"Of everything he did as Chancellor, internationally, this stupidity is what he’ll be most remembered for. "
Yet across Liberal media channels - The BBC and Guardian to the fore - Brown's many supporters will stoutly insist that Gordon is best remembered as the man who "Saved" the Global banking system from total annihilation in the 2008/10 crash.
It happened on his watch and, whilst there may be an argument that Brown's profligacy in office didn’t entirely cause the rain, there is no getting away from the fact that he'd sold the nation’s umbrella by the time it hit.
Thanks Dom. There are never any repercussions for these politicians who waste the taxpayers money. Subsidies to the Wind Farmers, allowing illegal immigrants to stay in nice hotels etc. etc. but going against the BofE's advice does seem very 'iffy'
Definitely a conspiracy to defraud the UK population, he ignored the advice of the Bank of England and the experts, forced the price down to a low and those in the know bought at the very bottom and made a fortune.
Also if gold was sold because its price was volatile then deosn't that mean the price could shoot up and it should be slowly fed into the market over decades if we were to plan to sell it? Then there is the history of fiat currencies collapsing. Doesn't add up.
Broon’s clumsiness illustrates well that there should be mandatory tests of eligibility for people who wish to represent us politically. Just the basic stuff: intellectual capacity, mental stability, integrity, wisdom, humility, courage, experience etc. In their absence we’ve had a long, long succession of lightweight chancers whose main talent is Machiavellian chicanery. It’s not just Broon.
The other side to this story is the ideological reason Brown 'hated' gold. He believed it sat there doing nothing, whereas he believed a better option would be to have the money tied up in gold 'working' by earning interest of some sort. To calculate the real effect of his blunder, one has to offset that against the potential loss of selling when he did.
Just looked up the stats on Wikipedia and it raised the question what happened to British gold reserves from 1958-1971. We went from 2495 tonnes to 690 in 13 years, which is a 72% drop.
Also there is this quote with regards to WW2 :
"Prior to Britain's declaration of war in September 1939 vast amounts of gold were being shipped across the Atlantic to the United States via Montreal, Quebec, Canada to pay for weapons. After France was invaded by Nazi Germany, fear of Britain also suffering the same fate led to most of the country's gold being relocated under a secret operation known as Operation Fish. In May 1940, under the order of the UK Government; 280 tonnes of the nation's gold was transported from the Bank of England in London up to Martins' Bank in Liverpool ready to be shipped to Canada."
We had to repay the Americans (who wanted to make sure we never became as powerful again), we had to rebuild and had a balance of trade issue. We couldn't produce enough to feed and house ourselves let alone export - We used the gold to do so.
“In front of 3 witnesses, Bank of England Governor Eddie George spoke to Nicholas J. Morrell (CEO of Lonmin Plc) after the Washington Agreement gold price explosion in Sept/Oct 1999. Mr. George said "We looked into the abyss if the gold price rose further.
A further rise would have taken down one or several trading houses, which might have taken down all the rest in their wake.
*************************
Therefore at any price, at any cost, the central banks had to quell the gold price, manage it.
************************
It was very difficult to get the gold price under control but we have now succeeded. The US Fed was very active in getting the gold price down. So was the U.K."
The equation of risk to price volatility seems to be a recurring theme of financial mistakes, whether in this case of Brown's dislike of gold, the obsessive use of VAR to assess bank balance sheets prior to the GFC and the deemed riskiness of equities for pension funds herded into LDI schemes. I suspect that actuaries have much to answer for when considering the current state of our financial economy.
I thought it was an open secret that broon sold the gold / depressed the price to bail out Goldman Sachs, who were 2 tonnes short, and facing insolvency. The depressed price allowed them to buy it back at a small profit and got them off the hook.
"Of everything he did as Chancellor, internationally, this stupidity is what he’ll be most remembered for. "
Yet across Liberal media channels - The BBC and Guardian to the fore - Brown's many supporters will stoutly insist that Gordon is best remembered as the man who "Saved" the Global banking system from total annihilation in the 2008/10 crash.
It happened on his watch and, whilst there may be an argument that Brown's profligacy in office didn’t entirely cause the rain, there is no getting away from the fact that he'd sold the nation’s umbrella by the time it hit.
Great comment.
Thanks Dom. There are never any repercussions for these politicians who waste the taxpayers money. Subsidies to the Wind Farmers, allowing illegal immigrants to stay in nice hotels etc. etc. but going against the BofE's advice does seem very 'iffy'
So frustrating!
