All talk and no action?

The G20 Pittsburgh summit winds up and it is a struggle to work out exactly what the point of such a meeting is... Over the last few years, the G7 grew through G8 and ended up as the G20. The truth is we are now looking at something like the 'G20 and friends', nobody is counting any more. The talking shop is now even bigger on talking, and naturally, with so many more points of view, decisions are harder to come by.
Imagine an ever-growing jury which must deliver a unanimous verdict. You may get a verdict from twelve good men, but twenty, twenty three?, twenty four??
So what has been achieved in Pittsburgh? Plenty of talk about reining-in the banking community, plenty of resoultions to 'do something about it', nothing in terms of concrete limitations forthcoming.
In the meantime, jobless figures continue to rise, bankers seem set on fleecing the markets again and the environment, arguably a far more important issue, remains the time-bomb that no-one wants to de-fuse.

Steady as she goes

The Bank of England has held base interest rates at 0.5%, the lowest rate it has ever had for the sixth consecutive month. There are also no further plans to develop the quantitative easing program despite Mervyn King's desire to pump more money into the economy.
Despite hope of a recovering economy, it would certainly be too soon to take any steps in the assumption that the market is robust. My feeling is that the financial houses see the wider economy and the stock market as being the same thing... As long as markets are buoyant they are happy regardless of the effects on the population. The truth remains that a lot of people have lost a lot of money, a lot of people have lost their jobs and this is not a pendulum swing that can swing the other way overnight. It takes a lot longer to establish a business than it does to close one down!

Personal money troubles

There are two main aims of this blog, one is to report on the global economic crisis, the other is to talk about personal debts with emphasis on using 0% credit cards to pay off debt.
I recently got very close to completely wiping out my own debt using 0% interest deals but have had a bit of a hiccup when I was within sight of my goal. I reverted to using my credit card safe in the knowledge that I would (soon) be able to clear my debts, but unfortunately have been adding to the balance at a greater rate than I am paying it off. I am resolved to be more disciplined before the onset of the expenses that will precede Christmas...
In the meantime I have been grappling with my household fuel provider (dual gas and electric) and began to think about how creeping household bills have helped to build up debt without many people even realising what is happening to their bank balance.
The scenario goes like this:
House fuel bills have been growing at an alarming rate and as most people pay these bills by Direct Debit, they have not really realised how much is leaching out of their bank accounts (recently my provider tried to increase my payments by 60%). The upshot of this is that a lot of people just accept their increased payments (or more likley don't even notice until it's too late). My own approach is to have all my outgoings in a spreadsheet which makes them easier to manage.
My questions to the householder who has just received a huge increase in their Direct Debit would go as follows:

• Have you had a corresponding rise in income? (I expect the answer to be NO)
• Have you adjusted your outgoings to allow for this extra expenditure? (In reality I would also expect this answer to be NO)

If the two questions above are answered in the negative, there could be a problem when it comes to reconciling income with expenditure, and the pressure valve in most cases is the good old credit card. I would realistically expect credit card spending to take the strain of the increase in household bills and this applies to food, insurance or any other expense that can creep up on you unexpectedly.
There are only two answers to the problem:

• Increase your income
• Cut your spending to allow for the increase

Otherwise you are heading towards debt that could take an awful long time to pay off.

Related posts:
the decline of my debt
where did it all go wrong?
how to get out of debt
Are we in too much debt?
credit card warnings

G20 prepares for recovery

The G20 leaders are acknowledging the changing state of the global economy, but are being urged to pursue a co-ordinated approach to the winding-down of the economic packages.
Ministers are being urged to continue with the stimulus packages that they are already committed to (a global total of US$5 trillion), but one of the sticking points has been the mechanism for accurately measuring the end to the crisis. It is proving difficult to get agreement on what parameters will be used to track the levelling out of the crisis.
Many promises have been made about requiring banks to behave more responsibly over pay, but the main emphasis now is focussed on how to prevent another crisis as opposed to previous meetings where the emphasis has been fire-fighting the crisis itself. Banks will be required to set aside more capital as a buffer against future hardships and they may face limits on speculative acquisitions defined by the value of their reserves.

Less than was absolutely desirable was agreed with regard to a G20 response to Global Warming because of deep divisions between developed and undeveloped nations. IMHO it is the developed nations that have to bite the bullet on this one seeing as they have created the best part of the problem in the first place.

Related posts:
Recovery or false dawn
IMF recognises recovery
Is the credit crunch over?