Double dip recession

Binners – after a slightly stumbling performance on N’night last nigh Harman is currently making a better fist of things right now. And there’s Milliband looking up at her thinking, “why can’t I do that?” 😉

and now watch Cleggy’s face behind Hunt. Is it panto time?

Executive summary:

pointless foghorning

haha I think to be a big hitter I would need to read more than the first page and the last few comments on the thread though…….and to defend my black and white clear cut stance on the matter by posting it every 5 minutes or so, on the off chance that someone had missed it 🙂

Oh dear god! I’ve just listened to Wallace stumble over his words through the most limp-wristed, pathetic ‘attack’ on the government yet, at PMQ’s. Its tragic!!! The ****ing ineffectual imbecile can’t even splutter a sentence properly. Will someone please please please put him out of his misery

Binners, some light relief for you 🙂

http://news.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/hi/historic_moments/newsid_8195000/8195545.stm

So basically you all think we should fix the problems we have by making small changes to the system that doesn’t work and caused this situation in the first place.

The problems we face are due to an inability to determine what is important and what is not and then to prioritise.

So here’s a question for all of you, what is more important quality of life or having money to buy useless shit?

The problem is that not many people really give a shit about the bigger picture, we’re all too distracted by this, that and the next thing.

What if all of us tried to make the most out of what we have and then required the same attitude from those who demand the right to rule us!

Tom, Big Hitter status requires you to have at least 20% of posts on whatever thread you contribute to, repeating your point endlessly, and above all copy and pasting at least 20 points from other posters and replying to each of them in one gargantuan post to end all posts 😉

We all of us have to change our perception of the world, we can no longer afford to look at each individual situation and say, how do I get the most out of this for me, **** everyone else.

We need to start saying how do I ensure that everyone gets the most out of this situation that I can, you want a way out of our current problems and to leave this recession behind.

Then we all need to change our attitudes and behaviour, we need to create a set of circumstances were it is not beneficial for individuals to be scum bags or acceptable for thier actions to have a detrimental effect on the culture they live in!

So swedishmatt and/or solo, ready with a nice concise argument regarding the role of bond markets in the financial crisis and recovery?

Or are you just going to keep patronising people who don’t agree* with you?

*I may agree with you on some points, but as you haven’t actually made any argument except ‘Duh, bond markets, stupid. Borrowing? Idiot’ it’s pretty difficult to tell.

Lifer – Member
So swedishmatt and/or solo, ready with a nice concise argument regarding the role of bond markets in the financial crisis and recovery?

Or are you just going to keep patronising people who don’t agree* with you?

*I may agree with you on some points, but as you haven’t actually made any argument except ‘Duh, bond markets, stupid. Borrowing? Idiot’ it’s pretty difficult to tell.

Right. I will. Give me 5 minutes.

I wasn’t loading up on credit cards, maxing my mortgage and getting a car on HP as many many people seemed to be doing. The very type of things that caused the whole mess. I think most of us could see (certainly by 2007) that this couldn’t be sustained.

As much as I dislike the Tories, I cannot argue with the Micawber approach to fiscal responsibility:

“My other piece of advice, Copperfield, said Mr. Micawber, you know. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery”

I understand Keynesian economics, and the argument about stimulating growth, but there does come a point where you have to stop borrowing, and I think we’re there. That’s why not even Labour will promise to reverse the austerity measures. The Micawber analogy applies to governments and nations as well as individuals.

The problem is that nobody on any side of the political landscape has any solutions that are guaranteed to work, and the political establishment has run out of options. Hence why extremist politics/the nationalist alternative are becoming more and more popular across Europe, because the mainstream parties are seen not to be dealing with the situation – all they proffer is either austerity (unpopular) or spending (risky).

We’re in a mess, and the mess was caused by rampant selfish capitalist greed. The question is, who will come up with a viable alternative and what will that be? I hope it’s not the extremists, but at the moment it’s only them thinking about alternatives to rampant free-market-ism. Time for the politicians to catch on.

Spot on littlemisspanda

1. GDP is a shit crap measure. However, this is what is being used.
2. The UK borrows money. This leads to something called the deficit. All the years of deficits lead to a debt. The UK borrows this money from funds, banks and other sources. The UK pays interest on this money. The UK gets this money through selling government bonds. So people lend money to the UK, and the UK pays the bond holders a % of interest, called yield.
3. The UK officially has basically 4 trillion pounds in debt. Read the independent yesterday. This is several hundred % of GDP.

The UK is on a path that WILL lead to a Greece, Portugal, Italian and whichever basket case country you look at. I guess this could be a bone of contention as the UK can magically PRINT money. But if it prints too much, the bond holders will be pissed off because the pound will be worth less (inflating the money supply which is one factor that causes inflation).

If the UK starts INCREASING the deficit, i.e. borrowing more – the rating agencies WILL downgrade the UK. This will mean HIGHER borrowing costs.

