Fairline Boats purchased

[Cheery]

Anyway, back to customisation and flexibility of manufacturers. Jack Haines reviewed Galeon and didn't particularly like the fit out but said it was irrelevant as nearly everything could be changed. From 6 berth to 4 berth and different woods and fabrics. As for innovation, the dinette pivots and opens up the saloon. Whilst t it's only fitting options from a list as suggested ad nauseum above, they are showing flexibility.

http://www.mby.com/reviews/flybridges/galeon-420-fly-review

 

[JumbleDuck]

I thought the Scottish banks already printed their own Sterling notes?

They do, but they have to hold Bank of England notes or deposits to the face value of the notes they issue. Details at http://www.scotbanks.org.uk/media/sni_notes_factsheet_feb14.pdf

To avoid having vast stacks of English notes kept in vaults, the Bank of England issues a small number of £1m ("giants") and £100m (titans) notes for the Scottish and Ulster banks to use.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21145103

 

[Deleted User YDKXO]

We are drifting this thread horribly M but it feels like the MoBo forum used to feel in the old days before the Lounge when every thread about boats always headed off in a completely different direction! So for old times sake I have to answer this

First I don't think we should compare a bank bailout with the bail out of an industrial company. The latter is solely for the benefit of the employees and shareholders but the former is for all of us. When a bank goes bust, it not only affects the employees and shareholders but it affects everyone who has money deposited in that bank and everyone who has loans from that bank, including both individuals and companies. In the wider sense, bailing out a bank is also bailing out an economy because banks are so interconnected that when one goes bust the others probably follow. So a bank bailout is not for the benefit of the bankers at all (they are wealthy and will find other jobs) but for the benefit of ordinary people like us

Yes agreed, no Eurozone country can 'print' its own money which is one of the major flaws of the Eurozone in that individual countries are at the mercy of Germany and the ECB when they get into trouble. And yes I do blame individual Eurozone countries for that because they willingly chose to enter a currency zone which put them in this straitjacket whereas some countries chose not to do this. The upshot of this is that there is always the real possibility of a Eurozone country actually going bust and not being able to bail out its banking system, as Greece came close to doing. In contrast, a country outside the Eurozone like the UK in theory can never go bust because it can 'print' all the money it needs. Yes I know there are serious downsides to doing this

Anyway back to Fairline. Maybe you and I should be managing the company?

 

[DougH]

Anyway, back to customisation and flexibility of manufacturers. Jack Haines reviewed Galeon and didn't particularly like the fit out but said it was irrelevant as nearly everything could be changed. From 6 berth to 4 berth and different woods and fabrics. As for innovation, the dinette pivots and opens up the saloon. Whilst t it's only fitting options from a list as suggested ad nauseum above, they are showing flexibility.

http://www.mby.com/reviews/flybridges/galeon-420-fly-review

Do you know how many Galeon have sold in the UK and EU yet?

 

[Cheery]

No, a cursory search only returned their distributor, MGM boats, for UK. I am sure others with more nous than me can find that out. Perhaps MBY's Jack Haines could follow up the online report and the one in this months magazine with a few figures.

 

[MapisM]

Anyway back to Fairline. Maybe you and I should be managing the company?

LOL, thank you but no, thank you.
In the very first (industrial) corporation I worked for, freshly out of the uni, my boss used to say that the manager job is well paid because it's a sh!te one.
Now, with all due respect for many workers whose job is actually even worse/harder, I think he got it just about right.
So much so, that a quarter of a century later, as soon as I could give up, I did - and never looked back. :encouragement:

Agreed re. not drifting further, also because your point about blaming Eurozone Countries for having willingly subscribed to their destiny belongs to what I called another book, rather than to the debate on who gets the cigar for State aids and the likes, which was the original point.
But you'll forgive me for a last comment on this, since I only just noticed your previous post #151, where you said that the UK did not join the Euro because economic logic prevailed over national pride:
Do tell, if I say that in my perception economic logic was instead just used to justify a choice mostly driven by national pride, can you swear that I'm completely wrong?

 

[JumbleDuck]

So a bank bailout is not for the benefit of the bankers at all (they are wealthy and will find other jobs) but for the benefit of ordinary people like us.

Much of the benefits to people like us could have been achieved at much lower cost by protecting deposits but not attempting to save merchant banking operations - most of which had problems entirely because of their incompetence.

The American approach to Bear Stearns had a lot to commend it: the message that if you screw up you will be allowed to go bust does a lot more to encourage les autres than the Britsih message that no matter how badly you perform the taxpayers will be happy to help.

