[Closed] UK recession deepens

All part of their plan.

And it'll continue to as well. Its only heading in one direction while these braying, chinless hooreys are at the helm. Effing clueless!!!

But hey... who cares? When you're safely insulated from it all

Revolution anyone?

[img] [/img]

I'll get me pitchfork.

Yep, we're all doomed, the end of the world is nigh and the country is going to the dogs.

As there's chuff all I can do about it at the moment I think I may as well go for a bike ride.

Anyone on here own their own business? How are you doing?
We are the same as last year ,so not panicking just yet.
One of my customers has a large building company and he is turning down work.

When they came to power the coalition prediction 5% growth by now, we've seen the economy shrink by 0.3% instead.

George is too busy meddling with renewable energy subsidies and cow-towing to the fossil fuel lot. His fingers appear to be firmly in his ears when it comes to listening to people about decarbonising the economy.

How does this compare with the other countries in europe (on average)?

hold on the mightt=y charriot of free enterprise is just warming up for the onslaught of jobs from the "wealth creators and all the joys it will bestow on us..i think i can hear it coming right now.

PS nice to see the tories reminding us about tax avoidance
That is the Tory led governement with the father of the PM who was instrumental in setting up andmade his millions voa a tax avoidance company

FFS get your own house in order befor epreaching to me you amoral ****s

ah that feels better

His fingers appear to be firmly in his ears when it comes to listening to people about [s]decarbonising the economy[/s] absolutely anything at all.

FTFY 🙁

BBC:

"It looks like construction has done a lot of the damage,"

Actually, that'll be Govt spending cuts in infrastructure and construction alongside private sector reluctance to invest meaning the construction market is in freefall.

Can anyone explain to me why construction is seen as the holy grail to get the UK out of it's current financial mess?

It may have worked in the '30's but I don't see why it will save us now? After all the whole world is a different place now and the '30's ended with a bit of a punch up which might have had something to do with it.

How does this compare with the other countries in europe (on average)?

Baddly is the short answer though not as bad a ssay Oreland, Spain, Grece or Italy
Glocbally we are 165 for GDP growth out of 182 countries
Take that Andorra, sudan and Syria.

have you heard of Google it answers all these questions and more

Why bother? 😀

Don't worry about it. Watch the 'lympics instead.

It may have worked in the '30's but I don't see why it will save us now?

If we start from the premise that there are more households being formed than houses being built there is a demand, the problem is money. Who pays and who buys the houses, someone has to invest money.

hold on the mightt=y charriot of free enterprise is just warming up for the onslaught of jobs from the "wealth creators and all the joys it will bestow on us..i think i can hear it coming right now.

Yes, because since we decided that we couldn't possibly introduce a Tobin tax, or regulate the finance industry in any way, and we cut taxes for the highest earners, I believe the 'wealth creators' are now really fired up and motivated, free of stifling government meddling - can't wait for them to really get things going.

exciting times.

Not wanting to be overly gloomy but financially, as a nation, we are stuffed and thus will bounce along the bottom for a long time. As many other nations are in the same boat the tried and tested route of drop your currency value to stimulate growth tactic will not work and as we carry massive public debts this risks impacting the borrowing rate. The only realistic way forward is a long slow recovery with bumps along the way, it would not surprise me if such bumps turn in to a triple dipper or more.

But it could be worse i.e. Greece / Spain / Ireland / Italy or worse still Germany who will end up facing the prospect of underwriting the whole mess or letting it all blow up and trying to pick up the pieces.

we have just not given them enough money yet [ dig deep plebs]. Is this the third or is it fourth bail out of the banks / giving them funds whilst encouraging them to lend.
thanks god they did not loose theior bonuses whilst they were being bailed out by us, fiddling the LIBOR and not lending as agreed when we gave them the money...they really are laughing all the way to the bank 👿

Anyone on here own their own business? How are you doing?

Mid size manufacturer so exactly who should be suffering. But luckily we are continuing to see growth by being in relatively defensive sectors. We do have one sector under performing which I have put down to economic factors and a tightening of budgets but overall up as I say.