Labour would, by now, have borrowed even more, and cut less. I guess I can’t with certainty say they would have borrowed more, but I think they would. I think we can be certain they would “cut” less. If you follow the conversations around the UK’s credit rating, you will find that it’s wholly dependent if they will meet the deficit reduction targets. If they don’t meet them, downgraded -> more expensive to borrow money, which leads to worse GDP in the end as the government will spend money on not goods and services, but repaying debt. Labour’s short term approach MIGHT have lead to a temporary increase in GDP, but without fail, would have bombed shortly after because of the reaction of the bond market.

I don’t know what figure you think it’s sustainable to have as national debt, but several hundred % is NOT sustainable.

Now, someone might be a hell of a lot better than me explaining this.

In essence, the UK can’t afford to keep borrowing at the levels it has.

GDP is a bad measure because you can inflate it by borrowing money and spending it in the economy. Would it be fair to call that a false economy? Borrowing money to push a figure up? It’s stupid. Would the bond markets and rating agencies fall for it? Well, no, I don’t think so.

That, is in essence, why Labour would have **** up even more. But the population would of course be happy – until the UK turns Greek and get shut out of the bond market or have to pay 6%+ yields. That, is not sustainable.

Haven’t the tories borrowed an extra £150bn than they said they would? Is that more or less than what Labour said they would?

love the way kaesae just got blanked. twice. lol

love the way kaesae just got blanked. twice. lol

Which is a shame because he has some reasonable ideas, on the other side there are some of the big hitting intellectuals who fill the forum with complete and uter bullcrap. 😐

The UK is on a path that WILL lead to a Greece, Portugal, Italian and whichever basket case country you look at.

There’s a Nobel prize-winning economist (who I quoted higher up the thread) that disagrees, but I’m sure you know best.

littlemisspanda – Member
That’s why not even Labour will promise to reverse the austerity measures.

This is beacuse a weak labour are scared of the propagnada machine the tories own – they hare afraid to / have not been able to make the case against the cuts so have capitulated

Which is a shame because he has some reasonable ideas

that is what i was getting at. though admittedly my post didn’t make it clear.

have not been able to make the case against the cuts

So, even the labour party – reknowned party of social justice, recognise the fact, but TJ stands Canute (careful now) like, telling the tide to turn back, that we can keep on spending more than we take in taxes.

swedishmatt

completely ignoring the feffect growth would have – so if our economy had been growing more the debt become less as a % of GDP which stimulating the economy woulod do. However the tory cuts causing recession reduces GDP so make the debt less payable. Torys have increased the debt not decreased it as tax revenues are down, government spend is up as they have more benefit to pay

also tax increases are possible and a shift of tax burden from poor to rich – doing this increases economic activity.

so please tell us how to get out of this mess. all yo have done is blamed labour but you have not addressed the question of how to get out of this mess

There’s a Nobel prize-winning economist

Whos’ name is Pissiride 😆
Cracks me up every time.

Grum: This professor said:

He said: “It is important to avoid this ‘sovereign risk’. But in my view Britain is a long way from such a threat, and the chancellor has exaggerated the sovereign risks that are threatening the country.”

BBC: “Fitch Ratings warned on Wednesday that it could downgrade the UK in the next few years if the government does not contain the level of public debt.”

That professor should shut up really. Muppet.

This is beacuse a weak labour are scared of the propagnada machine the tories own – they hare afraid to / have not been able to make the case against the cuts so have capitulated

Perhaps that is because there isn’t a strong enough case to make?

Like I said I’m definitely no Tory, but I’m no fan of Miliband/Balls either and I don’t see them coming up with any clear alternatives.

So basically you all think we should fix the problems we have by making small changes to the system that doesn’t work and caused this situation in the first place.

The problems we face are due to an inability to determine what is important and what is not and then to prioritise.

So here’s a question for all of you, what is more important quality of life or having money to buy useless shit?

I think kaesae has a point here. We’re stuck with a system that doesn’t work, and a society that’s embraced the wrong values. It’s chicken and egg – were we seduced by the excess and luxury the selfish free market-driven capitalist society offered us, or did we actually help to make it that way because we wanted endless stuff, to emulate celebrities, to keep up with the Joneses, and our governments just responded to what we wanted? Either way, certainly in affluent Western societies, we bought into it lock stock and barrel. Now the bubble’s burst, and the one thing we don’t want to look at is that it might be time to change our social values instead of our economic policies. All we seem to want is for someone to wave a magic wand and go “hey, it’s alright again now, here’s another credit card, off you go to Currys and buy a new HD TV”.

It’s not going to happen.

Littlemisspanda

The way I see it the conventional wisdom is elections are won and lost on the swing voters in marginal seats. Labour believe these people ( mainly middle class / suburbia) have been persuaded by the tory propaganda machine that the cuts are needed so are scared of opposing cuts incase they loose this vote.

They are too timid to make the case because of the desire to chase these few but crucial votes – we are talking about a couple of hundred thousand people.

TJ
Labour putting up such a weak effort as opposition is one of the few problems in this country that can not be blamed on the government.
At some point they, and their supporters, need to take some responsibility for their own problems and sort them out. This should be a very good time to be in opposition, yet they are b@llsing it up.

