I’d like to punish Sarah Beeny. She’s a naughty naughty person.

Do you have a pension other than a state pension? If yes, you can’t be excused.

Oh yeah? Why exactly, given pensions put money into the system? I’ll actually cite my pension being stuffed as one of the main reasons I’m a victim. You can’t blame me for what pension fund managers might have chosen to do.

Richie_B I think the commonly used term is now ‘recession’. I don’t know why AndyP didn’t just say that though.
because it’s irrelevant to my point?

What point?

The Governments the world over for not policing the price of carbon.

The entire world economy runs the way it does, only because there has been a (so far) effectively limitless supply of cheap polluting energy from fossil fuels. The economy boils down to basic thermodynamics. Put energy in and get goods and services out. This affects every single aspect of our life, the price of consumer goods, food, travel, houses, absolutely everything.

Everything we do has been too cheap because we have paid nothing for the global pollution it’s been causing.

So energy too cheap (ie no effective carbon taxes from our limp Governments) = cheap goods, cheap travel, cheap services, cheap food. = Massive overconsumption = massive runaway demand = global boom and bust.

i blame channel 4
they use to be an edgy, cutting edge channel with swearing and boobs
but they went all middle class aspirational and started pumping out those home diy bollox shows; beeney et al
people suddenly thought that property was the most important thing in the world

and id also blame thatcher for turning us into a banking/ service economy and successive torry and labour PMs and chancellors for not diversifying our economic base enough to prepare us for this inevitable crash

and it was lawson, lamont then brown that decided that pensions could be raided and companies and individuals could take pension holidays so that all that cash could be injected into the economy and ultimately taxed rather than left safe and secure in pension funds

But kimbers this is a worldwide recession not just UK based. Are you blaming Brown, etc. for the world wide crash?

Would really like the forum archives right now to find who was complaining about the bank not giving them a huge mortgage…

The really interesting ones would be the ones where people swore till they were blue in the face that the property boom wasn’t about to end.

Kimbers

I blame people who don’t know how to use a shift key. 😉

Kirsty Allsop needs punishing. Oh yes…

I’d punish the media, if it wasn’t for the papers, news etc adding fuel to the fire constantly, there would be more consumer confidence, more money being put back into the economy and, although of course we would be in a bit of a state anyway, I don’t think it would be quite as bad as it is currently.

What no blaming Thatcher yet?
RudeFred, your predictable nature is slipping.

What no blaming Thatcher yet?

Did kimbers’ lack of capitalisation cause you that many problems with understanding his post?

aracer – Member

Do you have a pension other than a state pension? If yes, you can’t be excused.

Oh yeah? Why exactly, given pensions put money into the system? I’ll actually cite my pension being stuffed as one of the main reasons I’m a victim. You can’t blame me for what pension fund managers might have chosen to do.

And there is a hugely simplistic view of the whole “I’m not to blame” argument.

Ok, so you have a pension fund. You want your pension fund to grow at a certain rate, one that is more than you could expect to receive if you compounded the savings and interest in a readily available account. If you didn’t, you would have put the money in savings surely, as you’d have made more? Taking it simplistically, regardless of whether you personally chose those pension fund managers, that’s the expectation else there’s no significant other reason to have a pension fund.

Now, these pension funds are used to add money to the system which in turn facilitates loans to be made which gain a marginally higher return which is the profit for the banks and companies that use this money.

With only a certain number of high quality loans available, in order to sustain this demand, lower quality loans were taken on board, and when those began to default, the knock on became obvious.

The only reason this was not apparent sooner, and therefore with lesser impact was the free money the US and developed world were receiving in return for lower, but perceivably safer than domestic investments, from the growing economies of China and other primarily Tiger economies. This created an artificial state which couldn’t be sustained in the long-term.

I think the traditional response of “I blame the Americans” would go down well about now. However, I think it would take far too long to take a set of Bombers to an entire nation on my own, so I would have to either enlist help (preferably with their own Bombers) or limit said owning to the last US cabinet.

