Ever since the beginning of the credit crunch, I have found that in financial programmes on television, somebody stands up and demonstrates that the markets are buoyant and suggests that things are better than quoted. A day or so later a government spokesman tells us that in fact the crunch is going to last couple of years longer than originally prognosticated. I remember in the past, when a mid-European, with vast sums of money at his disposal was trading in currency, and managed to ruin the economy of some small countries. We were told that the crunch was as a result of people trading in our country with our money and getting it wrong, so, obviously, somebody or some people elsewhere have our money tucked away. What worries me is that history can repeat itself, because as far as I understand the banks are still trading in currency. I always believed that currency was merely a tool to enable transactions to take place smoothly and with security, not a commodity. Shares are a different thing, in so much as the companies involved require them, to be able to obtain money with the promise of profit, at a time when they want to open up, or expand. It seems that this is no longer the case because the element of security in the value of the currency, as we have seen in this country, cannot be relied upon because of currency trading, with the result that purchases like pensions, shares and anything else you like to imagine are at risk, and as is happening today, being curtailed, or used for other purposes, and those who have contributed are the losers.
I am under the impression that currency trading is still taking place, and the only reason for this is that some people in the financial sector are playing Monopoly for their own aggrandisement. It seems to me that for some reason the Banks are inviolate, seeming still to be able to make their own rules without curb or redress, which in the light of recent history would seem to be a nonsense.