Dragging things back on topic, sort-of, nobody has suggested that Fairline should have been nationalised, or bailed out, or that money should be printed to allow Fairline boats to be bought, but all these have been acceptable responses to very much worse and more culpable failures in the financial sector.

 

[Deleted User YDKXO]

But you'll forgive me for a last comment on this, since I only just noticed your previous post #151, where you said that the UK did not join the Euro because economic logic prevailed over national pride:
Do tell, if I say that in my perception economic logic was instead just used to justify a choice mostly driven by national pride, can you swear that I'm completely wrong?

Yup you are wrong. Gordon Brown, the ex Labour govt chancellor may have been a socialist but he did have the good sense to come up with 5 economic tests that the UK had to pass before he would allow the UK to join the Euro http://econ.economicshelp.org/2007/03/gordon-browns-5-economic-test-for.html. Reading those tests now, it does strike me how wise he was to draw up these tests (difficult for me to say that about Gordon Brown) and its a shame that the likes of the Italian govt didn't apply these tests to their own economy at the time as well

 

[PowerYachtBlog]

Do you know how many Galeon have sold in the UK and EU yet?

Galeon sells about 50 - 100 boats a year. If they launch a smaller sub forty feet new model, the number is close to a 100, if the new model come above forty feet it is close to a fifty.
They also produce Galia, small boats under 25 feet mostly with outboards which produces about 200 boats a year.

At a certain point in between 2002 and 8, they where also being sub-contracted by the Beneteau Group for building moulding some of its hulls.

 

[Nigelpickin]

LOL, thank you but no, thank you.
In the very first (industrial) corporation I worked for, freshly out of the uni, my boss used to say that the manager job is well paid because it's a sh!te one.
Now, with all due respect for many workers whose job is actually even worse/harder, I think he got it just about right.
So much so, that a quarter of a century later, as soon as I could give up, I did - and never looked back. :encouragement:

Agreed re. not drifting further, also because your point about blaming Eurozone Countries for having willingly subscribed to their destiny belongs to what I called another book, rather than to the debate on who gets the cigar for State aids and the likes, which was the original point.
But you'll forgive me for a last comment on this, since I only just noticed your previous post #151, where you said that the UK did not join the Euro because economic logic prevailed over national pride:
Do tell, if I say that in my perception economic logic was instead just used to justify a choice mostly driven by national pride, can you swear that I'm completely wrong?

Completely wrong, we'd had our dalliance with the erm in the previous decade and the disasterous result was used as an argument against any further centralisation of our currency or fiscal control.
If anything the ideology from the left and liberal minds at the time would have had us in the Euro in the 90's but the stakes were too high for a labour govt to risk messing up our economy and GB was clever to defer to his tests. It was a win win and probably the best thing to come from his term as chancellor.

There was a very small contingent, right wing, (but not by your standards), which was getting very vocal about losing the queens head from our currency but not many in the uk were taking John Redwood and the like too seriously. So no not National Pride but a fear of a return to 17% interest rates.

IMHO

 

[NGM]

Anywhere in the world, by definition there's no such thing as a Country that needs a bailout for not being able to repay its own debts in its own currency.
The very simple reason being that any Country can print (if you forgive me the expression - I'm fully aware that it isn't technically correct, but I'm using it for sake of simplicity) as much as necessary of its own currency, and use it to repay its own debts.

Now, the Eurozone is the only exception on planet Earth where a Country can't print its own currency.
Because of this, whenever Angela eventually accepts to do that for Greece or whoever, we call it a bailout.
And on top of that, we are so brainwashed with such terminology that we think it's something different from what the central banks of any "normal" (meant as non-Eurozone) Country can do without any external approval.
But it isn't. Not one iota.
The only difference between a BoE quantitative easing and what you called ECB bailout of Eurozone Countries is the terminology, nothing else.


...

Not true, only countries with a credible Central Bank and fiscal policy can embark on QE without it ending in disaster. Those who don't get brutally punished by their currency, and hence end up with hyper inflation (history littered with examples). Greece would have been in this camp along with the other European countries that were close to the edge in 2011/12. Also most of the countries that have taken this route mainly have external debt and hence the process is pointless as their currency evaporates.

BoE QE and the Eurozone bailouts were completely different. BoE QE started in Mar 2009 (completely separate to the purchase of RBS/LLoyds) and was a further form of monetary easing by forcing longer term rates lower (policy rates already at the lower bound). Not at anytime was this a direct attempt to reduce the Sovereign debt which was being tackled by tighter fiscal policy (arguably ineffectively).

