Where has all the money Gone?
Where has all the money Gone?
Author
Discussion

SPPPISTON

Original Poster:

146 posts

222 months

Thursday 22nd January 2009
quotequote all
Every day we hear about all the money that has been lost by Banks etc.

Where is all this money, or was it all just an illusion in the 1st place?confused

crankedup

25,764 posts

272 months

Thursday 22nd January 2009
quotequote all
If you loan someone 500 quid and they purchase a car then it transpires they cannot pay you back your money you may say I will have the car instead. Except the car is only worth 50 pounds and you cannot sell it anyway. This theory applies to lots of other so called assets like houses. Everything then begins to get more complicated and I have'nt the time to type it all out.

BigLepton

5,042 posts

230 months

Thursday 22nd January 2009
quotequote all
Google 'liquidity ratio' wink

zadumbreion

1,049 posts

249 months

Thursday 22nd January 2009
quotequote all
I was wondering the same thing. Until a few months ago we kept hearing about how much profit the banks were making - billions per year - and then suddenly BANG. Now these profits were real money, I assume - not IOUs from other banks or other assets that might have been wildly optimistically valued.

Some will have gone out as dividends, and although it's tempting to think that it all went into the pockets of the mysterious and faceless "greedy bankers" I assume that declared profits are stated after deducting salaries / bonuses so that can't be relevant.

So I second the question - where did all the cash - the huge profits from all those earlier years - go?

MK4 Slowride

10,028 posts

237 months

Thursday 22nd January 2009
quotequote all
You've seen the flim Dumb & Dumber?

IOU's are as good as the real thing!

Silverbullet767

11,241 posts

235 months

Thursday 22nd January 2009
quotequote all
MK4 Slowride said:
You've seen the flim Dumb & Dumber?

IOU's are as good as the real thing!
That ones $235,000 for the ferrari, you might wanna hang on to that one....



Edited by Silverbullet767 on Thursday 22 January 19:24

MK4 Slowride

10,028 posts

237 months

Thursday 22nd January 2009
quotequote all
Silverbullet767 said:
MK4 Slowride said:
You've seen the flim Dumb & Dumber?

IOU's are as good as the real thing!
That ones $235,000 for the ferarri, you might wanna hang on to that one....

nono It was a Yellow Lambroghini Diablo SV they purchased not a Fenarwi.

HTH

MrV

2,748 posts

257 months

Thursday 22nd January 2009
quotequote all
crankedup said:
If you loan someone 500 quid and they purchase a car then it transpires they cannot pay you back your money you may say I will have the car instead. Except the car is only worth 50 pounds and you cannot sell it anyway. This theory applies to lots of other so called assets like houses. Everything then begins to get more complicated and I have'nt the time to type it all out.
But the £500 still has to be somewhere smile


So does it boil down to a few thousand people/companies having billions of pounds/dollars sitting in accounts somewhere ?

Silverbullet767

11,241 posts

235 months

Thursday 22nd January 2009
quotequote all
MK4 Slowride said:
Silverbullet767 said:
MK4 Slowride said:
You've seen the flim Dumb & Dumber?

IOU's are as good as the real thing!
That ones $235,000 for the ferarri, you might wanna hang on to that one....

nono It was a Yellow Lambroghini Diablo SV they purchased not a Fenarwi.

HTH
Someones watched dumb and dumber alot then!

Come to think of it I do remember the doors opening upwards and lots of bags falling out.

I stand corrected.

paperbag

G'kar

3,728 posts

215 months

Thursday 22nd January 2009
quotequote all
zadumbreion said:
I was wondering the same thing. Until a few months ago we kept hearing about how much profit the banks were making - billions per year - and then suddenly BANG. Now these profits were real money, I assume - not IOUs from other banks or other assets that might have been wildly optimistically valued.

Some will have gone out as dividends, and although it's tempting to think that it all went into the pockets of the mysterious and faceless "greedy bankers" I assume that declared profits are stated after deducting salaries / bonuses so that can't be relevant.

So I second the question - where did all the cash - the huge profits from all those earlier years - go?
Banks tend to lend it.

Not all of it comes back.

ATM

21,317 posts

248 months

Thursday 22nd January 2009
quotequote all
SPPPISTON said:
Every day we hear about all the money that has been lost by Banks etc.

Where is all this money, or was it all just an illusion in the 1st place?confused
An illusion is a good way of thinking about it.

Imagine we say our country is worth x million pounds. A lot of that might be based on property value. Now lets say property values half. Now you could argue that the country is now worth a lot less. The money has not gone anywhere because it was never really there.

sunbeam_alpine

7,244 posts

217 months

Thursday 22nd January 2009
quotequote all
I've checked, and I haven't got it.

Size Nine Elm

5,167 posts

313 months

Thursday 22nd January 2009
quotequote all
I've just had a look behind the cushions on the sofa, and just found £1.3 trillion! Has anyone lost it?

AJS-

15,366 posts

265 months

Thursday 22nd January 2009
quotequote all
I've got it all.

anonymous-user

83 months

Thursday 22nd January 2009
quotequote all
AJS- said:
I've got it all.
Nah, I've just checked my wallet and I've definitely got some of it

AJS-

15,366 posts

265 months

Thursday 22nd January 2009
quotequote all
Symbolica said:
AJS- said:
I've got it all.
Nah, I've just checked my wallet and I've definitely got some of it
Give it back!

Captain Cadillac

2,974 posts

216 months

Thursday 22nd January 2009
quotequote all
Size Nine Elm said:
I've just had a look behind the cushions on the sofa, and just found £1.3 trillion! Has anyone lost it?
I did! Did some foul scotsman put it there?

FourWheelDrift

92,239 posts

313 months

Thursday 22nd January 2009
quotequote all
Size Nine Elm said:
I've just had a look behind the cushions on the sofa, and just found £1.3 trillion! Has anyone lost it?
Yes and I can prove it's mine, there's a picture of the Queen on the front.

AJS-

15,366 posts

265 months

Thursday 22nd January 2009
quotequote all
Imagine if you checked your balance and found 1.3 trillion pounds in your bank account? No explanation, it just turned up there.

What the hell would you do? How would you explain it? How would you spend it without people figuring out that you were the unwitting beneficiary of the global financial crisis, and you had no idea how?


Size Nine Elm

5,167 posts

313 months

Thursday 22nd January 2009
quotequote all
FourWheelDrift said:
Size Nine Elm said:
I've just had a look behind the cushions on the sofa, and just found £1.3 trillion! Has anyone lost it?
Yes and I can prove it's mine, there's a picture of the Queen on the front.
That proves its not you!

It's in Scottish notes... (and its a very big sofa).