Politics Today

[Hermann]

Edit: Browns gold sale is amongst the worst financial decisions any British government has ever made. In my humble.

In hindsight it was a poor decision. At the time it was a pretty reasonable one to make, and would have paid off were it not for the financial crash. Gold is a poor investment when times are good.

 

[Alistair20000]

In hindsight it was a poor decision. At the time it was a pretty reasonable one to make, and would have paid off were it not for the financial crash. Gold is a poor investment when times are good.

Not only hindsight. Plenty saw it as a crap financial decision at the time. Here is just one bit of commentary

It was called one of the worst investment decisions of all time.
Twenty years ago on Tuesday, then Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown said he was selling tonnes of Britain's gold reserves. Trouble was, his timing could barely have been worse.
"It was the bottom of gold's two-decade bear market," says Adrian Ash, director of research at investment firm BullionVault.
Hindsight may be a wonderful thing, but Mr Ash points out there were plenty of people warning against the move at the time - including at the Bank of England.
Between 1999 and 2002 the Treasury sold 401 tonnes of gold - out of its 715-tonne holding - at an average price of $275 an ounce, generating about $3.5bn during the period.
Mr Ash says the average price since the sales ended has been almost $1,000. In 2011 the price reached more than $1,900 an ounce, and on Monday stood at about $1,279.

 

[Grecian2K]

It may have been Brown that sold off the gold but it was Thatcher who virtually gave away much of the "family silver" back in the 80s (electricity, gas, water, telecoms etc)

 

[Alistair20000]

It may have been Brown that sold off the gold but it was Thatcher who virtually gave away much of the "family silver" back in the 80s (electricity, gas, water, telecoms etc)

Did you not cash in on the share offerings Sid ?

 

[Grecian2K]

Why would I buy what was already mine by right?
(Although, at least I didn't quickly churn my interests in these newly constructed "private monopolies" onto the predatory (often foreign) spivs and speculators who were lurking in the wings)
The great and prescient Mr Gabriel got it spot on a decade earlier - Selling England By The Pound.

 

[Hermann]

Best thing he's done since becoming PM

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1420384701257330689

 

[Hermann]

Not only hindsight. Plenty saw it as a crap financial decision at the time. Here is just one bit of commentary

It was called one of the worst investment decisions of all time.
Twenty years ago on Tuesday, then Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown said he was selling tonnes of Britain's gold reserves. Trouble was, his timing could barely have been worse.
"It was the bottom of gold's two-decade bear market," says Adrian Ash, director of research at investment firm BullionVault.
Hindsight may be a wonderful thing, but Mr Ash points out there were plenty of people warning against the move at the time - including at the Bank of England.
Between 1999 and 2002 the Treasury sold 401 tonnes of gold - out of its 715-tonne holding - at an average price of $275 an ounce, generating about $3.5bn during the period.
Mr Ash says the average price since the sales ended has been almost $1,000. In 2011 the price reached more than $1,900 an ounce, and on Monday stood at about $1,279.

And you'll find plenty of places saying how it was not necessarily a bad decision at the time. Point is, it wasn't as obviously a bad idea as everyone likes to make it out to be.

Granted it was badly done. Selling it over the course of 2 years flooded the market and caused the price to drop with every sale. The timing also looks worse owing to the introduction of the Washington Agreement on Gold, which limited the amount that could be traded and therefore precipitated a rise in prices.

Bottom line is, the volatile gold market cannot cope with that volume being traded in a short time period. Which begs the question of what the point of holding on to gold reserves is. In the long run, I think we're probably better off with a more diverse investment portfolio. Rather than a huge load of gold that you can't easily do much with.

 

[Hermann]

In other good news, the RNLI has seen a 2000% increase in donations since Farage's input. So he's not all bad.

 

[angelic upstart]

And for the record, I thought the garden bridge was a worthy venture. Even if it cost £100mill, if it had proved a real success, the country would have got much more than £100 mill back from tourism in no time. That assumes it would've been better constructed than the current Hyde Park hill shambles, lol. It was a real shame the bridge got axed.

Hyde park hill is a massive shambles. Something almost all right thinking people

And for the record, I thought the garden bridge was a worthy venture. Even if it cost £100mill, if it had proved a real success, the country would have got much more than £100 mill back from tourism in no time. That assumes it would've been better constructed than the current Hyde Park hill shambles, lol. It was a real shame the bridge got axed.

That hill is useless. Anyone can see that. But two million quid for some scaffolding at best part of a fiver a pop it'll be making money in no time.
I'm not convinced the bridge would have.
Anyway, I'm digressing. My point is you can't get occasionally annoyed at government wastage and then vote either of the two parties that actively promote it. Use your vote wisely.

I appreciate you're more likely than most to do this anyway Mr J and all the power to you for doing it.

 

[Mr Jinx]

Hyde park hill is a massive shambles. Something almost all right thinking people

The thinking behind it is that anything is better than the masses of tents with Romanian families living in them that was always there on that roundabout.