Prime Minister Brown finally admits it.

March 18th, 2009 by admin | Filed under Daily News, Global Credit Crisis, UK Bank Accounts, UK Banks, World Banks.

The recession might have been his fault. (If only partly)

GORDON Brown, speaking after talks held with European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, was heard to admit that the UK’s regulatory system was now “outdated” and had failed to keep up with changes in the fast-moving banking sector. The two men agreed that the need for ambitious and necessary reform of the international financial regulatory system was long overdue and needed to be the focus of discussion at the G20 conference to be held in early April. The G20 conference will be the first gathering of the world’s largest economies to discuss the current financial situation.

In the meantime, Prime Minister Brown has set the minds at ease of a group of African politicians by confirming that the financial problems of their continent will also receive some priority in the global struggle to revive the world’s economy. Representatives from such countries as Kenya, Tanzania, Liberia, , Botswana and Ethiopia among others, made the trip to Downing Street to receive assurances that their continent’s voice would also be heard before the G20 meeting to be held in London.

While the global financial leaders wait for the G20 summit to express their woes, the man in the street has taken a moment or two to point out an important fact that they still seem to be paying far too much for their fuel, despite that prices for crude oil have fallen by between a half to two thirds in the past year.

With crude oil now trading at less than fifty dollars a barrel, economic indicators show that the retail price should be around 85 pence a litre. However, the average price at the pumps today hovers around the one pound mark. The question that might be on the lips of the average UK motorist as well as the associations that represent them should be; where is my 15 pence going?

A spokesman for the Petrol Retailers’ Association suggested that the discrepancy could be due to the weaker pound.

On the FTSE, Europe’s largest oil company Royal Dutch Shell dropped 2.2 percent to 1,604 pence, after announcing that they had failed to match all of last year’s oil and gas production with new discoveries, in contrast to smaller rival BP Plc.

Shares in the process engineering and software group, KBC Advanced Technologies Plc rose by ten percent after announcing that they had made an underlying pretax profit well ahead of market estimates. They also projected that the company’s shift towards operating services will insulate them against the effects of delayed or constrained capital spending.

Healthcare Locums, the health and social care staffing agency, saw their share value take a tumble by around nine percent yesterday .The fall was due to increased concerns that the UK government is set to withdraw a VAT concession for temporary staff, hitting Healthcare Locums. Analysts predict that this could affect the company’s profitability by close to eight million pounds in 2009.

The FTSE 100 rose by a modest 1.0 percent (34.32 points to 3,891.4) continuing three days of modest advances. On the other hand, the FTSE 250 took a minor hike, up 0, 74% (46.04 points to 6,257.83)

On the money markets, Sterling rose slightly against the dollar and fell against the Euro whilst holding its own against the Japanese Yen and the Swiss Franc:

Pound/US dollar 1.3938

Pound/Euro 1.0716

Pound/Japanese Yen 137.58

Pound/Swiss Franc 1.6465

Wall Street shares had another positive day on trading

The Dow Jones Average rose 178.73 points to close at 7395.7. Nasdaq did proportionally better, rising 58.09 points to close at 1462.11

In New York, federal prosecutors in a drive to rescue as much as they can from the estate of disgraced broker, Bernard Madoff are showing scant consideration for his wife, Ruth, by seizing all of her possessions. Ruth who will have to face life without her husband, expected to be a “government guest” for the next hundred years or so, was expecting to gain some comfort from the couple’s four homes in the US and France worth a total $22m, personal possessions as well as $62m in cash and securities held in her name. While the estimated $100 million total will hardly make a dent in the $50 billion that Madoff fiddled, it might still make a lot of people happy.