Seems to be quite a unique position, over the last 3 years I have seen so many companies come and go on our Estate!

I was worryingly quiet at my consultant job most of this year, but as it happens a load of people have spontaneously quit of their own accord, and I'm now also tied up til the end of the year.. fingers crossed!

To be fair, they did cite the bad weather and extra bank holiday as mitigating factors. After all one day is 1.5% of a quarter; ok so there was still plenty of activity on that day anyway but it's enoguh to make a significant dent in output.

NB I am in no way supporting the current government or its economic policies!

Should we not just throw a few hundred billion of taxpayers money at the banks? That's worked well so far.

Oh... Actually ..... that's probably what they're preparing to do isn't it? Again?!

And to think, these lot used to criticise labour for just chucking money at failing institutions, without reform 🙄

I am going to coin a new internet acronym.

IABMCCTT

It's a bit more complicated than that, Binners.

Blaming the Banks is a bit of an over simplification. Whilst there have been some unethical and possibly criminal things going on in Banks the overall level of indebtedness of our economy in all sectors is not solely the Banks fault. There are two players in every bank loan and both are equally responsible for the position they take on.

The Banks are now rightly reigning themselves in and ironically the tighter lending control is a large part of the current problem hence the Politian’s dilemma of bashing Banks for bad practice with one hand yet trying to encourage lending on the other.

but we were told that the jubilee would boost spending!

http://news.sky.com/story/21877/jubilee-britons-set-for-big-spending-spree

the failure to push for a europe wide (global?) tobin tax and action against tax havens shows exactly whos interests our government are looking out for

molgrips - what does the second "C" stand for?

It stands for fat fingers.

Ah. I see. Thanks!

blaming the weather and bank holidays is clutching at straws.

Why?

Are you arguing that having 1.5% fewer days on which to make money would not be a factor in a drop of 0.7% in output?

how come the extra day in february this year didn't boost the economy then?

molgrips - what does the second "C" stand for?

Is it '[i]that[/i]' C word? With 'ing' at the end of it? So... It's a bit more ****ing complicated than that, Binners.

If so, I'm liking that 😀

Lol 🙂

how come the extra day in february this year didn't boost the economy then?

Maybe they factor that in, since it's a regular occurrence. The ONS chap on the radio did say they'd be revising figures, but I dunno if they are compensating for it.

No idea how they calculate this stuff.

Blaming the Banks is a bit of an over simplification. Whilst there have been some unethical and possibly criminal things going on in Banks the overall level of indebtedness of our economy in all sectors is not solely the Banks fault. There are two players in every bank loan and both are equally responsible for what the position they take on.

Some unethical and probably criminal...no need for caveats lets just discuss how
So the banks are so bad at lending they lend money to folk they should never have lent to who could not possibly pay it back ...but it is their fault for applying rather than the banks fault for agreeing.
So even when they are uttelry shit at their job [ which i assume is to only lend money to people who will pay it back] it is still not their fault.

Yes it takes two but one is a clueless numpty with no financial training whatsoever and no business accumen and the other is just someone trying to borrow money 😉

No idea how they calculate this stuff.

Basically a survey. Businesses have to complete them each month, sales, export sales, new orders received and so on. Not all business of course, a sample.

how come the extra day in february this year didn't boost the economy then?

Maybe it did - it might have been even worse

Should we have a sweep on the next 'dog ate my homework' excuse from Gideon, for this present quarters disastrous results

The Olympics are definitely going to cop the blame I reckon. They're a shoe-in! Or it could be Bradley Wiggins fault for so many people going to France to watch him

Why?

Are you arguing that having 1.5% fewer days on which to make money would not be a factor in a drop of 0.7% in output?

that's right. every body stays at home, no one shops on the internet and no food is eaten, no petrol is bought. the economy stops completely for 1 day.

teef you are right, maybe it did. just that i don't recall being congratulated for working the extra day, but do seem to recall getting moaned at for taking an extra bank holidays and not spending enough money (moaned at metaphorically, as opposed to literally 🙂 )

from the grauniad

[i]Brendan Barber, the general secretary of the TUC, made the telling point that the economy is now smaller than it was when the coalition came to power in 2010. That is a quite appalling performance, especially in the context of 0.5% bank rate, £375bn of electronic money creation and £500bn-plus of public borrowing since the recession began.