I also think this government has the least effective “propaganda machine” for a long time. I think they’ve fallen out with and lost the support of News International, and therefore the Sun readers too. Its true that the BBC always pander to the ruling party, but they don’t have the blanket of total media support that some others have benefitted from.

BBC: “Fitch Ratings warned on Wednesday that it could downgrade the UK in the next few years if the government does not contain the level of public debt.”

That professor should shut up really. Muppet.

You mean the public debt which would have been much lower if the economy had grown, rather than sliding back into recession (probably largely caused by excessive austerity measures)? They are also only talking about taking away Britain’s AAA rating making it marginally more expensive to borrow – not financial meltdown.

You really do think you know better than a Nobel prize-winning economist don’t you. He predicted that the government’s policy would make things worse – it has, and now you are still claiming he was wrong. Amazing.

Loum – as binners said earlier – the efforts of labour are pathetic.

As for the propaganda machine – while the NI press are not supporting Cameron as much they are still pushing the neocon agenda which distorts the discussion. 1/2 of the press continually push a line the BBC has to incorporate that line in the interests of “Balance”

We have had a relentless tory press for decades. Not just NI but also the barclay brothers and others

its only recently that the murdoch has started turning on cameron, if the guardian & tom watson hadnt pushed and pushed on the the hacking story the met would never have been implicated, levenson would never have happened and murdoch would never have felt betrayed

So, even the labour party – reknowned party of social justice, recognise the fact, but TJ stands Canute (careful now) like, telling the tide to turn back, that we can keep on spending more than we take in taxes.

The big question is of course that unless we want to continue to spend less and less we first need to find a way to generate more tax income.
We were promised that the private sector were waiting to pounce and back-fill any public sector incomes lost, someone lied
Were now left with a loss of income tax to the exchequer plus a bill for benefits for a lot of the losses

So how is the tax revenue going to increase?

think kaesae has a point here. We’re stuck with a system that doesn’t work, and a society that’s embraced the wrong values. It’s chicken and egg – were we seduced by the excess and luxury the selfish free market-driven capitalist society offered us, or did we actually help to make it that way because we wanted endless stuff, to emulate celebrities, to keep up with the Joneses, and our governments just responded to what we wanted? Either way, certainly in affluent Western societies, we bought into it lock stock and barrel. Now the bubble’s burst, and the one thing we don’t want to look at is that it might be time to change our social values instead of our economic policies. All we seem to want is for someone to wave a magic wand and go “hey, it’s alright again now, here’s another credit card, off you go to Currys and buy a new HD TV”.

It’s not going to happen.

Yes I agree with most of this – however, seeing as it’s not going to happen, I think we’d be better off with the party that doesn’t nakedly support the interests of rich, selfish arseholes quite as much.

TJ – this present crop of Tories have managed something no-one earlier has managed. With the last budget, they’ve lost the support of the Torygraph, the Mail and the Express. That’s some achievement.

Its because, under Thatcher and Major, there was at least the pretense that they were championing the aspirational middle classes. Not this lot. The ‘omni-shambles’ of the last few weeks, culminating in the budget showed that they shamelessly represent the interests of the top 1% only, to the complete exclusion of everyone else. We’re just the mugs who are going to finance tax cuts for those at the very top

Even the Mail has now clocked this. And its not happy!

, I think we’d be better off with the party that doesn’t nakedly support the interests of rich, selfish arseholes quite as much.

Interesting that when interviewed yesterday, Milliband refused to commit to reinstating the 50% tax band if he were elected PM at the next GE. After all his huffing and puffing about the cut to 45% why is such a commitment so difficult for him ?

I think we’d be better off with the party that doesn’t nakedly support the interests of rich, selfish arseholes quite as much.

+1

Interesting that when interviewed yesterday, Milliband refused to commit to reinstating the 50% tax band if he were elected PM at the next GE. After all his huffing and puffing about the cut to 45% why is such a commitment so difficult for him ?

I thought he did say he would reinstate the 50% tax band? Could have sworn he did.

I think he said if there an election tomorrow it would come back. But “not prepared to write the next election manifesto now”, which is fair enough.

TJ – I think we’re politically of the same leaning, but I think they WOULD argue against cuts if there was a compelling enough case. The problem is, I’m not sure we can spend our way out this time.
Austerity and spending are unfortunately two sides of the same boom and bust coin that we’ve had around for too long.

Which is a shame because he has some reasonable ideas

I’m just posting to let Kaesae know I’m blanking his posts.

LMP – I disagree but hey ho

I thin they are too scared to do so because of the shitstorm the press would kick up

almost

Not wanting to contribute to the political / economic debate. I would like to say I’ve lost all faith in politics. No matter who you or I vote for it makes no difference. Politicians today are all the same, power crazed and bent.

Somewhat selfishly I’m gonna concentrate of what’s best for my family, me and the people I employ. This is where I / we can make a difference.