Man of the People – completely in touch with peoples real lives

So in a not even remotely patronising, condescending, aloof or ****ing annoying manner, Dave’s come up with the solution to all the countries ills, and solved the economic crisis all in one swoop.

We’ve all got to pay off all our debts. Thats it. Simple! Genius! I suppose that kind of insight is what comes from the finest education money can buy.

I’ve been on to my broker and told him to liquidate some of my assets in my Chinese mining concerns, and grudgingly dipped into one of my many offshore accounts I hold in various tax havens

I hope you’ll all be doing likewise. Come along now, all it takes is to shake the lower boughs of the money tree. Its for the good of the country after all…..

I wasn’t paid for six months last year. Ended up building up a bit of a credit card debt.

This year I’ve been working since January. And with that, I’ve not been going out so much such that I can pay off my debts. Not drinking as much, or eating out and stuff, it’s amazing how much money you save.

Whether or not callmedave says it or not binners, it’s just common sense no?

edit: phil, what’s Earl Hickey got to do with it?

whats an earl hickey? (just googled ‘rich guy meme’ and he’s what memegenerator suggested i use)

Exactly. So not just a wee bit patronising for him to feel the need to point it out. Does he really think we’re that ****ing stupid? Us poor saps who went to those frightful comprehensives?

Its not like explaining quadratic equations to a group of monkeys is it? What’s the next blinding insight? How to tie our own shoe laces?

Pook – national economies aren’t like personal ones.

Theoretically he’s perfectly correct. How to get out of a financial crisis caused by debt? Remove the debt. The reality, on the other hand, as the Greeks are demonstrating is less straight forward.

Does he really think we’re that ****ing stupid?

Of course he does. He’s a politician. They all do.

We’re supposed to spend as well, buy things etc. Thankfully everyone has loads of money left left over at the end of the month to spend and also pay off debt as no businesses are struggling, everyone’s had great pay rises and no one is out of work.

I don’t have any debts (that’s the first time I’ve said that in about 18 years!) Dave’s still a nob.

does paying off debts actually help?

I’m not convinced it does.

Yet ‘get yourself out of debt’ Dave is allowing a new style of QE for comapnies, using the govt’s borrowing ability to obtain credit for industry. Errr wasn’t what the banks, rescued at enormous state expense, were supposed to be doing? And I’m sure that those students with a lifetime milelstone of debt around their necks will be happy for Dave to exhort them to pay it off quickly…

The Real World and Planet Cameron, two very different places.

So not just a wee bit patronising for him to feel the need to point it out. Does he really think we’re that ****ing stupid?

Not really…I’d say there’s a good percentage of this population that have racked up debt and aren’t managing it properly.

About time people pressed home the fact that you can’t have everything you want (as a lot of people seem to think they can).

Yes houses are expensive…but my parents saved like mad to get a house deposit for years. These days people head off travelling around the world for a year, buy all the latest Apple gadgets and anything else they want and then cry about the fact they can’t afford a house.

If he pays off the countries dept first i might consider, thinking about, thinking about it 😀

Would be nice if it were that simple…

So, we all stop spending and try to save / pay off debts* – where does that leave the economy?

Shafted, that’s where.
.
.
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* – and yes, that is what many of us are doing. Which is whay a report out today says the Treasury has a £1bn hole in it’s coffers due to people reducing fuel consumption (which, again is a GOOD THING, but an example of the knock on)

Well it stands to reason, doesn’t it? When you’ve paid off all your debts, you can then start saving. Thus taking advantage of those whopping great interest rates presently being offered on savings

But if we all pay off all of our individual debt, how are the credit card companies and banks supposed to make money?

“leadership is about unleashing your leadership”.

“The only way out of a debt crisis is to deal with your debts

Cameron is not expected to make any new policy announcements

Has he really run that low on ideas?

saving what? haha, just cos I’ve got no debts doesn’t mean I’ve got any **** money! anyway, in the great words of Donnie Darkos sister, DC can “go suck a F***!”

Well he’s a good track record on ideas. This whole ‘Big Society’ thing is going great

That really annoyed me this morning, reading it a) because he hasn’t said it yet and b) because he probably will and like a lot of his type, Politicians who have never done a days graft on a hot catwalk in their life, has absolutely no idea what to do about the current situation when the answer is so glaring obvious (two tier Euro Currency North and South Europe, immediately devaluing € South).

As to credit card debt it is already on the way down, it is precisely the reason things have slowed down in the UK which is a consumer driven economy at the level that we mostly operate at.

So now he’s laying off thousands of public sector staff with the instruction they must get their credit card debt down whilst suggesting small businesses take up the slack with all the money that is going to be generated as people stop spending to reduce their personal debt, these businesses are looking for support from Banks who have signed up to Basle two and three which tells them they also have to reduce their debt and have cash rather than assets to support their lending.

There is only one way this is going to end, seriously, there is going to have to be some sort of revolution, either bloody or just simple public disobedience to rid ourselves of idiots, greed, corruption and lack of competence by our so called betters and governors.

Honestly I am so angry I could open that window and shout the mad as hell thing right now and we’ve got the auditors in today and the stories they have been telling us about folk at their total wits end with it all, its becoming very nasty.

But they (the Politicians) all had a good time at their party conferences recently, apparently they all broke every bar record regardless of party..

Does he really think we’re that ****ing stupid?

As far as I can tell, most of the population are, they voted for him after all…

I have no debt.. I’d not ever have enough financial security to ensure that I could make the repayments.. and I don’t like the idea of interest..
so I don’t have any..

