[Closed] I just met Chancellor Alistair Darling on the street.

[i]- From 2001 experts were warning that a recession was on its way.[/i]

At any given time you can find an expert that will be warning of recession, warning of inflation, predicting massive growth, warning of the end of the world, predicting the second coming of christ, deyning human causes of climate change or stating that you need 6" of travel for a trail centre.
What is harder to find, and certainly didn't exist in 2001, is a general consensus among experts on the subject.
But yep, they could have certainly cooled the housing market. It would have probably been a total vote loser though.

From 2001 experts were warning that a recession was on its way

Only since 2001 ? Market failures, or "corrections" to use a more user friendly term, are an intrinsic characteristic of capitalism. You don't need a degree in economics to know that markets fail, bubbles burst.

In fact, I predict right now, that after we fully get over this recession, we will be heading for another one - that is an absolute certainty, take my word for it.

However : [i]"Bubbles can be [u]definitively identified[/u] only in hindsight after a market correction"[/i]

And I don't remember the leader of the Conservative Party, or his very clever Shadow Chancellor, warning of recession - weren't they listening to your experts ? And how come Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyds TSB and HBOS didn't listen to your experts either ? Did they all have very good reasons for ignoring your experts which Alistair Darling didn't have ?

But anyway, you reckon that Alistair Darling should have listened to your experts and responded by increasing taxes to "cool the market".

You would supporting Labour today hora, if they had increased taxes on hard working families to stop them spend too much ?

I once gave him a wrapped up jar of own brand sainsbury's marmite to give to my uncle as a joke present (one of many such jars given to my uncle at his birthday party many years ago).

Although initially a bit taken aback by a 13 yr old lad passing him a random joke present he played the part very well.

im overjoyed at the success of this thread dispite starting it ,i cant bear to even read the political opinions expressed especially with regards to the financial situation...yawn.

all i know is that im ****in skint but surviving on a low wage.

i suppose all i was origionally saying that it was nice to talk to Chancellor Darling in person.He said he would never want to be PM. Implied Gordon Brown was an over bearing workaholic saying "who would want to work 24 hours a day??" he said.

then commented on how much he likes Gorgie (Edinburgh) AKA "Gods Land" and the home to the mighty Heart Of Midlothian FC

Hora... id still love you to speak up on your "jesus weep" statement on the SNP i challenged you on earlier on in this thread...? gonna quantify the statement?

You would supporting Labour today hora, if they had increased taxes on hard working families to stop them spend too much ?

The planned NI, car tax, fuel duty increases, etc etc aren't increasing then?

Ernie, you dont have to die a Labour supporter you know. You can abstain when they **** up.

millband election quote "we can go on as we were" So hes admitting Labour ****ed up?

jesus weep?

Attributed to "Unnamed Labour M.P.'s"...

When yesterday I walked upon the stair,
I met a man who wasn't Blair.

He wasn't Blair again today.
Oh how I wish he'd go away...

Wept. Grammar is going to the dogs on STW 8)

mis-spelt and unfortuate grammer can still be understood,but unexplained statements...well thats a bit more challenging?

jesus wept?

hora - Member

The planned NI, car tax, fuel duty increases, etc etc aren't increasing then?

Well they certainly sound like increases to me (apart from the "etc etc" - I'm not sure what they are)

But that's not what I'm interested in. What I'm interested in this, quote :

[i]"Labour could have raised duty etc etc etc to cool the housing market"[/i]

So I repeat again, you hora, would be supporting Labour today, if they had put up taxes to curb people's spending ?

By your own admission they put taxes, but you are criticising them for not putting them up enough to curb people's spending. You would have liked the Labour government to take money out of people's pockets so that they wouldn't be able to spend it, and thereby help to "cool the market".

Obviously this money collected by the government, would be spent by the government.

So let's recap. You are criticising a Labour government for not putting up taxes and increasing public spending.

Well that is a perfectly valid criticism imo. And like you, I might well be supporting Labour today if that had been their policy.

But as it is, in part due to their refusal to put up taxes and increase public spending, I haven't been supporting Labour since 1995. I'm just very surprised that you turn out to be as left-wing as me hora - I had no idea. Good on yer fella.

.

[b][i] jae - Member

" im overjoyed at the success of this thread dispite starting it ,i cant bear to even read the political opinions expressed especially with regards to the financial situation...yawn. "[/i][/b]

You do have a vague idea what the job of Chancellor of the Exchequer entails jae , don't you ?
And you do recall saying, quote : [i]"any one got any opinions?"[/i]...yeah ?