And there is a hugely simplistic view of the whole “I’m not to blame” argument.

Which is a bit rich given your complete distortion of why you put money in a pension fund, and what that pension fund does with your money.

its all YOUR fault.

I blame me and Kate Winslet equally. And I’m going to punish myself twice, maybe three times later. Unfortunately Kate can’t make it for the punishing this evening, so I’ll just have to imagine that she’s there this time.

aracer – I rarely pay much heed to posters who can’t even manage the basics of grammar.

But kimbers this is a worldwide recession not just UK based. Are you blaming Brown, etc. for the world wide crash?

nope as far as im concerned boom and bust is an inevitable part of capitalism, governments should just be better at insulating themselves against it that is their responsibility
(until we get giant AIs to run the global economy for us)

i also blame channel 4 for generating a culture wherby people expect instant gratification for zero input for that i blame all reality tv shows but big bother and t4 which create false “celebs” and then devote hours of tv to them i particularly blame along with simon cowel, max clifford and heat magazine

basically greed is not good and nulabours version of greed is good as long as youre caring too is bollox

we should all be more tolerant and concerned for the world and people around us

and i do know where the shift key is i just dont like capitals, i guess you could say im an anti-capitalist

i guess you could say im an anti-capitalist

😆 – nicely set up!

sootyandjim – thought you were having a go at me for a minute (though did your shift key break when entering your username?)

So kimbers what recession proof industry would you have steered the UK into?

I take it the channel 4 thing is a ‘joke’, right.

I’d like to propose a TJ law.

The law states that as an online discussion grows longer, the probability of the issue under discussion being blamed on Thatcher approaches one. There is a tradition in many Usenet newsgroups that once the blame is made, the thread is over, and whoever mentioned Thatcher has automatically lost whatever argument was in progress. In addition, whoever points out that TJ’s law applies to the thread is also considered to have “lost” the battle, as it is considered poor form to invoke the law explicitly. TJ’s law thus practically guarantees the existence of an upper bound on thread length in those groups. Many people understand TJ’s law to mean this, although (as is clear from the statement of the law above) this is not the original formulation.

aracer – Possibly.

I blame teenage mothers and immigrants, through sheer laziness.

samuri – I thought that was the GG law?

So kimbers what recession proof industry would you have steered the UK into?
I take it the channel 4 thing is a ‘joke’, right

im sure there is no such thing as a recession proof industry,
our economic growth has been led by the financial sector especially in the city it has brought billions to our country its been great but it has left our economy especially vulnerable at the moment.
and we are heavily dependent on imports of gas and even electricity and there is very little we still manufacture here so when our weak pound could be great for exports we have nothing to sell

and this is all because……. thatcher took our economy apart and rebuilt it in the current model and if that invokes TJs law then i guess ive lost, tho i think you are right to put her in the same class as the guy that invokes godwins law

and i dont necessarily blame channel 4
but i genuinely do believe we have become more selfish and for that i blame the media and its obsession with cleb-dancing-jungle-bigbrother-factor-on-ice

But kimbers this is a worldwide recession not just UK based. Are you blaming Brown, etc. for the world wide crash?

We’re suffering worse than pretty much anyone else though!

And if our economy had still been built on the pre-thatcher model what sort of state do you think the country would be in?

I’ve seen GG and TJ blame Thatcher in equal measure I think.

And if our economy had still been built on the pre-thatcher model what sort of state do you think the country would be in?

We’d have been dead in the water long ago.

Probably as much a poor man of Europe as Eire was back in the 80’s.

Sometimes aracer, stating the obvious serves no useful purpose.

.

But sod that – I blame Thatcher.

Yeah, her and Reagan, for the global economic crises. For the culture of deregulation, “cutting red tape” which was “strangling” businesses, and unleashing dangerous, uncontrollable, and self-destructing market forces.

I also blame Thatcher and Reagan for the global terroist threat. For financing, arming, and training Osama bin Laden. What sort of fukkwit would want to arm to the teeth an Islamic fundamentalist which hates everything we believe in ?

