[Closed] Chucking more money at the banks....

🙁 bum!...

And look where Germany are today, surely I'd be paving the way for a stable future economy

The Flying Ox - Member
I suppose there'd be a slight difference. A Labour government would have slipped us fully into the EZ*

eh ? it was brown who kept us out of the euro, despite what tony wanted and what masstricht major and ken clarke wouldve done if theyd stayed in power??

slackalice - Member

Blair and co then got really carried away with the whole scam of quick profit with money that doesn't exist and went so far as to sell all our gold (which really did exist) for more money that doesn't exist.

facepalm!

and is inflating away the debt really the plan

food prices, rent, fuel have risen steadily while incomes have dropped
inflation hits the poorest hardest- 20% of children in families below the 'poverty line' already

Population of UK is what, 65 million give or take.
Instead of giving £80bn to banks who will squander it, give every UK national £1bn. 15bn saving and imagine the spending, the UK economy would then go through the roof would it not?

If only they could create as much of this Magic Money for the public sector...

That was an argument that was flying around Spain last year. Look where it's got them...

You mean they didn't do it and it was a mistake not to ?

You mean they didn't do it and it was a mistake not to ?

here in Oz they gave every taxpayer 1000 bucks to spend. it was awesome!

It would totally, and spectacularly, devalue the pound

That's exactly what I mean, ernesto.

Well let's do it then !

I wonder what I'll spend my £1bn on ? 😕

Typical Tory government - they think they can solve a problem by throwing our money at it.

😆

I presume the irony was intended?

Kimbers.... Me or them???!!!!

Instead of giving £80bn to banks who will squander it, give every UK national £1[b]b[/b]n
Nope but would welcome explanations to show how my theory isnt sound

Edit, FFS, now I'm at it - "K" key

Well let's do it then !

confusing the "B" key with the "M" key

I've only got a £1m to spend now ? 🙁

Hardly seems worth the bother for a measly £1m....

not confusing any key. 65 million people x £1bn each equal £65bn

Although I wouldnt turn down £1m either 😉

If Spain thought about it and didnt do it, then we need to act FAST!!!!

Yours for a mere 3k, almightydutch.
[img] [/img]

not confusing any key. 65 million people x £1bn each equal £65bn

No it doesnt 😕

Haha, oh yeah epic sums failure, i'll take my million instead.

I'll take 3 of them spades Don Simon, good for trail building them are

65 million people x £1bn each equal £65bn

At least your English seems to be OK - I presume you managed to pass a GCSE in that?

Will new 29er wheels cost more than £1m [s]When[/s] if I get my £1m?.....
I know, I'm shallow..46yrs of watching the same old shit happening again and again hasn't helped...

BTW in the UK we now use the US definition of a billion £1bn = £1,000,000,000 so none of you are going to be as rich as you're expecting.

almightydutch - Member
How about, for once instead of bailing out the banks and seeing little or no returns on that cash, give the citizens the money directly.

Population of UK is what, 65 million give or take.

Instead of giving £80bn to banks who will squander it, give every UK national £1bn. 15bn saving and imagine the spending, the UK economy would then go through the roof would it not?

edit. not needed

what's staggeringly clear is that the vast majority obviously have no real idea about the actual state of affairs, and all im seeing in response are trendy knee-jerk tabloid reactions.

As said above, I worry about the quality of our voters.

slackalice - you give me hope!

I've only got a £1m to spend now ?

Unfortunately so.... especially when the average price of a house would be £25m 😕

what would actually happen is that we'd spend it all on imported goods - tellys, phones, cars, cloeths, you name it - same as we did last time. Hence, not much good for improving the economy.

Same as last time ? Didn't the UK economy enjoy a boom for years whilst we were importing everything from China ?

I'll be happy with some hope hoops for my £1m... 😀 but it's not looking likely... 😥

I worry about the quality of our voters.

Tell me about it. How the **** did David Cameron become Prime Minister ? Or George Osborne Chancellor for that matter.

As said above, I worry about the quality of our voters.

Bless your little cotton socks. Would you like to do it for us, on all our behalves? 😉

I worry about the quality of our voters.

Tell me about it.

and I always thought you disliked suggestions that the average member of the public is a bit thick.

This latest spend has nothing to do with making cash available to small business and is all to do with making sure the banks have enough capital to get through this weekends potentially impending disaster, Greece!

I'd like to see the creation of a national bank whereby profits are returned back to the investors/savers and not into the pockets of it's shareholders, it would certainly give the private banks something to think about.

Would it be that hard to do?

I'd like to see the creation of a national bank whereby profits are returned back to the investors/savers and not into the pockets of it's shareholders

You could call it something like "[url= http://www.co-operativebank.co.uk/ ]The Co-operative Bank[/url]".

They used to have them many moons ago. They're called Building Societies, and embrace the concept of mutuality. There are still one or two about, despite the constant efforts of the big banks to see otherwise

[img] [/img]

I think it is somewhat ridiculous to personalise this debate, be it Thatcher, Brown, Darling, CMD or Osborne (although there is a lot of justification in putting Alan Greenspan in the proverbial dock). There is a much wider issue that extends across parties and countries - a failure to diagnose the real problems and consequently a failure to adopt the correct policies, correct policy debate being caught up in unhelpful political rhetoric (austerity v growth, too much, too fast etc) and a failure of economics to deal with a new environment that challenges existing beliefs.

So after the bun-fest of the previous decade or so we are in the dangerous environment of simultaneous deleveraging by governments, companies, banks and households. This is affecting various aspects of aggregate demand (AD) such as consumption, investment and government spending. With constraints on further borrowing (perceived or otherwise) seen as "gospel" most policy makers across parties are broadly set on a policy mix that is essentially very loose monetary policy and tight fiscal policy. This is also the mantra being ploughed aggressively by the BoE and the IMF (see Lagarde's recent UK recommendations). Mervyn King calls this a textbook response and Lagarde argued for an extension of current policies - Plan A on steroids!