I would be interested in knowing whether you are surprised about people expressing opinions, [i]especially with regards to the financial situation[/i]

ernie_lynch I was referring to stamp duty etc related to house buying. Not in general. Are you a shop steward pickled for years in Labourism?

Can I cross your picket line please, I have a family to feed.

I was referring to stamp duty etc

I find an awful lot of "etc" in your posts hora. In fact I find them everywhere.

Do you think by throwing in a load of meaningless "etc etc etc" you don't actually need to explain what you mean ?

So anyway......you don't believe in the free market, you don't believe that prices should be allowed to rise uncontrollable without government intervention, you believe that governments should take money from people to stop them spending too much. Do you read the Morning Star as well ?

So the first descriptive used is normally the most powerful and if you have added HOUSE PRICES then DUTY etc. Normally you can be led to believe that its relating to and around that item?

Judas Priest 8)

Hey Hora, I'm going to vote labour now just to annoy you. 😉

brilliant!

jesus ,judas ,gordon ,alisdair....

all in the bed and the little one said roll over....so they all rolled over and one fell out

BTW hora, I posted on this thread just before going on a ride this morning. Just as I was approaching ECBR, Marco phones me on my mobile - wants to know where the **** I am - there's about a dozen people waiting. When I see him I tell him that I was on the forum having a "discussion" with hora. He tells me I'm a ****.
I couldn't really argue with that.

As anyone got the plot? Hora seems to have lost it.

I'd forgotten that Alistair D was a Jambo,
You think maybe that his eyebrows are actually a hair-transplant from his knuckles? 😉

As anyone got the plot? Hora seems to have lost it.

i agree. especialially with the suspisiously polititian like deflection of my question?

what did you mean jesus wept : SNP .?

And I don't remember the leader of the Conservative Party, or his very clever Shadow Chancellor, warning of recession - weren't they listening to your experts ? And how come Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyds TSB and HBOS didn't listen to your experts either ? Did they all have very good reasons for ignoring your experts which Alistair Darling didn't have ?

Stop trying to spread the blame Ernie you're starting to sound like a broken record on this one. Gordo and Darling have been in charge of the treasury for the last 12 years and just because a bunch of other people didn't see a credit bubble coming doesn't make them any less wrong. It was Brown that took mortgage interest out of the retail price index. Maybe if it had been kept in then house price inflation could have been controlled people and people would have borrowed less against the value of their homes. Just admit Brown and Darling got it wrong- they weren't alone in doing so but they got it wrong.

Stop trying to spread the blame Ernie you're starting to sound like a broken record on this one.

I most certainly will spread the blame around - whether or not, I sound like a broken record.
The Tories have the same blind faith in "[i]the market always knows best[/i]" bollox.

And to suggest that the Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyds TSB and HBOS are somehow blameless, is quite frankly ludicrous.

[b][i]" Just admit Brown and Darling got it wrong- they weren't alone in doing so but they got it wrong. "[/i][/b]

Of course they got it wrong !!!

Anyone who believes that an economy should be based on neo-liberal free-market laissez-faire principles, is clearly very wrong.

If you must have Capitalism, then by far the most effective and acceptable way to implement it, is through social-democratic Kensiyan principles. Otherwise don't complain that you don't like the results.

tree-magnet - Member
His eyebrows freak me out.

Posted 1 day ago # Report-Post

They are the only bit of the British financial system still in the black...

[img] [/img]

If only he could put them to good use .....

[url= http://www.ebaumsworld.com/video/watch/80557340/ ]The Eyebrows Have It[/url]

As anyone got the plot? Hora seems to have lost it.

No, I think he has some points but some errors, thing is whats the alternative?

Tories or Libs?

I'll vote labour so the tories don't get in. At least they have policies even though I don't agree with all of them.

The tories were pretty aggressive with Thatcher.

If there was no recession Labour would easily win but it's global yet people still blame Gordon Brown and say he is a Scot etc.

It's not because he's a Scot, it's because Britain went into the recession with a fairly big debt to start with, so while most other countries have gone from small debt to large, we have gone from large to enormous. And he seems to think we can borrow our way out of a recession caused by too mch borrowing...

Did you guys see that the OECD predicted that the UK's economy would grow by more than most countries and the Eurozone next quarter? If that happened, would that vindicate Labour's policies or what?

