common security". This is to fight a "global threat" that is travelling "unseen in our midst". This is the kind of stuff people heard from Stalin and Hitler -- the need to give up individual freedoms in order to protect the state/our way of life (politicians see these two things as synonymous, although they are not). Now, I'm not likening this government to the Nazi or Stalinist regimes; what I am saying is that the arguments being put forward have no merit. Come up with decent arguments, and I will listen, but you can't go round destroying individual freedom in the name of protecting it.
And as for the talk of dummy Prescott, well, he's clearly being kept on as a joke poodle, or something.
++++++++++
Still, there's no need to worry, because house prices are picking up and the world's appetite for risk is actually increasing (although, from the statemetns of our government, you wouldn't think so). Bond yields have fallen back to the levels of April, the first world's equity markets are back to the levels of early May, and the gold price is more than 10% off its May peak. So, is the world a less risky place than it was in May? No, not really; it's just another case of the markets wending their own mysterious way.
+++++++++++
All the signs are pointing to a serious dollar decline heading up to November. The major influence will probably be political -- a split Presidency/Capitol Hill is likely to spook dollar bulls. The recent (slight) recovery in the dollar is actually bad news for the greenback, since most of it was generated by the unwinding of short positions. One would have expected a strong bounceback than has occurred.
I'm loath to back sterling at a rate of $1.90. Perhaps I'll take the yen rate of 115, which looks to have more upside to it. But I'd put the chance of a $2:£1 rate before the end of the year as high as 35% to 40%.
And as for the talk of dummy Prescott, well, he's clearly being kept on as a joke poodle, or something.
++++++++++
Still, there's no need to worry, because house prices are picking up and the world's appetite for risk is actually increasing (although, from the statemetns of our government, you wouldn't think so). Bond yields have fallen back to the levels of April, the first world's equity markets are back to the levels of early May, and the gold price is more than 10% off its May peak. So, is the world a less risky place than it was in May? No, not really; it's just another case of the markets wending their own mysterious way.
+++++++++++
All the signs are pointing to a serious dollar decline heading up to November. The major influence will probably be political -- a split Presidency/Capitol Hill is likely to spook dollar bulls. The recent (slight) recovery in the dollar is actually bad news for the greenback, since most of it was generated by the unwinding of short positions. One would have expected a strong bounceback than has occurred.
I'm loath to back sterling at a rate of $1.90. Perhaps I'll take the yen rate of 115, which looks to have more upside to it. But I'd put the chance of a $2:£1 rate before the end of the year as high as 35% to 40%.
