[Closed] Economic Growth?*

did darcy wait 15mins b4 pointing that out?

did darcy wait 15mins b4 pointing that out?

🙂

I think the gentleman's rule is that once you're quoted, you can't really edit 😛 Only avenging the pointing out of my earlier faux pas anyway...enjoying the debate though.

that's all youve got?

No, I've got loads more. I just can't be bothered when the level of 'debate' is no more than playground bickering.

See, look:

"We shouldnt have the Olympics 'cause I met a poor little blind girl"

Give me a break

Total lack of understanding of what I'm actually on about, lack of awareness of the reality of issues faced by local people, and a lack of respect.

Which is why I can't be bothered any more. I've said my piece and that's all that matters, quite frankly. All that will happen will be the usual 'try to get Elfin banned' type crap so end of.

Stratford looks a damned lot better now and it will soon have a John Lewis!

Arguable; loads of wildlife habitat destroyed, and Stratford will have a Prada shop. In one of the most deprived boroughs of the UK. Fantastic. 🙄

Oh, the curry was lovely, btw. Having strawberries now.

and Stratford will have a Prada shop. In one of the most deprived boroughs of the UK.

reductio ad absurdum.

no more than playground bickering.

Ah, the Scottish defence 🙂

If the legacy of the Olympics is that a whole lot of young profesionals move into the Stratford area from where they can commute to good jobs in the West End, City and Canary Wharf then I'd say that was a total result for London.

If the legacy of the Olympics is that a whole lot of young profesionals move into the Stratford area from where they can commute to good jobs in the West End, City and Canary Wharf then I'd say that was a total result for London.

And the people who already live there are forced out, to live in another run down borough with a different name, but as long as the ones that have already lucked out in life are looked after that's aright.

People move on. My parents did. I did. Old communities fade away, new ones form. I have no problem with that, if I did I'd still be sitting in my mum's front room.

15 years ago my neighborhood was pretty much all white/Irish working class Londoners. They've all moved to Essex to be replaced by young couples with kids, most of whom are various shades of beige, including my own. It's just the way things are in cities, it's probably why they work so well and what makes them such great places to live.

People move on. My parents did. I did. Old communities [s]fade away[/s] get booted out, new ones [s]form[/s] use their wealth to colonise. I have no problem with that, if I did I'd still be sitting in my mum's front room.

FTFY

<crosses Essex off visiting list>

Nothing wrong with Essex

Its where all us city boys live

Nothing wrong with Essex

Its where all us city boys live

😆

Elfin, your point regarding benefit.

"And the only city in the last 30 odd years that has benefitted economically from the Lympics is Barcelona. Sydney made huge losses, as did Seoul, Atlanta etc. And Athens was just a national disaster."

1984 los angeles games had some really good out comes in various areas so it can be done.

theres always the example of the montreal olympics

[url= http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1976_Summer_Olympics#Legacy ]The Olympics were a financial disaster for Montreal, as the city faced debts for 30 years after the Games had finished. The Quebec provincial government took over construction when it became evident in 1975 that work had fallen far behind schedule; work was still under way just weeks before the opening date, and the tower was not built. Mayor Jean Drapeau had confidently predicted in 1970 that "the Olympics can no more have a deficit than a man can have a baby", but the debt racked up to a billion dollars that the Quebec government mandated the city pay in full. This would prompt cartoonist Aislin to draw a pregnant Drapeau on the telephone saying, "Allo, Morgentaler?" in reference to a Montreal abortionist.

The Olympic Stadium was designed by French architect Roger Taillibert. It is often nicknamed The Big O as a reference to both its name and to the doughnut-shape of the permanent component of the stadium's roof, though The Big Owe has been used to reference the astronomical cost of the stadium and the 1976 Olympics as a whole. It has never had an effective retractable roof, and the tower was completed only after the Olympics. In December 2006 the stadium's costs were finally paid in full.[8] The total expenditure (including repairs, renovations, construction, interest, and inflation) amounted to C$1.61 billion. Today, despite its huge cost, the stadium is devoid of a major tenant, after the Montreal Expos moved in 2005.[/url]

Well we have two premiership teams bitch fighting over the olympic stadium, so lacking a "major tenant" isnt really a problem for Stratford.

We've also had 8 bidders whittled down to 3, then to one to take over the athletes village. All that's left is the remainder of the legacy park for which substantial interest has already been shown and the park hasnt even been put out to the market yet. Each of these sales, BTW< raises massive amount of money to pay back the build. I dont think the build cost breaks even, but it's not a massive net loss.