Seems to me that the people who are complaining about large scale borrowing during the recession are the people who know naff all about economics. All the big shot economists that I've heard, political leaders from this country and others and analysts seem to be saying that they handled the situation fairly well, because borrowing was needed.

Cameron calling it 'labour's recession' is quite crassly stupid. Were labour in power in the USA, Greece, Spain etc etc etc?

If there was no recession Labour would easily win but it's global yet people still blame Gordon Brown

Really ? I reckon the recession has saved New Labour's bacon.

Before the scale of the recession was fully understood, Labour were absolutely certain to lose the general election. In May 2008 a YouGov poll for the Telegraph put Labour on 23% and Tories on 47%. So that was [u]twice[/u] as much support for the Tories over Labour then.

Within a few months the scale of the recession became apparent and Labour implemented a massive rescue plan. Ever since then, Labour's fortunes have changed and their support has been consistently increasing. To the point were there is now a possibility they might win the next election :

[url= http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/apr/05/icm-poll-labour-conservatives-election ]Labour could win most seats at general election, poll shows[/url]

The reason why Labour appear to have done extremely well out of the recession is that firstly, it gave them the opportunity to act decisively, and secondly it exposed the Tories as a party with no credible solutions/alternatives.

Plus despite the Tories best efforts, most people realise that this was a global recession.

And of course the thought of the Tories coming to power right now is rather scary. Now isn't the time to elect the "Nasty Party" when the people are feeling vulnerable.

Some people can remember how much worst the Tories made things during recession with their sky-high interest rates. Some people can remember that it was a Tory Chancellor who said that unemployment was a price "worth paying"

[i] "If higher unemployment is the price we have to pay in order to bring inflation down, then it is a price worth paying."[/i]

Norman Lamont, Chancellor of the Exchequer. 1992.

.

EDIT : What Norman Lamont of course meant was :

[i]"If higher unemployment is the price [b]YOU[/b] have to pay in order to bring inflation down, then it is a price worth paying."[/i]

And to suggest that the Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyds TSB and HBOS are somehow blameless, is quite frankly ludicrous.

Where the hell have I suggested any such thing?

" Just admit Brown and Darling got it wrong- they weren't alone in doing so but they got it wrong. "

Of course they got it wrong !!!

Finally we agree on something.

I know his daughter, also a lovely lady. I met her at a party, but she refused to lend my girlfriend the last economic and social history book in the Glasgow uni libary.

uponthedowns - Member

And to suggest that the Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyds TSB and HBOS are somehow blameless, is quite frankly ludicrous.

[b]Where the hell have I suggested any such thing?[/b]

Here you are mate :

uponthedowns - Member

And I don't remember the leader of the Conservative Party, or his very clever Shadow Chancellor, warning of recession - weren't they listening to your experts ? [u]And how come Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyds TSB and HBOS didn't listen to your experts either[/u] ? Did they all have very good reasons for ignoring your experts which Alistair Darling didn't have ?

[b]Stop trying to spread the blame Ernie you're starting to sound like a broken record on this one[/b].

Ernie you're losing it mate. I never said they were blameless. I criticised you for trying take the heat of Brown and Darling by trying to spread the blame. Fact is they were in power not RBS, Lloyds or HBOS.

Ernie you're losing it mate

I fear that it might be you, what's losing it.

You quoted me in full, saying this :

[i]" And I don't remember the leader of the Conservative Party, or his very clever Shadow Chancellor, warning of recession - weren't they listening to your experts ? [u]And how come Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyds TSB and HBOS didn't listen to your experts either [/u]? Did they all have very good reasons for ignoring your experts which Alistair Darling didn't have ?"[/i]

And then, said : [i]"Stop trying to [u]spread the blame[/u] Ernie you're starting to sound like a broken record on this one. "[/i]

You did not remove [i]"how come Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyds TSB and HBOS didn't listen to your experts either ?"[/i] from my quote before accusing me of "trying to spread the blame".

Now of course if you have changed your mind and agree with all of this :

[i]"And I don't remember the leader of the Conservative Party, or his very clever Shadow Chancellor, warning of recession - weren't they listening to your experts ? And how come Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyds TSB and HBOS didn't listen to your experts either ? Did they all have very good reasons for ignoring your experts which Alistair Darling didn't have ?"[/i]

Then that's fine with me 🙂

I know his daughter, also a lovely lady. I met her at a party, but she refused to lend my girlfriend the last economic and social history book in the Glasgow uni libary.