ernie, i said argentina, as mentioned by don simon, would benefit from the strong economy in Brazil – growth in brazil is at close to 9%. Did I say argentina was a poverty stricken slum? no. did i say it was a worse place than brazil? no. i simply pointed out that it will benefit from the growth in brazil, which is moving more people out of poverty, has a greater population, greater natural resources and so on

poor people in poor countries

on what basis do you think Brazil is a ‘poor country’?

You do realise all this talk of mega cuts is just to prepare us – they won’t make some of them when the time comes, in the hope it will make people think they’re being generous.

Either that or they are just airing the ideas to get other people to do their thinking and criticising for them. Which is actually a very good idea.

on what basis do you think Brazil is a ‘poor country’?

Thousands of homeless orphans on the streets?

Or 1/3 the GDP per capita of the UK, and 1/4 that of the USA?

Biscuit powered

The financial crisis of 2007 to the present is a crisis triggered by a liquidity shortfall in the United States banking system……The collapse of the housing bubble, which peaked in the U.S. in 2006, caused the values of securities tied to real estate pricing to plummet thereafter, damaging financial institutions globally.[7]

Yep defo Browns fault and deffo the fault of Keynesian policies Beautiful analysis – here have your PhD

because the ‘Keynesian’ policies implemented by Clueless Clown as chancellor in the years between 1997 and 2008 worked really well.

No it was a barren time of negative growth, high unemployment , bankruptcies,repossesions – you are good at this stuff aren’t you
You might want to look at what Brown did at the G20 summit
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/G20/article6031821.ece
see a right wing view accepted the boy done good.

Saying it is all Browns fault is simplistic in the extreme no economy/industry was left unscathed by what happened.

iDave – Member

ernie………Did I say argentina was a poverty stricken slum? no. did i say it was a worse place than brazil? no.

😕 And did I say you had said those things ? No.

I copied and pasted exactly what you had posted, ie : “Argentina will probably be a good choice also as they’re sure to benefit from the growth in Brazil”

I simply pointed out that Argentine economy is actually doing rather better than the Brazilian economy at the moment, ie it has a higher growth rate ………. a perfectly valid comment.

.

And yes Biscuit Powered, I do know what ‘default’ means. I also know that Argentina repaid it’s debt to the IMF several years ago :

IMF confirms Argentina’s repaid debt

Argentina : Foreign Debt Paid Off

Should we default like Argentina ? Well given the same circumstances, yes.

And Argentina has warned Greece not to make the same mistakes as they made when they tried to comply with the requirements of the IMF.

Argentine president warns Greece against austerity measures

As far as your little dig at Keynesian economic policies is concerned, yes they do, and have, worked……well certainly better than monetarist/free market policies have. Which why Tory governments adopted Keynesian economic policies during the period which was famously described as “you’ve never had it so good”. And why the conservative Republican US President Richard Nixon, notably declared “I am now a Keynesian in economics”.

There is not a shred of evidence however, that monetarist/free-market economic policies bring the prosperity and benefit to ordinary people which some right-wingers claim it does.

The monetarist/free-market experiment was first implemented in Latin America, which was handy for the Yanks as the whole region was firmly in the grip of brutal military dictatorships which were loyal and indebted to Washington……any opposition was therefore not a “problem”. As a result it was monetarism in its purest unhindered form.

The consequences for the people of Latin America was absolutely disastrous and it led to untold misery and suffering. As a result right across the region, governments are now pursuing Keynesian/social-democratic policies. Obviously not something they would be doing had the little experiment been a success.

Weird thing this recession.

At work we have more work than ever, on target for best ever year and we can’t recruit fast enough due to lack of skilled people in the market place.

The local car dealer won’t even bother to return my call regarding buying a VRS as demand is so strong they don’t need to bother.

I can’t get anyone to chop down a tree for months as they’re all too busy and the street is full of skips and neighbours having extensions / loft conversions built.

We’ve never had it so good (in Cambridge that is).

“The Economy of Brazil is the world’s eighth largest economy by nominal GDP and ninth largest by purchasing power parity. It’s economy is the largest among all South American nations and the second largest in the western hemisphere.”

Poor Brazil eh?

Yeah but how much of that wealth gets to the majority of people in Brazil?

As for the original question; Britain’s a lot better off than most places on Earth, I’d say. Gonna get relatively a bit shitter now this useless bunch of self-serving shysters are in government, but overall, I’m glad I live in Britain, rather than a lot of other places.

How’s the UK at the momeny? Well that probably depends on where you are. In much of the south east, where economy is driven to a large extent by things like The City, high tech business and tourism, things are fairly good. In places like the North East and South Wales with a large proportion of the work coming via the state and high levels of benefits/unemployment the tough times are here/coming.

Although talking to friends and customers in Greece/Ireland/Spain we are way better off in the UK.

Going to Germany you wouldn’t think “recession” in any way.

Although talk to friends and customers in Greece/Ireland/Spain we are way better off.

Currently in Spain 😥 .

