Rating the soundess of banks (and banking regulation)

Perhaps one of our resident experts (WhiteDesire's name springs to mind) can dredge up the Tables themselves, but Australia's Prime Minister, Saint Kevin Goody Two Shoes, has today been broadcasting the news that Australia's near the top of the pecking order (4th) with the US at 40 and the UK at 44 in international comparisons about the "soundness" of the banking industry. I'm sure Chao Na will be rushing off to find out why Thailand rates where it does (I have no idea what that is, by the way)

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/rud ... 18164.html (http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/rudds-good-and-bad-news/2008/10/09/1223145518164.html)

... there is always a bad apple amongst them. I bet Australia's lending and borrowing techniques are fundamentally the same as in Europe.

Thailand: 75th

As the UK went from 5th to 44th, in one move, it begs the question of just how much credibility can be given to the rankings - logic would indicate that either one grading or the other is/was incorrect.

I finally found the list buried in the World Economic Forum's "Global Competitiveness Report"

As GF pointed out; Thailand #75

Here's a link to the report that will hopefully work:
Global Competitiveness Report (http://www.weforum.org/documents/gcr0809/index.html)

Look in the Data Tables, section VIII-Financial Market Sophistication. The "Soundness of Banks" is one of the components of this section.
Note the overall rankings in the section:
#3 US
#7 Australia
#9 UK
#37 Thailand

In the final overall rankings of competitiveness:
#1 US
#10 Canada
#12 UK
#18 Australia
#34 Thailand

Look in the Data Tables, section VIII-Financial Market Sophistication. The "Soundness of Banks" is one of the components of this section.
Note the overall rankings in the section:
#3 US
#7 Australia
#9 UK
#37 ThailandAs you'd expect from a politician, presumably Australia ranks #3 in one of the Tables, which is the one he's chosen to quote

Now if the UK is so competitive, how come we have been running a massive trade deficit for so long?
That can only last until we have no more assets to sell & people are no longer prepared to lend us money. Then the pound will fall.

Now if the UK is so competitive... You're missing the point of the Tables. The competitiveness is between the banks - how much choice does a consumer have in choosing where to bank. Nothing more

[Lunchtime O'Booze]

I see that the Aussie banks are well up their in soundness and they certainly would be as they appear to make billions in profit every year.

But what does that mean to the average punter ?..I also see that in terms of debt , the most indebted people on a person level are in this order

1. USA
2 UK
3 Australia
4 the rest of Europe but by comparison, nothing like the above three.

and so on. However these 3 are unique in that people's personal debt is in the trillions in each country and far outweighs their capacity to pay that debt should the (official) depression come. Most of it being credit card debt it indicates nations living well beyond their means..although in the USA it is actually at catostrophic levels because of US wages plummeting in value under..whatisname ?..oh yes-George W.Bush. So the Yanks have been topping up their wages with credit by paying for utilities and necessities with money they don't have..the other 2 countries have been on an orgy of spending because they were convinced by governments that the good times would roll forever...with not one taking note of the intelligent Russian agent and former UK PM Harold Wilson when he said "7 days is a long time in politics" which applies to everything else as well.

Look forward to the coming tsunami of collapsing credit card companies ( which will bring down Richard Branson as well along with his airline)

the party has just begun. ( and learn to speak Russian..the new masters of the Universe)

Look forward to the coming tsunami of collapsing credit card companies And how the hell do you think I'm going to be able to pay for one of your gargantuan lunches next time? My outstanding credit card debt in thousands of pounds is larger than your girth in millimetres

[topjohn5]

I see that the Aussie banks are well up their in soundness and they certainly would be as they appear to make billions in profit every year.

But what does that mean to the average punter ?..I also see that in terms of debt , the most indebted people on a person level are in this order

1. USA
2 UK
3 Australia
4 the rest of Europe but by comparison, nothing like the above three.

and so on. However these 3 are unique in that people's personal debt is in the trillions in each country and far outweighs their capacity to pay that debt should the (official) depression come. Most of it being credit card debt it indicates nations living well beyond their means..although in the USA it is actually at catostrophic levels because of US wages plummeting in value under..whatisname ?..oh yes-George W.Bush. So the Yanks have been topping up their wages with credit by paying for utilities and necessities with money they don't have..the other 2 countries have been on an orgy of spending because they were convinced by governments that the good times would roll forever...with not one taking note of the intelligent Russian agent and former UK PM Harold Wilson when he said "7 days is a long time in politics" which applies to everything else as well.

Look forward to the coming tsunami of collapsing credit card companies ( which will bring down Richard Branson as well along with his airline)

the party has just begun. ( and learn to speak Russian..the new masters of the Universe)

I'm not so sure a commodity based economy like Russia will be very well off in a colapse like this......

[Lunchtime O'Booze]

let me explain topjohn5 as someone with a lifetime interest in Russia having had a completey and utterly insane Russian grandmother.

Russia now has a complete supply of oil and gas reserves that make the country self sufficient and able to sell excess oil. This factor that has helped Russia to avoid problems that the West is incurring is the very fact that the majorityof Russians are relatively poor. In other words-they haven't had the opportunity to run up credit card debt.

And as I explained ( being someone who is never ever wrong) this leaves the Russian population-although not terribly wealthy-also not debt riden, as the citizens of the USA, UK, Australia, probably New Zealand and Germany, all-totally up to their eyeballs in credit card debt that they cannot repay.

In other words-Russians have had decades of living within their means. Despite the new wealthy middle class who are a different matter but not the majority, the vast population of Russia saves their pennies and then spend them on what it is they want-hopefully a holiday in Pattaya.

Thus-they are preserved from the coming tsunami of credit card debt that is going to make the Wall Street bankers and stock market fiasco look like a picnic.

You heard it here first.

(this is also why it is an abomination that Homitern shoud be the winner of a rigged poll when I am certainly far more intelligent, wordly and do lunch far more than he does)

(this is also why it is an abomination that Homitern shoud be the winner of a rigged poll when I am certainly far more intelligent, wordly and do lunch far more than he does)No-one likes a sore loser, Doris