What a pair of ****……….. Thatcher and Reagan.

And all the tw4tz what voted for them.

And if our economy had still been built on the pre-thatcher model what sort of state do you think the country would be in?

well we wouldnt be suffering such a massive crash, but only because our economy would never have peaked so high
and most importantly our banks would never have been allowed the level of deregulation and opportunity to screw up this much
saying that council houses would still exist
and so would our pensions

Nulabour was quite right not to dismantle maggies legacy in its entireity, that would be stoopid we should have developed a broader financial/ industrial/ economic base
ultimately i think they were too blinded by the $$$$ flowing in to stop the creeping privatisation of all public services and offering everyone places at university without regard to what the course was or the needs of industry require

Blair did well to get out when he did and make millions as we all started to sink…. If Thatcher made mistakes then why did Tone carry on in a similar vein?

If Thatcher made mistakes then why did Tone carry on in a similar vein?

Because New Labour had no useable policies of their own when elected, just a manifesto full of sound bites.

As it was the work of the John Major government had put in place the groundwork for an economic boom which if left to come to fruition with little interference would have provided a large amount of income for the UK. Unfortunately newly elected governments have to ‘do’ something, which in this instance meant f@ck up years of careful financial planning nearly overnight by tinkering with forces their years in the political wilderness didn’t prepare them for, throw good money after bad in the public sector creating non-jobs and targets to meet and generally pour money down the drain.

then why did Tone carry on in a similar vein

Don’t you remember ?

I thought everyone could be remember – “Because otherwise the electorate well never vote Labour”

Gosh, some people a short memory – I remember that being rammed down my throat day in, and day out.

You were so right, samuri.

I’d love to stay and argue, but if I’m honest I’m just so bored with these sort of Facha arguments using a nice broad brush and ignoring all the differences the detail makes.

I’m just so bored with these sort of Facha arguments

LOL ! I’ve followed thread closely since it was started, but didn’t feel in anyway moved to comment. Then you aracer, issue me with a challenge to come on here and blame Thatcher – so I dutifully oblige.

And now you’ve got the hump !!!

I dont get this obsession with john major putting in the groundwork, what a load of tosh!!
major was in charge for black wednesday when the pound was humiliated out of the ERM, but major still stick with lamont for 6months b4 ken clarke came in and made exchange rates more flexible
the resulting lower pound made for great exports for the uk and helped build up our worth, i would argue that this was just a further deregulation of banking started by thatcher but has left us vulnerable to the kind of international feedback loop thats stuffed as at the moment
all of this had little to do with major, he was too busy upsetting the IRA and banging edwina curry
which brings us on to why nulabour were able to get in so easily
first of all it was obvious major was crap at finance- black wednesday proved it
and second there was the sleaze……
as major launched his “back to basics” campaign the tory party set about self destructing with (known) adulterous affairs for…
Earl of Caithness
david mellor
Alan Amos,
david ashby
Tim Yeo
Michael Brown
and then Stephen Milligan- he was the one who was found with an orange in his mouth hung himself in his wifes underwear!?
oh and cash for qustions where 4 torries were shown to have taken lots of money from al-fayed and later turned out other torries had tried to destroy the evidence
and johnathon aitken for bribery and perjury
and of course jeffrey archer for stealing all that money for kurdish refugees or did he just lie about raising it?either way we know how much of a crook he is!- the torries by this point stunk of corruption more foul than the pit of hades itself

and along comes this squeaky clean blair guy who loved his wife and kids and smiled a lot and had some great PR……

One Prime Minister
646 MPs elected by us
You

Which one of these people is most in control of the decisions you make about your life, how you behave and how you spend your money??

Of course, the PM.

Needless to say, I blame Stoner.

But he rides a clown bike – which is punishment enough.

In the meantime, I’ll happily appease the Money Gods by taking on everybody’s personal debt – just e-mail me your account details, ta.