Captain_Crash - are you seriously suggesting that Labour has just repeated the same mistakes they made in the 70s? If so, you are, to put it mildly, not entirely correct.
😉
Stoner, busy tonight. You around tomorrow?
One small upside of all this is that PFI for both MoD and NHS projects will (hopefully) be blown out of the water - the banks simply lack the enthusiasm/capital (though plenty of hay has been made via re-financing deals, etc).
Needless to say, plenty of costs remain "off-balance" (in every sense).
BD - hopefully not, want to be on my way home as soon as I can - assuming no snow on the line!
next week maybe.
Im off to the bar now 🙂
Stoner - many on the left including the Morning Star, passionately argue that it is always better to have a right-wing Labour government than a Tory government. I strongly disagree.
A bit too big a subject imo, to discuss on this thread. But a couple of points :
"Permanent opposition" is not possible imo, as indeed "permanent government" isn't either - one way or another the Tories would have eventually lost an election.
Anne Widdecombe, a Tory MP which I grudgingly respect, said after the Tories lost the last general election, "OK we lost, but we now set the agenda - and [i]that[/i] is what counts" ........ so true, so very very true.
Had the Tories being in power for the last 11 years, there is no way that they could have done what New Labour has done - EG : the combined opposition from the British people plus a very vocal PLP would have denied the possibility of further privatisations - never forget that Labour in opposition (even under Blair) opposed [u]every single[/u] privatisation carried out by the Tories [u]without exception[/u]. In effect, the New Labour government has been able to do what it is done, because they have had something which the Tories could never have had - a complete lack of left-wing opposition in Parliament. There was a time when it looked as if the LibDems might have mounted a bit of a challenge, but that fizzled out when Nick Clegg became leader - the LibDems now appear to be very late converts to Thatcherism - just when it's being seriously discredited globally 😯
There is indeed a distinct lack of political vision from any of the main political parties at the moment (a vote for any one of the main three = vote for the post-Thatcher status quo)...
Labour tax hard and spender harder.
GB did this to serve an agenda and turned his good eye away from the bankers.
Instead of taking a breather, instead of assessing what the city was up to, GB charged ahead and ran with the bankers, he lied to the uk public to serve his big spend agenda. Changing the rules such as switching from rpi to using cpi.
Labour always borrows and spends too much, born of an arrogance that the uk is such a rich country, the tax payer can afford.
After the wall street crash, the US suffered a decade of depression.
Ultimately regulation was the way out.
A lack of legislation, regulation, has permitted the banks to wreak their havoc.
Sub-prime lending should have been prevented via regulation.
Ask yourself, where would we be today, if it had.
CC
Labour tax hard and spender harder.
Well if you knew your facts you'd know that the highest the tax burden has ever been in the UK was under Thatcher. So labour governments actually tax less than the Tories.
born of an arrogance that the uk is such a rich country
It is. In fact it's the fifth richest country in the world.
BTW Cpt Crash you appear to be all over the place - on the one hand calling for government interference in the finance sector through 'regulation', and on the other, you call for less government interference through 'spending'. It's the sort of policies which I would associate with BNP fascists.
Not saying you are a BNP supporter of course, but interestingly you launch into vitriolic and quite personal attack against bankers - which is of course another perennial favourite of fascists. I particularly liked :
"[i]They had put a gun to the heads of the western govenments and said "ha, get out of this one[/i]".
"Western" governments you say ? It's almost as if bankers are attacking our very civilisation - our 'Christian Western civilisation'
Care to remind us how the global banking system is in the hands of very wealthy Jews ?
Re: bankers taking bonuses
A few years ago the company had to make a large bunch of worker people redundant. Now rubbish happens, but they weren't too nice about it either. At the same time, one director took delivery of his brand new 4x4 company car. There was uproar and it got vandalised.
I'm not justifying the vandalism or denying that he had every right to take the car he was entitled to. But it was stupid of him to do so and I hope you can see why.
The bankers' bonuses is the same issue. But they will take them anyway and we will hate them, even more than estate agents. And life will go on.
Whilst some will no doubt have earnt it, there should have been a clear statement on injecting our money that the bigger bonuses to the higher earners would be minimal. If they are the best at what they do and want to move on then so be it. I suspect the bank would manage without them.
It's not the counter staff getting £1000 that sticks in the craw, it's those getting £30k plus as a lot do. Whilst they weren't making hte decisions that got the UK into this mess, they were pocketing huge bonuses in earlier years for exceeding targets met because of reckless/insufficiently legislated business. The Govt IS to blame for the lack of imposed control over 125% mortgages and in particular the travesty of what was self certification via IFAs chasing only commission and evidencing nothing. You earn £80 and want to borrow £300k? No problem Sir, just speak to the IFA, lie about your trade/profits and the money's yours...... and the USA was even worse!!!
GG.
The banking system is UNIQUELY qualified in its need to be regulated.
Regulating the banking sector in order to avoid recession, depression is a sensible thing to do.
However, you seem to think that I am therefore calling for [i]government interference through 'spending'[/i]
This is a different issue. As with many threads here, the comments meander through the general topic of discussion and I threw in my 2 penneth-worth regarding the Labour party's wreckless spending which has led to the UK economy being in a state of its highest gearing for some considerable time and less prepared to "weather the storm" as the politicians would have us believe.
