| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Time to raise interest rates? | |
| Posted by: | Tom Pike | |
| Date/Time: | 25/03/09 22:24:00 |
| Elliott, "My comment was specifically to do with countries whose regulation have avoided the significant exposure to "sub prime". Contagion is totally different." The US had four times the proportion of UK subprime, 20% compared to less than 5% in the UK. Mortgage defaults in the UK are a tiny fraction of those in the US. By your definition it looks much like contagion, though the UK was certainly not in a good state to withstand infection. "Are you suggesting that they were not aware of what was going on?" Absolutely. Brown will forever be haunted by the fact that he trusted self regulation. If he had realised what was going on he would have done something much sooner. In fact some did see this coming - but you have to look outside Parliament. Larry Elliot and Dan Atkinson were spot on in their book "Fantasy Island." It's a shame Brown didn't read it and break with twenty years of consensus on "light-touch" regulation of the financial markets. |