So is this a policy mix that is forced on us or is it the correct one? GO basis his policy on a very simple belief: if he maintains fiscal discipline, markets will give the UK the thumbs up on credibility and this will allow for a very aggressive monetary policy that will lead to banks lending to corporates and households. So there is a very simple equation going on right now - on the positive side, extremely loose monetary policy and on the negative side tight fiscal policy combined with chaos in Europe. And its obvious which side is the more powerful at the moment - hence the flatlining economy.

So my puzzle is, why are all these clever people making a mistake that most A level Economics students could avoid? The first thing is that fiscal and monetary policy work better when applied together and second the relative balance between the two should reflect the shape of the IS and LM curves. Put simply, keynesian/fiscal policies tend to work better when the LM curve is relatively flat and vice versa. And where are we now? A flat LM curve (see krugman's US based explanation http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/09/is-lmentary/) which suggests that fiscal policy works better that monetary policy to tackle current problems. But we can't use it (apparently) because we have already spent too much, so we do the alternative even though that is the wrong policy mix. It's not exactly rocket science and yet professional economists (with the possible exception of the likes of Krugman) are failing to challenge the folly of this x-party consensus that continues to be re-enforced by central banks and the IMF.

Its like the aftermath of a children's party, when they have all been sick having consumed too much sugar and fizzy drinks and you say, here you go everyone more coke, choccy and sugar. You couldn't make it up!

Ah bollocks thm I agree with you ...this is so unfair

In the interests of avoiding the usual political posturing I got as far as this and stopped reading:

khani - Member
Your looking at it from your position, and to be frank..the banks and the government don't actually GAF if you live or die..they're getting their big salaries and bonuses and HUGE pensions, from their position it's marvellous and your just a whinging lefty communist...

Couldn't agree more. Doesn't matter what colour rosette they're wearing or their background, the political 'elite' will all do the same which is whatever the bankers tell them to do.

The last 30+ years of "equality and fairness" has been a smokescreen, we've all been allowed to feel richer while our real wealth has been systematically stripped from us. I for one don't expect to enjoy any kind of retirement as the ability to save for it has been eroded and what I have saved will be stolen from me via QE and inflation.

The sad thing is there's no easy way to opt out of the system, which is why (short of all out rebellion) they've already won. Without wanting to sound any more dramatic than I already have, I worry about what's in store for my children.

JY - nice to agree occassionally!!

Perhaps next week, this is all going to be played out with more force after the Greek election. I think that the Greeks really believe that they can call the German's bluff. Its a dangerous game of chicken and I fear neither side will budge - oops!

tonyd - agree with you completely. I think by the time we get to 'retirement age', whatever that is by then, the whole notion of a pension will be regarded as a quaint little thing they used to do in the late 20th century.

Apart from the Elite of course, with their Fred Goodwin style packages. I stopped paying into my private pension a few years ago when it became obvious that the only person who's interests were being served by the whole exercise were the investment bankers who've been having me, and every other 'investor' over for years. Whatever happens, they never lose. us on the other hand

I expect to be working until I drop or to end my days in abject poverty. And I suspect I won't be alone. Its whether people are prepared to face up to that reality, or not

One of my customers works in a bank. Just been made redundant.
Given 2 years wages and a years health care as her pay off.
Thought the banks were skint.

Fair post thm, but can't totally agree with the first line.

I think it is somewhat ridiculous to personalise this debate, be it Thatcher, Brown, Darling, CMD or Osborne (although there is a lot of justification in putting Alan Greenspan in the proverbial dock).

I have a few job alerts setup on monster/cwjobs etc. for jobs in computing/mathematics and I've noticed that throughout the last couple of years, the number of jobs in finance has remained pretty steady, even at the moment they are still recruiting for algorithmic trading and front office type jobs (is this not the sort of casino/gambling type banking we should be avoiding?). Whereas all the scientific, research or engineering type jobs have almost completely dried up.

This seems like the exact opposite of what you'd hope would be happening?

Its like everything in the world of finance is carrying on as it was before the credit crunch?

Steve Keen was on radio 4 the other day. Made intersting listening!
http://debunkingeconomics.com/
Apparently were 30% of the way through this whole thing.

Loum,

Fair point and I am not absolving either Cameron or Osborne of their responsibility. My point was really a much larger issue that there is a widespread, almost global, consensus that seems to be completely inadequate at dealing with the current problems. Its almost as if policy makers are acting like rabbits in the headlights and are paralysed by what is going on around them. They are puzzled by the failure of current policies and phazed/behind the curve about the on-going collapse of Europe.

I think there is a real problem (highlighted by Ed Balls months ago) that Keynes has become a widely misunderstood economist and that his policies are associated crudely with a Labour's history of excess and inefficient spending. So the Keynesians are scared to put their heads above the parapet just when they are needed most with the possible exceptions of Krugman in the US and Skidelsky over here.

This is perhaps best illustrated by Merkel's stance re the PIIGS. The history of the Great Depression so clearly examined by Keynes is that creditors and debtors [b]both [/b]have to take the pain. And yet Merkel cant/wont see it. She insists on a unilateral adjustment that simply cannot work * and is condemning us all to prolonged economic repression. If one country ought to understand this from their history it should be the Germans.

Keen is interesting and has written an excellent book attacking the foundations of modern economic theory. I am giving copies to current A level students but only after the exams finish next week. Too contraversial to sow his seeds in the middle of trad exam periods - but nice to challenge the thinking afterwards!!

* especially in a fixed exchange rate regime