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you are right, this election in the larger scheme of things at the moment is abit of a side show.

Interesting american chap on Radio 5L this morning waxing lyrical about Goldman sachs 'financial terrorism' ... being responsible for creating the dynamic which has ultimately resulted in three 'murders'in Greece yesterday.

I coined the phrase a while ago 'white collar crime against humanity' to describe the dynamic underpinning all this current volatility and attendant suffereing and the suffereing on its way down the pipeline.

To me theirs is the greater crime when compared to the rioters in Greece who petrol bombed the bank, not wanting to kill anyone, but wanting to vent frustration at the injustice.

Who Ii wonder will get arrested and left to rot in a Greek jail for the rest of their lives, economic advisors to the Greek government? New York based execs at goldmans whom covered up the scale of the greek debt and helped them cook the books to get into the euro?

I guess humanity keeps on finding new ways to prove we really are, at our core, savage animals despite efforts through the centuries via religion and systems of government to contain it for the greater good, the cunning animal within us keeps finding new ways to by-pass those controls.

It's high time we stopped having our mortgages, bank loans, jobs, houses, food prices, prospects, indeed whole lives dictated to and besmirched by glorified bookmakers called money markets. They are motivated by profit, not national or international interests.

Whatever the outcome the City will win.
It's what they do.

Returning Officers closing the polling stations at 10pm? What are they thinking of? Why should they insist on keeping to the rules when nobody else does.
More seriously, why should people be queuing up at just before 10pm? If you don't keep to the rules you cannot complain. The turnout is not massively higher, so either there was a sudden surge or the polling stations have been very inefficient.

The UK is not the same as the Greek situation in so many ways. Not only the weather!
We do produce cash other than just tourists (not a much retained as before but at least produce cash) and handle cash, some say legally more that the Greeks.

Is the problems the American agencies once again? After all a small profit for most of us is a large profit for those with a large gamble going on..... What else is a dealer?
Hours to go yet

That's all well and good Bob.

The Markets understand it, The City understands it, My 17 month old son probably understands it.

The client state created by this Labour Government choose not to see it.

25% of people are still voting for this feckless party.

How about giving some credit for the Greek Government and Greek People who elected them for creating the mess that is the Greek Economy? Sure they had help, but no one told them to spend all that money. Banks and markets are the drug dealers maybe, but the Greeks are the addicts who need to kick the habit! And by the way the UK has the same habit, except we are not yet living in the squat covered in our own excrement, but we are looking very strung out and nervous! Time to get clean.

6. At 00:45am on 07 May 2010, Mr T wrote:

That isn't the case though. The turn out was 65% so in reality, on current figures, less than 25% of voters choose the Conservatives. Not many people see 'it' at all.

The strongest party is supported by less than one quarter of the population. Time to change something.

It is always a sad day when ordinary citizens feel the need to vent anger and frustration at their perceived ruling classes. It is even sadder when it appears they cannot even reach those responsible for their discomfit.

When are we going to have passionate people in politics able to root out the miserable financial sector perverts who have not only greedily shattered millions of ordinary lives but are seemingly incapable of being made to pay for their crimes?

If a worker steals a half hour on a personal errand he or she may be sacked on the spot. When a financier actively engages in fraud then thousands of workers are sacked on the spot. Why is this injustice even contemplated let alone allowed?

The people of Greece and the UK have a common enemy. It is time we made other aware of this in the EU. Who cares what happens to Sterling if the whole thing is a massive illusion being controlled by some "fat finger"?

I have voted and will vote for any party staying away from euro. It's an ideology.

It is nice and easy to blame the bankers for the financial mess, and the politicians for the bankers...and decry the voters for voting for the 'wrong' party...or the electorate for not voting at all....but at the end of the day one has to respect all the other people, they have their views and their reasons....and that's democracy.

Of course it doesn't mean we have to look forward at the now inevitable 2nd election--- in benign times a coalition or minority govt would be odds against---doing Irish and Greek style pay, jobs and salary cuts while in coalition just doesn't seem feasible---so a 2nd election in probably October, or even before, seems very likely---because as the article says; foreigners will want to see a Government that can and will actually govern.

With the incorrectly entered stock order, so begins the recovery from the global recession.

China is tightening up their credit and raising the value of their yuan.

Local economies are showing signs of recovery.

Companies that have profited greatly from Chinese imports, are having trouble stocking their stores.

Some local businesses are due to be back up and running within the next few weeks. The only slowdown appears to be coming from employees who are demanding a bigger piece of the pie that only the upper class were enjoying.

Anything with 'Mart' in it's name is going to experience the quickest loss of value that wasn't conceived possible until yesterday!