Elfin - maybe the 'legacy' will include Waitrose ... preferably one selling avocados 😉

But I've already got a Waitrose near me. Don't need another one.

If the legacy of the Olympics is that a whole lot of young profesionals move into the Stratford area from where they can commute to good jobs in the West End, City and Canary Wharf then I'd say that was a total result for London.

And the people who already live there are forced out, to live in another run down borough with a different name, but as long as the ones that have already lucked out in life are looked after that's aright.

MSP answers this pretty much as I would. Interesting that McBoo sees only 'young professionals' as those deserving of decent homes and good easy access to work. Sod those who've grafted in crappy low-paid jobs, eh? Yeah, make the scum go and live somewhere else, so they don't make the place look so untidy... 🙄

So, Stoner; got yer Oyster Card charged up then?

We've also had 8 bidders whittled down to 3, then to one to take over the athletes village. All that's left is the remainder of the legacy park for which substantial interest has already been shown and the park hasnt even been put out to the market yet. Each of these sales, BTW< raises massive amount of money to pay back the build. I dont think the build cost breaks even, but it's not a massive net loss.

Well, since its being built with a lot of public money, after the Olympics it should be kept for Public use, NOT sold to private enterprise for less than cost who will then charge us the public for the privilege of access.

Also, its clear what will happen to that part of London...it will become a desert, a rich desert with all the undesirables shifted out to the fringes. You only need to look at the other great project there in the last few decades (Docklands) to see where this is heading.

Of course there are a lot of west ham UTD supporters there, so clearing them out may not be so bad after all... 😉

Yup - quite a lot of publc money - cost of the Olympics £9.3bn ... interesting that it was protected in the Comprehensive Spending Review when the DCMS budget (which covers grassroots participation in sports and the arts) was cut by 25%. It was claimed that this was because the Games budget was already committed to contracts, but somehow this doesn't seemed to have stopped the rest of the public sector having to pull out of existing contracts due to government cuts, plus apparently the huge 'contingency' budget of the games also needed to be protected despite the fact that it wasn't committed expenditure. But hey, apparently 'the eyes of the world will be on us' for the Olympics, let's just hope they don't look in the wrong places ...

Maybe I'm just feeling a bit frustrated about the impact of cuts on community sports, recreation and physical activity having spent the day going through the evidence on the substantial benefits from participation - everything from reducing obesity, improving mental health, providing opportunities (and even careers) for some of the sectors of society that face the greatest challenges. And then discussing how we will have to reduce support for delivery due to governments cuts ... What 'legacy' was it we were talking about?

5thElefant - Member

Goes back to the aftermath of ww2. Germany was rebuilt as a manufacturing superpower with US cash. We were broke and on strike.

Common misconception- the UK got the most Marshall Plan money by an enormous margin. Germany received less than half as much US funding than the UK. Meanwhile Germany paid reparations and faced crippling restrictions on industry.

What 'legacy' was it we were talking about?

werent you paying attention

[url= http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/jul/20/mcdonalds-olympics-biggest-mac-diner ]macdonalds are opening the worlds largest maccy ds![/url]

But hey, apparently 'the eyes of the world will be on us' for the Olympics, let's just hope they don't look in the wrong places ...

What, like Tower Hamlets, Hackney, Newham; some of the most deprived areas of the UK?

Oh....

Sod off, Hackney is great and doing alot better than most of our northern cities that are suffering from the hit to manufacturing etc. New shops, bars and cafes every month, new housing going up all over, private and social. Been here 20 years and its never looked better.

The wider economy is clearly stuffed however, or at least becalmed to be polite but who really has a sensible idea? Not the gits in Labour that got us in this fix with their freespending ways from 2001 to 2010. I can't avoid the conclusion that we are all screwed by indebtedness, government, corporate and private and only a long spell of inflation is going to cure it. Japan lost a decade and probably so shall we.

be more than a decade if osbornes at the rudder!

Not the gits in Labour that got us in this fix with their freespending ways from 2001 to 2010

consider whether what they did helped or hindered.

OK. Labour hindered 🙂

jeez, I keep falling down the two-score whole.

you think that the spending by labour made things worse and the currents cuts are helping?
Do you not think the reduced growth and the constant down grading of this is cause for concern?
Does it worry you that there is no Plan B?
I am not sure any strategy would have given perfect results but it does not seem that this is doing what the government hoped it would tbh.