Surely there are many people that are already paying as much as possible towards clearing their debt though..?
Or am I crediting the British public with too much prudence and stoicism..?

Stephanie Flanders, BBC economics editor, has tweeted this in response to DC’s statement:

“If the PM really wants us all to repay our debts he shd have a word with Mervyn King. It is central to the Bank’s policies that we do not.”

But what would she know, being an economist and all.

🙄

Pook – national economies aren’t like personal ones.

quite right. But callmedave is saying pay off your debts. That’s just common sense.

He’ll be saying something else dazzling later too. Listen out for it.
Maybe “wear clothes” or “don’t steal”

So the way to solve the debt crisis is to keep spending, pay off our debts, put up with lower wages and higher unemployment and pay more for our pensions for longer……
Sounds like a plan…..a shit one, but a plan nonetheless…. 😕

Guys, I’ve just read Nick Robinson’s BBC blog (I’m proper clever, me) and it’s all been taken out of context:

It was, we are now told, not meant to be an instruction but a description of what people are already doing.

You can understand the sensitivity. At a time of failing consumer confidence it would be a little odd for the prime minister to declare “Stop spending, Britain! Stay at home! Do not emerge until you have paid off what you owe!”

It would not be just odd but, potentially, economically disastrous.

Now we can all believe in Dave again. Whew!

aww, spoilsport.

Lets assume the BBC are quoting correctly:

“The answer is straightforward, but uncomfortable. This was no normal recession. We’re in a debt crisis. It was caused by too much borrowing by individuals, businesses, banks and most of all governments.

“The only way out of a debt crisis is to deal with your debts. That means households – all of us – paying off the credit card and store card bills. It means banks getting their books in order.”

Leaving aside any political bias, what is wrong with this observation and advice? The western world has been living in a land of fantasy economies built on unsustainable levels of debt at the individual, corporate and country level. Corporates have woken up to this and have been deleveraging a lot. But individuals and countries haven’t.

OK – it may come across as patronising but there is nothing wrong with advising people to pay of credit card debt. Only a numpty would use unsecured credit with charges 18-20%+ rather than pay it off (if they can) or use alternative sources of borrowing.

Sadly, whether it is patronising or not – people need reminding about cc, because its unlikely to come from the bank!!

Guys, I’ve just read Nick Robinson’s BBC blog (I’m proper clever, me) and it’s all been taken out of context

He wants to sort his PR out then…oh.

aww, spoilsport.

My bad. 😳

If it helps, Dave and George were overheard laughing about the North. Apparently they called it ‘Sh•toutofluckia’.

But the Conservatives revealed plans to require unemployed people to look for a job for several hours a day, and to be willing to accept a job within a 90-minute journey of their home or lose their benefits.

How is the 90 minutes worked out? Public transport presumably?

3 hours a day travelling and from to a job you have been forced to take seems quite a lot to me, as well as being an arbitrary figure.

And where are the jobs?

Meanwhile, in other news…

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/oct/05/tesco-sales-slide-consumers-cut-back?newsfeed=true

I thought one of the major problems was lack of consumer confidence because no-one was spending any money as they were paying off their debts.

Maybe he’s been speaking to George

answer is so glaring obvious (two tier Euro Currency North and South Europe, immediately devaluing € South).

Great plan, except the north would then collapse as it owns most of the debt. But that’s ok, because you ‘devalued’ the debt rather than defaulting, so its all OK because you used a different word.

The only way out is for grease to wipe out say 50% of it’s debt and stay in the euro. If it stays as it is it cant afford to go on. If it drops out of the euro that will be a 100% default, as there’d be no point in it repaying anything as it’s currency would be worthless. If it defaults on the nominal 50% it can afford to pay the rest, and the banking system doesnt collapse because it only loses half it’s money.

Grease leaving the Euro would be a political win for everyone (look we’ve kicked them out [us], look we’ve writen off the debt [them])for about 5 minutes untill ATM machines all over europe stop giving out money as the banks have lost everything.

the answer is so glaring obvious (two tier Euro Currency North and South Europe, immediately devaluing € South).

True – but see my comments on the Greece thread. The Europeans do not understand that the rules of the game have changed. They are too stupid to recognise this.

Banks who have signed up to Basle two and three which tells them they also have to reduce their debt and have cash rather than assets to support their lending.

Not trying to defend banks, but there are now in an almost impossible situation – so we cannot look for them as a solution. Basle II and III is about reducing leverage and matching maturities of debt to assets. But the LT funding markets are either too expensive or closed to many banks. So they are constrained from extending LT credit. Regulators told them to hold more government securities and now they are facing major losses on these holding. But they can’t raise capital either because (1) profitability it too low, (2) cost of equity too high. Interest rates are low and the yield curve to flat to make any margin, so guess what they wont lend on that basis either.

DC could say anything he likes but we cannot get around the fact that we are in for a long period of low growth, difficult times ahead.

As soon as I am taking home a £140k annual public sector salary, with no bills, two houses and two cars paid for by the state then I’ll pay off my debts too. Seem fair?

Nick Robinson, now there’s a fair unbiased voice.

all i can hear is a load of people up to their eyeballs in debt, losing money hand over fist servicing that debt, bitching and griping that anyone dare suggest they might want to balance their own books

I’m paying my debt back as it’s got to be done. But surely it’s also just giving banks more money to f*ck about with again? I don’t think it would hurt to have a little money management education in the curriculum as we tend to repeat our parent’s behaviours.

Large companies and banks need to stop being let off the hook at the expensive of mid to low income person. However, a right wing government isn’t about to say that 😆

The banks fking about with your money is a large part of what drives our economy, btw, and could well be part of why you have a job.