(Ref your Thatcher-era remarks. What you conveniently omit is that Thatcher had to sort out the mess created by the......Labour party of the 70s. This is a different debate !.)
I'm not sure how you've transposed my opinion that Bankers need more regulation and that de-regulation of THE BANKS during recent decades has permitted the situation we find oursleves in now, to occur. Into, a general policy of regualting everything.
This isn't what I've written.
I have suggested that bankers need more regulating than is currently in place, including a withdrawal from the reward for risk culture.
I have also pointed out what I see as failings of the current government to spot and deal with these bankers in order to avoid being where we are now.
I appreciate your confirmation that Labour ministers are arrogant in regard to how rich the UK is and that therefore it is a duty of the Labour party to spend all that they can, in our name and then burdenus with ever increasing taxation.
But you have a point, perhaps we should introduce regulation for spending, like the amount of money spent on 2nd homes ?, I refer you, of course, to Mrs Smith.....
Finally, please refrain from suggesting that I may be one of the types of people you outline in your post. You do not know me and you only degrade yourself by making such wild and un-substantiated remarks in a public forum.
Read your post again and I think that it is you who seems to[i]appear to be all over the place[/i].
It is my OPINION, that the bankers shouldn't receive a penny in bonuses, but instead should receive a representative salary. Bonuses work once, after that they are "expected" and depended upon.
Also, that the banking system should be RE-REGULATED to PREVENT another banking risk induced, economic recession.
Not easy, I'll admit, but consider the alternative and perhaps realise that we should at least try.
CC.
It's the sort of policies which I would associate with BNP fascists.Not saying you are a BNP supporter of course, but interestingly you launch into vitriolic and quite personal attack against bankers - which is of course another perennial favourite of fascists.
Nice. If you're not implying he's a BNP supporter then why bring it up?
breatheeasy - MemberIt's the sort of policies which I would associate with BNP fascists.
Not saying you are a BNP supporter of course, but interestingly you launch into vitriolic and quite personal attack against bankers - which is of course another perennial favourite of fascists.
Nice. If you're not implying he's a BNP supporter then why bring it up?
Because, much like Ed Balls this morning, the left are desperately trying to tar anyone who is a Conservative with the BNP brush. It's a rather sad attempt at saying "Look, they're all Nazis, don't vote for them!"
The thing is, it's all rather amusing that they send out Yvette Balls to decry City bonuses, when she's got her snout firmly in the gravy train trough. She them moralises about "ethics", like she has a ****ing clue about ethics. How long until we hear that there's nothing wrong with Smith's crooked epxpenses claimes as well? Endemic corruption at an institutional level.
CFH.
Good post, spot on.
CC
CFH. I agree, as I said very early on in this thread.....
Maybe Brown should get "angry" at all his own staff claiming all their special expenses.If you live in London, work in London and send your kids to school in London then maybe you shouldn't really buy a little cottage in the country and say it's your main residence so you can claim 'expenses' for your London pad....
Brown: "I'm very angry at you!"
Bankers: "We're sorry".
Ok sounds like Dad telling child off???
If you're not implying he's a BNP supporter then why bring it up?
Why shouldn't I mention that it's sort of policies which I would associate with fascists ? In my opinion it's a perfectly valid comment to make.
Indeed who other than fascist argue for strong government regulation of the markets and a planned economy, whilst at the same time arguing for low social spending ?
It is generally accepted that in politics there are two directions - left and right. The leftward direction is towards a planned economy with common ownership of the means of production and high social spending. The rightward direction is towards a free-market economy with privatised means of production and low social spending. It is within these two camps that most political parties in the world fall. Granted most parties tweak these principles a fair bit, but generally they do it on a pro-rata basis.
There is however [url= http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Position ]The Third Position[/url]
For example, under National Socialism there is strong government regulation, a planned economy, privatised industries, low government social spending, and high government spending on infrastructures.
Why shouldn't I say that Captain_Crash's comments suggests 'The Third Position' ?
Or is talking about The Third Position, Nationalism and Fascism now taboo subjects ? Which would be kinda strange in the present economic climate - as I suspect a global rise in Nationalism and Fascism is very probable.
Captain_Crash might well not be a supporter of the Third Position, however it would make my comment of 'being all over the place' even more appropriate imo.
And btw I also found the not one but [i]two[/i] references to the Great Depression by Captain_Crash also had a whiff about them. In my experience Fascists always time and again, bring up the Great Depression in conversations - only the National Socialists could have saved Germany from the economic crises blah, blah, blah, Hitler didn't cause the hyper-inflation and mass unemployment, that was caused by the international Jewish conspiracy (ie bankers)......blah, blah, blah......
Funny that.
Endemic corruption at an institutional level.
Tory calling labour corrupt. pot, Kettle, Black.
Because, much like Ed Balls this morning, the left are desperately trying to tar anyone who is a Conservative with the BNP brush. It's a rather sad attempt at saying "Look, they're all Nazis, don't vote for them!"
Conservative and BNP, they did come together in the recent past, now where was it...that's right, the London Mayoral elections.