The bottom line is that the government failed to recognise just how sick the economy was when it took office in 2010. Its blundering incompetence has made it sicker.[/i]

that's right. every body stays at home, no one shops on the internet and no food is eaten, no petrol is bought. the economy stops completely for 1 day.

That's not what I said, is it? I didn't say NO money was taken, in fact I even acknowledged your point that some was. But GDP is lower on a bank holiday.

[i]Should we have a sweep on the next 'dog ate my homework' excuse from Gideon, for this present quarters disastrous results[/i]

There's always the Queen and her extra day off. That one really screws us every 60 years.
But my money would be on the weather, its the wrong kind of hot for economic recovery.

so you agree that the underlying cause of this recession is bad weather and an extra days bank holiday.

so you agree that the underlying cause of this recession is bad weather and an extra days bank holiday.

Junkyard - Member
hold on the mightt=y charriot of free enterprise is just warming up for the onslaught of jobs from the "wealth creators and all the joys it will bestow on us..i think i can hear it coming right now.

Interesting, that you do at least have your ears open JY! 😉 Among the gloom, one of the few beacons of light is the level of private sector fixed investment which is growing at 3% for past 18 months. But this is not sufficient to offset weakness in other areas. So we had an economic mirage based on rising consumption, falling saving and increased leverage at the sovereign, corporate, bank and household levels resulting in an unbalanced economy skewed toward the public sector and financial services (neatly joined together by Gordon Brown).

So now we have the reverse: falling consumption, reduced confidence, rising savings, declining leverage and a rebalance away from public sector and financial services ALL in a climate of recession and extreme levels of uncertainty among our major trading partners. [b]And the crux - neither economists nor politicians have a policy mix that can address these headwinds.[/b]. That will come with hindsight, when all the books are written. Tory and Labour plans are broadly the same ie, aggressive monetary easing, broadly neutral fiscal policy, little bit of pump priming.

Leaving the similarities aside: the Tories are overly reliant on aggressive monetary policy especially since the transmission mechanism (banks) is still in intensive care (and Osborne doesn't seem to understand basic ISLM A level analysis). They are correct but massively over-optimistic about private sector/public sector rebalancing since the private sector is still de-leveraging and plagued by uncertainty/low confidence. So the balancing was never going to happen in equal measures.

So today leaving aside Miliband's BS about (too far, too fast - at least Balls has not dropped that argument), what are the alternatives? Balls and Milliband both emphasised only one idea today - bankers bonus (withdrawal) to fund VAT reduction (injection) ie, a broadly neutral fiscal mix. Tax an unpopular segment of the economy (political brownie points) and to fund cuts to boost wider consumption. And the net effect? Plus capital investment projects as with the Tories and Lib Dems (see below). In other words, we don't know either.

Lord Oakshott for the Lib Dems - VAT cut (without Labour's funding solution) and capital investment in line with everyone else. Thanks for that! At least a succinct, we dont know either.

The IMF: a few months ago supporting the UK's policy mix. Now: More QE, more credit, more public investment (relatively high multiplier) and the only thing where they make a stand that is not rhetoric (Labour please note) is "The planned (note the future tense, here!) pace of structural fiscal tightening will need to slow if the recovery fails to take off even after additional monetary stimulus and strong credit easing measures. The UK has the fiscal space to make such adjustments."

So broadly speaking none of the key decision makers - the politicians, the central banks, the institutions that control the bailouts, the mainstream economist - have the answer to creating magical growth in the context of massive, sustained and simultaneous deleveraging by countries, corporates, banks and households and the collapse of the euro project's foundations.