Definitely a conspiracy to defraud the UK population, he ignored the advice of the Bank of England and the experts, forced the price down to a low and those in the know bought at the very bottom and made a fortune.
Also if gold was sold because its price was volatile then deosn't that mean the price could shoot up and it should be slowly fed into the market over decades if we were to plan to sell it? Then there is the history of fiat currencies collapsing. Doesn't add up.
It’s a credible explanation
Broon’s clumsiness illustrates well that there should be mandatory tests of eligibility for people who wish to represent us politically. Just the basic stuff: intellectual capacity, mental stability, integrity, wisdom, humility, courage, experience etc. In their absence we’ve had a long, long succession of lightweight chancers whose main talent is Machiavellian chicanery. It’s not just Broon.
Could start with a minimum age for MPs (35+) and requirement to have worked in the private sector for at least two years.
Raise that to 5
Amen
Gordon Browns Prudence.
If that was Gordon being prudent I'd hate to see him being reckless
Haha
The other side to this story is the ideological reason Brown 'hated' gold. He believed it sat there doing nothing, whereas he believed a better option would be to have the money tied up in gold 'working' by earning interest of some sort. To calculate the real effect of his blunder, one has to offset that against the potential loss of selling when he did.
Yes
Just looked up the stats on Wikipedia and it raised the question what happened to British gold reserves from 1958-1971. We went from 2495 tonnes to 690 in 13 years, which is a 72% drop.
Also there is this quote with regards to WW2 :
"Prior to Britain's declaration of war in September 1939 vast amounts of gold were being shipped across the Atlantic to the United States via Montreal, Quebec, Canada to pay for weapons. After France was invaded by Nazi Germany, fear of Britain also suffering the same fate led to most of the country's gold being relocated under a secret operation known as Operation Fish. In May 1940, under the order of the UK Government; 280 tonnes of the nation's gold was transported from the Bank of England in London up to Martins' Bank in Liverpool ready to be shipped to Canada."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_reserves_of_the_United_Kingdom
Yes I think a lot of it was used to pay of war debts
We had to repay the Americans (who wanted to make sure we never became as powerful again), we had to rebuild and had a balance of trade issue. We couldn't produce enough to feed and house ourselves let alone export - We used the gold to do so.
The Martins Bank story is fascinating. Also it’s located right next to Churchills wartime Atlantic front headquarters. Probably coincidence……
Labour have never been good with money. You couldn't trust them to run a sweet shop, let alone the economy !
“In front of 3 witnesses, Bank of England Governor Eddie George spoke to Nicholas J. Morrell (CEO of Lonmin Plc) after the Washington Agreement gold price explosion in Sept/Oct 1999. Mr. George said "We looked into the abyss if the gold price rose further.
A further rise would have taken down one or several trading houses, which might have taken down all the rest in their wake.
*************************
Therefore at any price, at any cost, the central banks had to quell the gold price, manage it.
************************
It was very difficult to get the gold price under control but we have now succeeded. The US Fed was very active in getting the gold price down. So was the U.K."
https://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/2010/03/browns-bottom-is-enormous-issue-in-uk.html?m=1
Thank you. Very useful
The equation of risk to price volatility seems to be a recurring theme of financial mistakes, whether in this case of Brown's dislike of gold, the obsessive use of VAR to assess bank balance sheets prior to the GFC and the deemed riskiness of equities for pension funds herded into LDI schemes. I suspect that actuaries have much to answer for when considering the current state of our financial economy.
You bet they do
Niall Ferguson wrong on everything.
Hahaha
And these people were amongst the first to pile into Liz Truss, not that I necessarily defend the way she went about things
Yup
I thought it was an open secret that broon sold the gold / depressed the price to bail out Goldman Sachs, who were 2 tonnes short, and facing insolvency. The depressed price allowed them to buy it back at a small profit and got them off the hook.
That’s one of the interpretations for sure
As far as I know, PJ Harvey’s song The Last Living Rose is the only one to reference this event. Qm
I didn't know that. It might be that Gordon is a Moron was also written with this in mind
It would be nice to have a chart of gold prices with major impacts also on the chart.
This bit of history is fascinating (thanks for the lesson, by the way.)
When I look at historical gold prices, without the historical context, it looks like chaos. Risky investment.
But learning the context, makes it all make sense.