Big picture : The Money Principle

Category: Big picture

On the value of life

Published May 9, 2013 | By John | Posted in Big picture | 4 Comments

Last week I wrote about the way in which foreign exchange speculation sets the relative values of currencies. The value of ‘things’ can also be a mystery. Every day items like a bottle of milk or a loaf of bread are pretty easy to value. It’s how much you need [...] Continue Reading...

Glorious weather!

Published May 7, 2013 | By John | Posted in Big picture | 8 Comments

We British are a funny lot. After a long long winter and early spring where temperatures hovered around zero Centigrade for months on end and we were all chilled to the bone, yesterday we had the first really glorious weather – well maybe not everywhere but at least in Manchester. [...] Continue Reading...

Financial transaction and foreign exchange

Published May 2, 2013 | By John | Posted in Big picture | 7 Comments

I have long been interested – no fascinated – by currencies. When I was young, I would wonder what decides the price of a loaf of bread in France and Britain? Or cake, come to that. Who sets the exchange rate between currencies? And how do we compare the economies [...] Continue Reading...

Bankruptcy in Britain?

Published Apr 25, 2013 | By John | Posted in Big picture, Business | 4 Comments

There is much written about total debt and bankruptcy. Today I got yet another email titled “The alarming truth about Britain” with a link to a video and piece. I suspect that much the same can be – and is – written about a number of other countries. [...] Continue Reading...

Tax, prices and pensions: should Amazon pay taxes in the UK?

Published Apr 23, 2013 | By John | Posted in Big picture | 8 Comments

Having returned from our Easter-free break in Bulgaria (we missed the Western Easter and the Orthodox Easter is not until May this year so we miss that too), it was time to catch up with reading, some of which had deposited itself on the doormat. Among these were [...] Continue Reading...

Have you paid off your Christmas bills yet?

Published Apr 16, 2013 | By Maria | Posted in Big picture, Budgeting | 17 Comments

Some of my long term readers have probably already noticed that I have been moving to the ‘visual side’! It started gently, with me delivering a whole presentation consisting of pictures; then it spread to The Money Principle and the lovely pictures adoring the articles. So when [...] Continue Reading...

Margaret Thatcher – a view of a life

Published Apr 9, 2013 | By John | Posted in Big picture | 7 Comments

Over thirty years ago, I was sitting in my friend Bill’s front room watching the results of the 1979 UK General Election with horror. Britain certainly had many internal problems – low productivity, general malaise, strikes and so on - but the solution did not appear to be the increase [...] Continue Reading...

Could we lose our money? Lessons from Cyprus

Published Apr 4, 2013 | By John | Posted in Big picture | 11 Comments

What happened? It’s simple. Cypriot banks ran out of money. When this sort of thing happens, the national government will generally stump up the cash but the government didn’t have that sort of money. In which case, the sovereign bank (like the Federal Reserve or the [...] Continue Reading...

Why you should claim for mis-selling

Published Apr 3, 2013 | By Maria | Posted in Big picture | 3 Comments

Editor’s note: This post was written in collaboration with EMCAS: they kindly provided the data but the analysis and sentiments are mine. For more information about how EMCAS can help you to make a claim for financial mis-selling please visit: www.missing-millions.co.uk I still remember the day I [...] Continue Reading...

Can you have too much money?

Published Mar 28, 2013 | By Maria | Posted in Big picture, WTFIFL | 19 Comments

Opera House in Muscat, Oman Since childhood we hear that we should not be greedy, we shouldn't take (have) more that 'enough'. In adulthood, we are told how important 'knowing our enough' really is: in food, play, love and money. Heck, even I have written articles in [...] Continue Reading...

The bedroom tax and UK budget stupidity

Published Mar 26, 2013 | By John | Posted in Big picture | 9 Comments

In last week’s post I gave a critique of George Osborne’s budget which was just a little scathing. Now I do try very hard not to be too political - some of our readers may well be supporters and that is their right. But having pointed out [...] Continue Reading...

No Tools for Trade: illiterate and unemployed

Published Mar 22, 2013 | By Maria | Posted in Big picture, Jobless Blog Stress | 4 Comments

Editor's note: This is another article by Alex; and if you have not guessed already I have given him the Friday slot for the time being. Today’s article tells a story of a man who, like all of us, seems to have his own set of [...] Continue Reading...

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