Who is right about the British economy?

As Lloyd Grossman would say "lets look at the evidence"

26th January 2010 - this was the date that the UK recession was finaly over, our growth returned back into the black again at 0.1% later revised upwards to 0.4%.

This was also a news story back in January 2010
--------------------------------------------------------

The begining of 2010 has seen some improvement in the uk housing market. People's confidence seems to have returned to pre uk recession levels.(Zoopla.co.uk)

In the second quarter of 2010 the economy of the United Kingdom was growing at 1.2%, the fastest rate of growth for nine years.

By July the new coalition government had been in power for a couple of months, the chancellor gave his first budget and the nation was put on alert for the waves of spending cuts and redundancies which were to follow soon.

Towards the end of 2010 UK growth began to go backwards again, and actualy went back into negative growth in the 4th quarter, perilously close to recession again.

So here we are in October 2011, 19 months after this government entered office and our growth figures are lower than what they were when they came to office in May 2010.

But not only is growth stagnant, unemployment is higher, inflation is higher, confidence is lower, no sign of a recovery in the housing market, and the promise that the private sector can take up the slack of the thousands made redundant hasent happened.

As we approach the 18 month mark, is time begining to run out for David Cameron and George Osborne. ?

While this lot remain in government, things can only go from bad to worse, they really don't have a clue about what is happening. Big Society, poppycock, they way they are carrying on, we won't have a society of any sort.

Lets just wait and see, remember Balls and Milliband believe we should carry on borrowing. Lets also remember that this bunch of div's have at least ring fenced the frontline of the NHS?

Whoever is right about the economy, it sure ain't going the way that Cameron and Osborne promised it would once they were elected. But then, at the very moment they assumed power all that economic turmoil mysteriously transformed from being all the fault of Brown to being a global problem. How strange and unpredictable.

But other matters are also going badly for the Tories : first we have Theresa May being caught out trying to deceive people with her fanciful tale about a cat , and now we have the mystery of Liam Fox and his 'chum'. All very murky. The Labour Party should keep up the pressure on all of that day after day and let the Tories have a dose of the medicine they dished out for 13 years! All very good fun to see Cameron and his reptilian friends having a rough time!

Great idea Phil, if this is the 2 Eds keeping on the pressure the tories will win the next election by themselves. The silence of the Labour party is overwhelming.

If the British public wish to elect a Tory government back after a double-dip recession, that will be their right. But Miliband & Co. need do little except stir the pot from time to time at judiciously -chosen moments. After all, a Tory Party left to themselves usually manage to serve up a diet of maliciousness, spite and sleaze sufficiently nauseating to frighten the electorate eventually. They never fail us...

You only have to look at the spat between 'Party leader want to be' May, pandering to the Hang Em, Flog Em brigade and Clark.

The 'Pay Down Your Credit Card, sorry, you misunderstood. What I was trying to say was 'Are Paying Down Their Credit Card' Quick do a rewrite.........

Dave 'It's the was I tell Em' Camoron line of ?jokes, while sounding like he a sack over his head......Do You Think the Prime Minister Looks Tired???

The staged speech with it's prescripted pauses to allow for the applause (average 9seconds).

And now Doc Fox and his 'Friend' who was able to visit him at work!!!! within a secure building and was able to go on offical Government Visit, who hands out cards in which he describes himself as an 'Advisor'......

tltf do you really believe the Torys are doing themselves any favours?

Do you think that Miliband needs to do any more than, as Phil as said, stir the pot at the right moment?

astradt1 wrote:You only have to look at the spat between 'Party leader want to be' May, pandering to the Hang Em, Flog Em brigade and Clark.

The 'Pay Down Your Credit Card, sorry, you misunderstood. What I was trying to say was 'Are Paying Down Their Credit Card' Quick do a rewrite.........

Dave 'It's the was I tell Em' Camoron line of ?jokes, while sounding like he a sack over his head......Do You Think the Prime Minister Looks Tired???

The staged speech with it's prescripted pauses to allow for the applause (average 9seconds).

And now Doc Fox and his 'Friend' who was able to visit him at work!!!! within a secure building and was able to go on offical Government Visit, who hands out cards in which he describes himself as an 'Advisor'......

tltf do you really believe the Torys are doing themselves any favours?

Do you think that Miliband needs to do any more than, as Phil as said, stir the pot at the right moment?

Now, come on! Be reasonable. Why on earth would any member of the Coalition understand the first thing about what it means to max-out one's Credit Card? That's what DADDY is there for.

Is there a country anywhere [excluding the OPEC nations of course] anywhere in the free world that is not up to its eyebrows in debt?
 
gator

THE TRUTH ABOUT UK NATIONAL DEBT

Read this sentence because it is the truth >

Britains national debt has been higher than it is now for 200 of the past 250 years

There have been just two brief 30 year periods since 1750 where UK national debt was lower than what it currently stands at, which proves that we can afford to run a defecit, if we are "bust" today, as George Osborne has claimed, then we have almost always been bust.

WHAT THE MARKETS ARE REALY WORRIED ABOUT

International markets are NOT realy too worried about UK national debt, and never have been, the truth of the matter is that they are more worried about the UK national defecit, currently around 11% of GDP, this is the highest defecit in peacetime history.

