Monday, November 03, 2008
Adam, Sir Fred and Andy’s Daft Plans to Turn Base Assets into Gold by David Lawrenson of LettingFocus.com
Have you ever seen the great Blackadder skit from Blackadder Two where Lord Blackadder is in a scrape and owes a stack of cash to the evil Bishop of Bath and Wells failing which he gets a red hot poker in the er, fundament.
Trouble is he has spent his cash on women & song. He’s also been forced to finance the Queen’s latest war against the Spanish.
So he needs cash fast.
So his sidekick, the incredibly dumb, naïve and daft upper class twit Lord Percy comes up with the immortal line “Fear not my Lord, because this very night I will find a way to turn base metal into gold”
This prompts Blackadder to caustically observe, “So, the fact that alchemy has eluded the greatest minds of all time doesn’t put you off does it, Percy.”
Undeterred, off goes Percy and next day excitedly rushes in to tell Blackadder that he had indeed, done it. ……Except, of course, he hasn’t
What he has discovered is a way to turn some old rubbish into what Blackadder describes as a “lump of green.”
This made me think of the day the former hapless bosses of 3 of Britain’s big banks – Andy Hornby, Fred Godwin and Adam Applegarth – must have met some corporate nonk from the capital markets division who had a similarly daft scheme to buy crap assets based on the US mortgage market, finance them “off balance sheet” and create financial “gold”
Except, what they had actually created was a modern day “lump of green”
What Blackadder said to Lord Percy on discovering his lump of green still stands today and can be applied to these bank bosses. He said, “You know what, Percy? You are a complete and utter prat.”
And on the subject of the banks, I see data from Moneyfacts now shows that the average residential tracker mortgage rate is now 6.27 per cent – this is higher than a year ago, despite all the base rate cuts we have seen.
Which goes to show how banks have found plenty of excuses not to pass on the benefit of lower borrowing costs to homebuyers.
I think we have had enough of this nonsense from the banks and I would like to see some more criticism of this in the press.
CURRYS WINS MY POOR SERVICE AWARD
I seem to be replacing a lot of white goods for my tenants right now so I have been out shopping on the net.
I have to say I did not think there could be a worse white goods provider than Whirlpool, but then I hadn’t tried Currys.
Until now, that is.
At Currys, products listed as available on their site, often aren’t.
They wont let you pre-order something that is not is stock – so they actively turning away business. And to top it all they can’t even take a note of your phone number to call you back when the product is back in stock.
No wonder their shares have crashed from 150p to about 25p in the last two years –which wouldn’t bother me except for the fact that my partner has a load of shares in parent group DSGI.
After a complaint letter to their top wonks (don’t bother with the customer service department) they sent me a voucher for £50.
But for now I’m sticking to my local independent shop for my new cooker. Which makes me feel good because I prefer not to give money to “the man” anyway.
Please add a comment to let us know of your worst customer service experiences from a big name company.
Finally, there is clearly a lot of interest in property scams right now. Just yesterday I met a TV Co Exec producer about doing a TV programme or series for a main terrestial channel. I’ll keep you posted.
Look out for my blog later this week on the Rugg report!
ABOUT LETTINGFOCUS.COM and DAVID LAWRENSON
I’m David Lawrenson of LettingFocus.com - the landlord experts.
I’m the author of “Successful Property Letting” which for the last 3 years has been the UK’s top selling property title - Buy Successful Property Letting - How to Make Money in Buy to Let.
The new edition is fully up to date with all the recent changes to tenancy deposit schemes, HMOs, licensing, capital gains taxes and it has new sections on sale and rent back.
I’m an expert freelance property journalist, property speaker and a well known buy to let blogger
I contribute to newspapers and a host of property websites, write a number of columns in the press and I provide general property education, training & advice for anyone looking to buy property for themselves or to let out.
In my work as a consultant I help private individuals with any aspect of buying property or buy to let. What’s unique about lettingfocus.com is that we are independent property mentors because unlike most people in the buy to let and property “advice” business we are not linked to a property company, developer, agent or bridging loan financier and do not receive commissions from any of these sources.
We simply give one to one unbiased advice and are often asked to evaluate other property investments.
In my corporate consulting role, I also advise banks, building societies, housing associations and web portals with their buy to let and property products and services.
You can read more of my blog & find details of my networking, advice and property training programme at my website.Copyright: David Lawrenson 2008. This blog is updated once a week.
WANT TO BE KEPT UPDATED WITH OUR LATEST BLOGS?
It’s easy.
Go to the bottom of this post, and click on “Link to this post”
Our home blog page should then open & you should then see my smiling face at the top. Then page all the way down and on the bottom right it will say “Site feed” - click there and away you go.
You then just copy the link that comes up into your News Reader or News Aggregator. Even a non techie like me managed to do all this.
Please note if you have a website & are thinking of reproducing material here - that’s fine but we DO require the full links shown in each blog to be included including also the links in the section “ABOUT LETTINGFOCUS.COM and DAVID LAWRENSON”
Please Contact Us button at our main site http://www.lettingfocus.com/ if you have any queries about this.