The Mart's are the Dot-com of the new millenium.

It will be one heck of a fire sale.

Did anyone learn from this? I guess the market system did work after all.

Gentlemen can I just attempt to shed a little light here...

Richard S - God I wish you were even close to being right however I am confident you are not.

This 'incorrectly entered stock order' line we seems to be the reason currently floating around for the near collapse in under 6 minutes of 10% of the value of the Dow would take some explaining - the only way logically that could happen if Proctor & Gamble were invested in short positions across every sector to the tune of umpteen billions and I think it is safe to say the were not...

The reason for the near collapse and then in 9 minutes bounce of 5% is due to HFT - High frequency trading whereby the clever quants with their algors jump in front of genuine trades sometimes by as little as 100th of a penny as soon as you attempt to make the trade thereby taking genuine trades out of the market and with it liquidity - there are a few places online you can read up about it in far more detail and by people who actually know considerably more than I do (not difficult to be frank...) a couple of sites have been predicting exactly what happened yesterday since Summer last year.

'i guess the market system did work after all" this I'm hoping was sarcastic and genuine apologies if I have mis read it as being sincere - however how can you claim the market system works when literally 1000's of trades were cancelled yesterday - yes cancelled. There are lists for both the Dow and Nasdaq again which are available on line - please have a look for yourself - if that is a market working I'd love to know what a market failing looks like....

Jericoa makes a very valid point in terms of cooking the books to get into the euro originally - the italians did exactly the same - in essence what happens is you go to the markets and do a swop (with the help of a friendly banker) You say I have a 1k loan which I need to get rid of from my credit file so I can join the euro party - the banker says Ok give me your loan I will give you 1k in cash to make you look like your flush with cash and you give me 3k back in 4 years....

Then 4 years down the line the friendly banker says - "Ok I want my 3k back now" you say I'm actually a bit short again..... can you do another swop by any chance? this time I need 5k - friendly banker says no worries have 5k upfront but you will have to pay me back 15k over the next 20 years - you say Great that sounds perfect....

If you want to see who has done these deals (there are quite a few about!) have a look at how much interest various countries are having to pay each year - Italy, Spain and Belgium all have hefty bills each year - it is very similar to what the banks do with their off balance accounting.

Actually on the off balance stuff maybe Peston could do a little article on the 500bn that the NY fed bought up of MBS (those again the not so kosha mortgage based bits of cake so popular at Tea parties earlier on in the noughties) bought from US banks I think on Tuesday which suddenly appeared for a day on balance sheet and then hokus pocus off it goes into the bowels of the NY Fed - another little swop this time for US treasury bonds and all is right in the world once more.....

A couple of years ago I really enjoyed reading Robs posts and stefanie on Newsnight was always a joy now however I find myself getting a little irate about the lack of depth - they both know far more than I do and yet for some reason they never seem to follow through to the crux of the matter - I want to believe this is because I am some how misguided in my understanding of things however as time progresses I think there is some guiding taking place which is at least a little unsavoury and at worst... well unfortunately for my 4 children and 11 employees I think we are going to find out.

Currency speculators are kings of the world. FTSE jumps up and down all year round via profit taking - buy low sell high; go out of business and shaft the pensioner. Unelected packs of stratospheric speculators, does not a democracy make for the majority who live on the ground.

So many financial bullies in the global playground? These private gangs have to be challenged by elected representatives by the people for the people.

Until our ELECTED representatives stand up for us and fight these maniacs who brought economies to their knees by fraud; declare any loan contract with a hint of fraud is null and void?

Post #9 @ 08:00am on 7th May - 'Polly_gone'

Well said.

In addition, my comment is that the 'untouchable' traders, hedge-funds and speculators who live in the moment to buy another private island on the back of fraud already instigated against global economies and the people of those economies?

Furthermore, many debts of 'corrupt' so-called third world governments have been cleared by so-called first world governments in the last decade?

What is clear in the interim, is that traders, hedge-funds et al have been playing a game of monopoly with ordinary people's pensions and many Nations economies?

> In those circumstances, investors have tended to view the general election
> in the UK as an amusing piece of theatre that's of primary interest to
> the eccentric natives.

There's nothing eccentric about the natives - most of us want to
drop the "Alice in Wonderland" stuff, and make a straight-forward
constitution. As Wales, the Northwest and Scotland are (in practical
terms) already no-toff zones, we'll have to act soon or the UK
will be Balkanised.

A hung parliament may offer those grubby little politicians the excuse not to deliver what they promised, but it also makes it very difficult for them to do what they dared not tell us.

The truth is, Britain voted for no-one; the sad fact is that the electorate will be ignored.