What business are you in tonyg2003?

iDave – you asked in “what basis do you think Brazil is a ‘poor country’?”.

I consider Brazil is poor in terms of standard of living. In the same way I consider the Chinese to be poor despite the fact their country has the second largest economy in the world.

The majority of the 19% who voted for the Green Party candidate in Brazil’s presidential election, would not have been wealthy by our standards.

If you prefer, I could have said “poor people in a third world country” rather than “poor people in a poor country”.

But I reckon you should have been able figure all that out for yourself iDave ……I think most other people probably did.

Hi Don Simon

I work in biotech, genetic testing and IVF.

Greece and Ireland seems particularly to be in a bad way, Spain slightly less so.

In Brazil and Argentina we are doing plenty of business but India and China are the way forward!

Brazil isn’t a third world country though is it?

25 million have moved out of poverty in the last 10 years

given that I work in financial services in Sao Paulo and Rio, I have some idea of the current situation

Do you own a passport or just an internet connection ernie?

Is the term ‘third world’ synonymous with ‘poor’? I don’t think so. Third world surely is a geographical term?

If you prefer the term ‘developing country’ then surely Brazil is still developing towards the living standards of ‘the West’..? Is it?

Yeah I have a passport and have been to Sao Paulo …….although only to change planes.

I consider Brazil to be a third world country, as I do also Argentina. And yes, I’ve been to Argentina. I even lived there actually.

EDIT : RE : “given that I work in financial services in Sao Paulo and Rio, I have some idea of the current situation”

But you didn’t know that the Argentine economy is preforming better than the Brazilian economy ?

I can’t get anyone to chop down a tree for months as they’re all too busy

same problem here caused by 50% of the business going bust in last two years. My mate stayed in business , got loads of stock for nect to nothing from bankrupt stock and has had tot take on more people- all of them owned their own business previously.

But you didn’t know that the Argentine economy is preforming better than the Brazilian economy ?

I didn’t know how wrong you were comrade. And I stated that the Argentinian economy would benefit from the strength of the Brazilian economy. Don’t you think it would?

Argentina
GDP $310.1 billion
GDP growth 0.9%
GDP per capita $7,725

Brazil
GDP $1.574 trillion
GDP growth 8.8%
GDP per capita $8,220

And as for thinking they’re ‘third world’ you really have sat on a lot of planes haven’t you? Have you been to an actual developing as opposed to emerging economy? Quite a difference. Can’t remember the helicopter count being so high in Ulaan Baatar compared with Sao Paulo…

I didn’t know how wrong you were comrade.

That’s because your Wikipedia figures are wrong iDave.

Those figures refer to Argentine growth during the height of the global recession in 2009, and the (early) predicted growth for the Brazilian economy this year.

Yes the Argentine economy only grew by 0.9% last year. But the Brazil economy did even worst……….it didn’t grow at all – it shrunk by 0.2%

Brazil’s GDP contracts 0.2 % in 2009

I have already provided you with a link which shows that the Argentine economy will grow by 8.5% this year. Here it is again :

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/20/argentina-poll-kirchner-return-cristina

Quote :

“After stalling last year, economic growth is predicted to grow by 8.5% this year.”

This compares with 7.53% growth in the Brazilian economy :

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-09-27/brazilian-economists-predict-faster-growth-inflation-in-2010.html

Quote :

“The economy will expand 7.53 percent in 2010, up from a week-earlier forecast of 7.47 percent, according to the median forecast in a Sept. 24 central bank survey of about 100 economists published today. That would be the fastest growth since 1985, when the economy expanded 7.85 percent.”

The Argentine economy grew by 9% every year between 2003 and 2007 and 7% in 2008. Last year because of the global recession it only grew by 0.9%, but this year it is back approaching 9%.

I repeat my original claim : The Argentine economy is doing rather better than the Brazilian economy

Sure, Argentina benefits from a healthy Brazilian economy – she does after all, for example, need export markets. But the reason the Argentine economy has gone from the total disastrous financial crises of 2002 to become the fastest growing economy in Latin America, has nothing at all to do with Brazil.

It is as a direct result of the Argentine government’s economic policies. If those policies were abandoned then there little doubt that the Argentine economy would begin to splutter again………whatever Brazil does.

Argentina the fastest-growing economy in the Western Hemisphere

Note : “Contrary to a common belief, Argentina’s expansion was not based on exports or high commodity prices: only about 13 percent of the growth during the whole expansion was due to exports.”

.

As far as me thinking they are ‘third world’, molgrips has already pointed out that it is often seen as a geographical term :

Although it does have striking similarities with GDP distribution :

But hey idave, if you are really unhappy with my comment about ‘poor people in a third world country voting Green’, then I will gladly withdraw it ……..just to make you happy like 8)

And btw iDave, that passport you were asking me about …… perhaps I should have mentioned – it would have been Argentine, had my mother not left Argentina when she was 8 months pregnant with me. In fact, most of the people who are related to me in this world have Argentine passports/live in Argentina 🙂