Trouble is he has spent his cash on women & song. He’s also been forced to finance the Queen’s latest war against the Spanish.
So he needs cash fast.
So his sidekick, the incredibly dumb, naïve and daft upper class twit Lord Percy comes up with the immortal line “Fear not my Lord, because this very night I will find a way to turn base metal into gold”
This prompts Blackadder to caustically observe, “So, the fact that alchemy has eluded the greatest minds of all time doesn’t put you off does it, Percy.”
Undeterred, off goes Percy and next day excitedly rushes in to tell Blackadder that he had indeed, done it. ……Except, of course, he hasn’t
What he has discovered is a way to turn some old rubbish into what Blackadder describes as a “lump of green.”
This made me think of the day the former hapless bosses of 3 of Britain’s big banks – Andy Hornby, Fred Godwin and Adam Applegarth – must have met some corporate nonk from the capital markets division who had a similarly daft scheme to buy crap assets based on the US mortgage market, finance them “off balance sheet” and create financial “gold”
Except, what they had actually created was a modern day “lump of green”
What Blackadder said to Lord Percy on discovering his lump of green still stands today and can be applied to these bank bosses. He said, “You know what, Percy? You are a complete and utter prat.”
And on the subject of the banks, I see data from Moneyfacts now shows that the average residential tracker mortgage rate is now 6.27 per cent – this is higher than a year ago, despite all the base rate cuts we have seen.
Which goes to show how banks have found plenty of excuses not to pass on the benefit of lower borrowing costs to homebuyers.
I think we have had enough of this nonsense from the banks and I would like to see some more criticism of this in the press.
CURRYS WINS MY POOR SERVICE AWARD
I seem to be replacing a lot of white goods for my tenants right now so I have been out shopping on the net.
I have to say I did not think there could be a worse white goods provider than Whirlpool, but then I hadn’t tried Currys.
Until now, that is.
At Currys, products listed as available on their site, often aren’t.
They wont let you pre-order something that is not is stock – so they actively turning away business. And to top it all they can’t even take a note of your phone number to call you back when the product is back in stock.
No wonder their shares have crashed from 150p to about 25p in the last two years –which wouldn’t bother me except for the fact that my partner has a load of shares in parent group DSGI.
After a complaint letter to their top wonks (don’t bother with the customer service department) they sent me a voucher for £50.
But for now I’m sticking to my local independent shop for my new cooker. Which makes me feel good because I prefer not to give money to “the man” anyway.
Please add a comment to let us know of your worst customer service experiences from a big name company.
Finally, there is clearly a lot of interest in property scams right now. Just yesterday I met a TV Co Exec producer about doing a TV programme or series for a main terrestial channel. I’ll keep you posted.
Look out for my blog later this week on the Rugg report!
ABOUT LETTINGFOCUS.COM and DAVID LAWRENSON
I’m David Lawrenson of LettingFocus.com - the landlord experts.
I’m the author of “Successful Property Letting” which for the last 3 years has been the UK’s top selling property title - Buy Successful Property Letting - How to Make Money in Buy to Let.
The new edition is fully up to date with all the recent changes to tenancy deposit schemes, HMOs, licensing, capital gains taxes and it has new sections on sale and rent back.
I’m an expert freelance property journalist, property speaker and a well known buy to let blogger
I contribute to newspapers and a host of property websites, write a number of columns in the press and I provide general property education, training & advice for anyone looking to buy property for themselves or to let out.
In my work as a consultant I help private individuals with any aspect of buying property or buy to let. What’s unique about lettingfocus.com is that we are independent property mentors because unlike most people in the buy to let and property “advice” business we are not linked to a property company, developer, agent or bridging loan financier and do not receive commissions from any of these sources.
We simply give one to one unbiased advice and are often asked to evaluate other property investments.
In my corporate consulting role, I also advise banks, building societies, housing associations and web portals with their buy to let and property products and services.
You can read more of my blog & find details of my networking, advice and property training programme at my website.Copyright: David Lawrenson 2008. This blog is updated once a week.
WANT TO BE KEPT UPDATED WITH OUR LATEST BLOGS?
It’s easy.
Go to the bottom of this post, and click on “Link to this post”
Our home blog page should then open & you should then see my smiling face at the top. Then page all the way down and on the bottom right it will say “Site feed” - click there and away you go.
You then just copy the link that comes up into your News Reader or News Aggregator. Even a non techie like me managed to do all this.
Please note if you have a website & are thinking of reproducing material here - that’s fine but we DO require the full links shown in each blog to be included including also the links in the section “ABOUT LETTINGFOCUS.COM and DAVID LAWRENSON”
Please Contact Us button at our main site http://www.lettingfocus.com/ if you have any queries about this.
Labels: Currys, Fred Goodwin as Lord Percy, landlord coach, landlord information
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