Makes you feel great....!

our main overseas markets are crippled the eurozone is bankrupt.. banks have stopped lending as they lent all thier money then the govts to people who could nt would nt pay it back.. the greeks irish for starters
then theres the public sector STILL spending money like water.. when i 'm skint i dont go out and buy new vans or employ staff at more than the original staff as demand is high for key tradesmen??
why do we pay pensions to 49 years old who then go and get jobs or start up elsewhere or even go back to work for thier original employers who are paying the pension ..
50% of the country doesnt know what a recession looks like.. and its having NO effect on them.. as a tory voter i ll say letting the rich off was a BIG mistake they need to pay more ... a lot more even the wealthy pensioners..

So basically Economics is bobins as it wont help us when we are in the shit

Any chance you could do a shorter post nex time. I dont understand why some posters do long winded posts 😉
😳

I do agree that typically monetairst policies [ of course I dont like them but they have their plcae] alone will not do anything

Like you say Gideon aint bright and his view [ thankfully unlike ours eh] is goverened by politics/philosophy rather thna facts or reality.

Dog ate hwk excuse ...blame Europe as it ticks so many boxes for Tories.

Economics isn't bobbins necessarily 😉 but misundertanding its basic principles on the way up (GB) and on the way down (CMD/GO) isn't a great idea. Plus sidelining one whole avenue of economic thinking hasn;t helped matters *. Again, first year economics A level - monetary and fiscal policies tend to work better in harmony with the balance dependent on current conditions!

Europe certainly doesn't help either - so I will cut the Tories slack there - but the net exports data was actually good news. For the first time since 1998, exports to non-Eu countries > EU countries and trade deficit fell. Perhaps that's why there were some perky exporters on the radio this morning?

* especially the bit about creditors having to share some of the pain!

so you agree that the underlying cause of this recession is bad weather and an extra days bank holiday.

Was that aimed at me? Who on earth is saying that?

Was that aimed at me?

It seemed clear to me that it was aimed at loum

So basically Economics is bobins as it wont help us when we are in the shit

Will Hutton used the quote "ask 3 economists for a prediction, and you'll get 4 different opinions" 😀

Businesses need to fit the right people to the right jobs when recruiting.

The banks need to lend to businesses.

Businesses need to export to the BRICS and ignore Europe.

The government needs to facilitate all this any way it can by making hiring and firing easier.

Other than that,

[img] [/img]

Dudes.

* especially the bit about creditors having to share some of the pain

I get your wider point that many were very foolish over the loans that they took out [ i was offered a mortgage that was x 7 my income at the time [ [ex]wife was pregnant and had a salary but was not going back to work and no one asked but I had the sense to realise this was unaffordable but really WTF were they thinking off offering this? ] but as i noted above I can forgive them because they are not finacial experts..the banks really should have know better

The government needs to facilitate all this any way it can by making hiring and firing easier.

Nice to see the kneejerk Tory [s]wet dream [/s] policy there Woppit

If we could only sack everyone on the spot tomorrow, then take some of them back on, on half the pay, with no pensions, holidays or sick pay, then everything would be just fine 😉

Nice to see the kneejerk Labour wet dream policy there etc etc etc.

We need to make good stuff and sell it.

You got any better ideas?

JY - I wasnt clear. I was talking about creditors at the sovereign level and referring back to JMK's conclusion that ultimately creditors have to bear some of the pain. A difficult message for sure but one that Euro-land creditors will ultimately have to remember.

Actually Binners, you reminded me, Balls did mention NI breaks for SMEs, I think.

You got any better ideas?

It is a simplist debating [ arguing really] tactic to say nothing and just attack others...why not share your insights/solutions?

Sorry THM and yes you are correct- good ish bbc link in JMK the other day

Mr Woppit - Member

Nice to see the kneejerk Labour wet dream policy there etc etc etc.

TopTip : Your retort would have worked better if you had copied and pasted this alleged "kneejerk Labour wet dream policy".

Simply paraphrasing someone in a completely pointless and meaningless way just makes you stupid and devoid of your own ideas 💡

I think we're all in agreement with what we need to be doing to get out of the hole Mr W, but the Tories default position is, for example, that mass unemployment is beneficial to drive down labour costs/living standards for the plebs, and there is no option to punishing austerity. Public sector investment to promote growth is the route of all evil. Give money to the banks, they'll do the rest....

