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Wednesday, 14 May 2008 |
Dear Sir,
Your reader Stan Bissinger hit the nail on the
head: I am sure there were many who nodded
vigorously. Why has the pound sterling
depreciated so alarmingly? With due respect
to Mr Blevins, he was not inclined to offer an
answer. I have been referring to past bank
statements. In April 2005, the pound was
worth €1.4332; in April 2006 it was €1.484, a
year on later it was €1.4526, and this month a
calamitous €1.2384. This is a drop of 17.28%
in just 12 months – not much by Zimbabwe
stardards but alarming nevertheless.
Why is the euro so strong when most of
the countries in Euroland have struggling
economies? After all, the EU has not had its
accounts signed off for the last 10 years. Is it
directly linked to the weakness of the dollar?
Or is it that vast quantities of chickens are
now coming home to roost after 10 years of
‘prudence’ by G Brown Esq? We hear that
the Public Sector Borrowing requirement for
2008 is anything between £46 billion and
£58 billion. Coupled with the collapse of
confidence in the banking system and a long
overdue property market crash, can we
expect it to get worse before it gets better?
Perhaps Mr Blevins would care to comment.
With regard to regular payment of
pensions into French bank accounts, we have
adopted the simple expedient of arranging for
our state pensions and other bits and pieces
of private and occupational annuities, alas,
not extensive, to be paid into our joint UK
bank account. Every two months, a fixed
sum is transferred into our French bank
account. The cost is £20 per transaction and
13.67% at this end. QED. What is
the problem?
Julian Roberts, Aquitaine
Please see Bill Blevins’ reply in his article on
page 11 – Ed
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