 

[petem]

Yup you are wrong. Gordon Brown, the ex Labour govt chancellor may have been a socialist but he did have the good sense to come up with 5 economic tests that the UK had to pass before he would allow the UK to join the Euro http://econ.economicshelp.org/2007/03/gordon-browns-5-economic-test-for.html. Reading those tests now, it does strike me how wise he was to draw up these tests (difficult for me to say that about Gordon Brown) and its a shame that the likes of the Italian govt didn't apply these tests to their own economy at the time as well

I was only a child but I do remember a huge amount of anti euro jingoism at the time. On that basis I wouldn't credit GB with any intelligence or forward thinking over his reluctance to join the euro. After all he was only following TB's popularist orders.

 

[Deleted User YDKXO]

I was only a child but I do remember a huge amount of anti euro jingoism at the time. On that basis I wouldn't credit GB with any intelligence or forward thinking over his reluctance to join the euro. After all he was only following TB's popularist orders.

Yeah right, a very tall old child. I remember it well. There was some anti Euro jingoism at a time but also many of the apparently wise talking heads were in favour of the UK joining the Euro and it would have been easy for Brown to have agreed, especially as many of those talking heads were in his own party. And yes, Blair was in favour of joining the Euro too. I don't want to heap too much praise on Brown because I rather suspect that he was doing the right thing for the wrong reasons. I think he feared that if the UK joined the Euro, he would have some of the levers of economic control prised away from his fingers but in a sense he would have been right on that score too as, of course, one of the many downsides of joining the Euro is that your economy is run from Brussels and Berlin

Whatever the reasons I think it safe to say that the UK dodged a mega sized bullet by not joining the Euro

 

[gjgm]

Much of the benefits to people like us could have been achieved at much lower cost by protecting deposits but not attempting to save merchant banking operations -

Not really.The American investment banks were just that..the issue in the UK was you couldn't separate the retail from the investment arm.As an example,despite pretty impressive efforts by RBS,they are still, years later and under state life support trying to tidy this up.
Don't forget there is no deposit pool magically secured away to bail out savers..the remaining banks have to bail out savers.OK, your friendly Chancellor guarantees that,but if there are no banks left, it's you and me paying.
Unless you arm twist another bank into picking up the mess and that hasn't worked too well.
I am sure three is plenty here to keep business school fees high for decades!

 

[wakeup]

Absolutely not. We're perfectly capable of screwing up our own industries, we don't need Johnny Foreigner's help. Thankfully we have the banking, finance and service industries to keep our country affluent.

LOL, the very funny Pete, you used the Dad's Army defence.

 

[petem]

I don't want to heap too much praise on Brown because I rather suspect that he was doing the right thing for the wrong reasons.

I'll settle for that!

 

[petem]

Not really.The American investment banks were just that..the issue in the UK was you couldn't separate the retail from the investment arm.As an example,despite pretty impressive efforts by RBS,they are still, years later and under state life support trying to tidy this up.
Don't forget there is no deposit pool magically secured away to bail out savers..the remaining banks have to bail out savers.OK, your friendly Chancellor guarantees that,but if there are no banks left, it's you and me paying.
Unless you arm twist another bank into picking up the mess and that hasn't worked too well.
I am sure three is plenty here to keep business school fees high for decades!

Well Lloyds and RBS would be back on their feet far quicker if the UK regulator had drawn a line under the PPI debacle sooner.

As for investment banking, doesn't that earn UK PLC a huge amount of money. Fortunately Osborne seems to have recognised this fact.

 

[gjgm]

Ah but then the new world order in UK is to separate investment arm.As. .or is that still on or off or hang on a minute..what do you mean you might bggr off?....!,,who the hell is left to pay the bills...

Private Eye stuff surely...

 

[JumbleDuck]

Don't forget there is no deposit pool magically secured away to bail out savers..the remaining banks have to bail out savers.OK, your friendly Chancellor guarantees that,but if there are no banks left, it's you and me paying.

Of course, but we paid through the nose anyway to save the jobs and bonuses of people who clearly were incompetent at their jobs.

As for investment banking, doesn't that earn UK PLC a huge amount of money. Fortunately Osborne seems to have recognised this fact.

It also costs the UK a huge amount of money, not only in the billions the bale-out cost but in the catastrophic effects it has on other sectors of the economy. It's a bit like celebrating the tax payments of the CEO on £10m per annum while ignoring the huge taxpayer subsidies to his employees on minimum wage.

 

[petem]

Anyhow, back to Fairline, I was pleased to see that FL will be exhibiting at the Poole Boat show and also appear to be at the BMYS. I'll need to call Richard Bates this week so I'll see if there's any news he can share with us.

Perhaps I'll get my factory visit after all!