Today I had the first proper argument with my Dad since I was a teenager over 'the mess that labour left us with'.

FFS stop buying into that tripe, were Labour in charge of Iceland? Greece? Spain? Ireland*? USA?

*Remember Osborne praising the 'Irish Miracle' of cutting taxes and increasing spending while maintaining a 'dynamic economy'?

EDIT - beaten to it by Junkyard while I went and re-read Osborne's 'Celtic Tiger' speech.

it does see that with economics everyone uses a filter based on their political view to give simplistic accounts of complicated issues.

Not the gits in Labour that got us in this fix with their freespending ways from 2001 to 2010.

You think the Tories have a much better record ?

[img] [/img]

And of course it depends what the government is spending money on - whether it's being spent on unemployment, or whether it's being spent on new schools and hospitals.

To be fair there is far less difference between Labour and the Tories than most people imagine - most of the "differences" are manufactured for the sake of the electorate. They particularly struggled at the last general election to present the electorate with clear differences between them.

Sod off, Hackney is great and doing alot better than most of our northern cities that are suffering from the hit to manufacturing etc. New shops, bars and cafes every month, new housing going up all over, private and social. Been here 20 years and its never looked better.

Oh sorry; I forgot that child poverty, unemployment and poor health don't actually matter. New bars and cafes! Woohoo!

As for the new housing; the vast majority of it is for private sale or rent. There is no dedicated social housing being built. Some of the new builds are available to social landlords, but still heavily subsidised by the taxpayer. And the situation is worsening.

Oh look, Tessa Jowell on Newsnight discussing the Legacy Plan. Good luck against Paxo!

Bread and Circuses. Don't worry about things like Housing, Education and Health; we've got a nice shiny stadium and Stoner can keep stocking his wine cellar!

infact good feature on newsnight now about the fact that it costs money to keep maintain a legacy not just the measly 9bn bill

oohh theyre in hackney too

That's my birthplace, that! 🙂

Building I grew up in was just in shot.

So, Stoner; fancy coming for a visit then? Y'know, maybe learn something about what you've bin spouting on about, like...

Governments in 2008/

Iceland? Independence party (centre-right) and Social Democrat Alliance in coalition
Greece? New Democracy (centre-right)
Spain? Spanish Socialist Workers' Party
Ireland*? Fianna Fáil, left of centre.
USA? Bush, rep.

so evens then

If anything it just goes to show, that the markets are more powerful than politics.

As for the new housing; the vast majority of it is for private sale or rent. There is no dedicated social housing being built.

why would you say that other than to be obtuse?

If just told you that over 1000 new resi units are held for social occupancy.

If anything it just goes to show, that the markets are more powerful than politics.

hh45 - Member

Not the gits in Labour that got us in this fix with their freespending ways from 2001 to 2010.

You mean the ones whos policies helped us ride out he global collapse without too much damage - compared to the tories who are destroying public services and the economy for no reward 0.2 % growth great - Manufacturing significantly down.

deficit up and unemployment up under the tories. defit up as tax receipts fall and unemployment rises

Still = plenty of bonuses of taxpayers money for the banks

you for got

UK? Nulabour (centre right)

fred - hand on heart would you genuinely wish the olympics never happened to newham? simple question.

You use arguments in extremis to make some very weak points. the world doesnt live at the extremes. So many people will benefit form the economic activity that the olympics brings, and many, very many of those will be from newham and of course in stratford itself.

BTW, I dont consider New Labour as being genuinely "socialist" or left of centre, just a different kind of centre right, but with a populist, temporary ideology.

they are if we dont regulate them

hey, you catch that slippy soap 😉

Will Self pwning Jowell! 😀

If just told you that over 1000 new resi units are held for social occupancy.

So you keep saying. But at what cost to the taxpayers? You think the private developers will be giving them away for nowt?

All you've come up with are some flimsy figures and some ambiguous statements, not hard facts.

The ODA has also encouraged its contractors to pay the London Living Wage

So, only 'encouraged', not actually made to. 🙄

I've seen you flounder on here before many a time, but your pond is well and truly drying out.

So, you coming down for a visit then? I'll even dust off the red carpet...

As something of an outsider (I can't vote) I find these Labour/Tory debates a little bemusing. Both parties are now significantly to the right of Edward Heath. Shouldn't the lefties be looking for a party with vaguely left-wing policies to champion?

All us foreigners are interested in is which party is likely to indulge in the most war crimes and sabotage the most positive international initiatives.

Was Will Self on Newsnight?