They (and so, us) are straightjacketed by their ridiculous discredited ideology that refuses to let them even think of doing anything different to what has failed so spectacularly, and repeatedly

Like they said themselves, proudly: There is no plan B.

Yeah... we can see that. Maybe now might be a good time to try one

To state so publicly and oftern taht there is no Plan B was a mistake tbh. Now, when it appear too , by any objective measure, not be workign , they would rather screw us all than loose face.
To be fair we would go ape if he did change his plan and drive him from office so , unless he wishes to commit political hari-kari, he has no choice..sometimes democracy sucks and this is one of them.

Simply paraphrasing someone in a completely pointless and meaningless way just makes you stupid

Interesting theory. Bit like Pavlov's Dog, you mean? (Self-inflicted, obviously...).

political [s]hari[/s] hara-kari

FTFY

Despite claiming to be a "friend of business", the Tories and Osborne are acting like every other corporatist/centrist political numpties who think the problem can be solved by manipulating the money supply. "Priming the pump" and "Investing in industry" and other such nonsenses whilst chucking money at banks who just sit on it to improve their own finances. They should not be bailed by the taxpayer, but left to swim or sink on their own talent, or lack of it.

It's a supply-side solution, but don't expect the politicians to be doing any enabling any time soon.

you will have a busy life correcting my mispellings... I cant decide if you are being smug or not, then i remembered I dont care

[b]O!! M!!! G!!!![/b] I agree with Woppit 😯

It's the Olympics innit?

Construction is a big chunk of UK PLC

Big chunk of construction industry working on projects all due to be delivered Spring-Summer in time for sports day. They're all done now so there's bound to be a blip of some sort or another.

I cant decide if you are being smug or not, then i remembered I dont care

Funny how you keep going on about it, then. Poor little bunny.

They should not be bailed by the taxpayer, but left to swim or sink on their own talent, or lack of it.

So how do we run our economy with a load of failed banks?

Building societies, plus use the banks which haven't failed.

Funny how you keep going on about it, then. Poor little bunny.

and 🙄
Was there any ned or point? that rhetorical BTW, if you can resist

So how do we run our economy with a load of failed banks?

And they could be doing a worse job than the present tax-payer guaranteed, self-interested, morally bankrupt, utterly corrupt, parasitic, socially worthless set up, how exactly....?

So we've had the excuse of the Jubilee extra bank holidays AND the bonus working day 29th February - will Osbourne's next excuse be - "Well due to the Olympics, Paralympics and the other lot of Lympics, London and the City were closed, and everyone will now be taxed at 50%"

Why won't govt's introduce the Robin Hood tax on banks as they got us in this mess? I know it's a very simplistic view but with all the internal transaction they make with our money they oughtta pay more in the way of tax.

One of the strongest banks that hadn't failed is currently lacking a CEO care of the interference of the chattering Islington classes - and Building Societies don't have a better record on lending to businesses than the banks do, so there's nothing to be gained there.

well that removed the doubt and i mentioned it once.

You've a short memory, ducks. Apparently I'm condescending, patronising and a whole raft of other misdemeanours in all my posts, according to you.

Just doing my best for you from my lofty perch.

The Coop is a fine example of a bunch of professional earners who know what they're doing.

Just bought a shed load of Lloyd's Bank properties at knock-down prices...

Ethical, too.

And they could be doing a worse job than the present tax-payer guaranteed, self-interested, morally bankrupt, utterly corrupt, parasitic, socially worthless set up, how exactly....?

Well failed banks tend to lend even less money than ones with money.

If a bank were to fail, surely all the money that it owes would just disappear, wouldn't it? If most of the big banks failed, would that not result in total economic collapse?

Not sure that your local building society would hav ethe funds to finance economic recovery, tbh.

[b]UK recession deepens[/b]

and thats before we get the final bill in from the police and army for the g4s failures,the olympics fiasco, the cost of the jubilee celebrations, the cost of the inquiry into dodgy newspaper practices, that will say they did ok in a tough world, and wars in various places, along with large redundancy payments to the armed forces.

We will be broker than a house mouse.
and thats before we join in with a war against Syria.