But when I state that the markets are worried about the UK defecit, it does not mean we are teetering on the edge of financial colapse or ruin, infact nothing could be further from the truth, it basicly means there is some nervousness about running such a wide defecit.

The markets, rating agencies, the IMF and all the others know very well that the UK has a track record of running up large defecits and then closing them back down again, another big lie from the British chancellor is that he / they saved us from perilous danger.

Current UK national debt equates to 61% of GDP (preferred measure)

Nations with a higher national debt include Germany, Portugal, France, Ireland, Belgium, Italy and Japan, the national debt of Japan for example is well over 200% of GDP.

For the benefit of our Canadian friends, your net federal debt is less than 40% of GDP, and for the American members, your figures are complicated to understand but as far as I can make out stands at about 68% excluding public-private financing agreements known as PFI in the UK and Canada, and also banking rescue packages.

[ information courtesy of Tejvan Pettinger, economics professor, Cherwell College, Oxford. ]

Witchfinder. You have hit the nail on the head there. It goes to prove what I have been saying
since the election.
Tories have used the Global Credit crunch as an excuse to blame labour and get themselves into
government along with a Coalition party member, too weak to oppose what they must realise what
the Tories are up to.
They never had any intention of creating growth, that was not their top priority. The transfer of
wealth from the bottom, the middle to the top is their obvious ambition, along with creating more
and more unemployment, which does the job for their wealthy employers to obtain cheap labour.

Another excuse is that they have to make cuts, most of which will benefit large companies,such
as private health care, which is obviously the case as proven with the beginning of the end of the
NHS as we know it. Everything in their eyes must belong to the Private Sector,at the cost of the
Public Sector, making everything under the sun run purely for profit at the expense of the majority.

If they continue in this vein unheeded, then the middle classes will become poor and the poor will
be left in complete and utter poverty as we are seeing already.

I can never remember a time when things were going right.MPs need to justify their existence by telling us doom and gloom storys.I have lived through Churchill,Macmillan.Home.Wilson.Heath.Twatcher.(sorry I mean Thatcher)Major.Blair.Brown.Not forgetting David Who.Nothing as changed.Tell us the bad news keep their high paid jobs.

So how much money does your British government have to pay out to the banks, bondsmen etc in order to service the debt that you do have?
 
Second and third questions: Wouldn't it be better to use that money to improve health care, civic infrastructure, education or whatever else? Why pay it out to a bunch of mouldy old bankers when it could be put to some better purpose?
 
gator

QUOTE: Why pay it out to a bunch of mouldy old bankers when it could be put to some better purpose?


The name for that is confiscation. Customary for the victors after a War, but not commercially acceptable. If our government were to do something like that, we would immediately be cut off from the IMF and World Bank and Britain's foreign debt would be called-in. All the goods we currently import would have to be paid for in advance in any currency but the Pound, which would have no international value.

Any British-owned property in foreign countries would probably be sequestered, as we did with Icelandic Banks quite recently.

Most people own a credit card, and most people use their credit card wisely, its also fairly comforting to know that its there should you need it.

If you have a regular income and a storm comes from nowhere and batters and damages your property, you can repair the damage using your credit card knowing that in the short to medium term, you will be able to pay it off.
In the case of Greece, there is not enough regular income to make regular payments to pay off the credit card, a case of not using your credit card wisely.

Many nations ( including the UK ) used their credit cards between 2007 and 2010 to prevent banks from colapsing, they also used credit to support the economy in order to prevent a recession turning into a depression.

The Conservative Party in the UK know very well that there was no other realistic alternative, other than to simply let banks go bankrupt, and to let the economy go down the drain, yet they portray to the public an image of a previous government simply wasting money and creating a defecit problem.

THE CREDIT CARD ANALOGY

If you had £1000 on your credit card, would you pay it back at such a rate that it would harm your family, lower your living standards or make life difficult, particularly when you know that you have the option of paying off the card slower, and over a longer period. ?

THIS is the difference between the two main political partys of the United Kingdom, the centre left party says "not so fast" because its harming the country, the party of the right says "as fast as possible, no matter what" and all evidence points to the economy grinding to a halt.

To reinforce the point that the coalition government have got it completely wrong

Todays news (12.10.2011)

UK Unemployment Reaches 17 Year High

The number of people out of work in Britain has hit its highest level in 17 years and youth unemployment has reached a record high as the economic slowdown continues to take its toll. (The Guardian)

The UK's recovery is likely to be the weakest of any since the end of World War I, the National Institute for Economic and Social Research has said. (BBC)

Yesterday a new report by the influentual Institute for Fiscal Studies said that there would be a large rise in child poverty over the next couple of years, they estimate that 600,000 more children would be living in poverty as compared to now.

And the coalition government tell us they have got it right ?

Not only does the Coalition think they've got it right, but are adamant there is no Plan B.
Reminiscent of an earlier Prime Minister who came to be called Tina because of the repeated catchphrase, "There Is No Alternative".

I've been right all along.........but nobody ever listens, lol.

Unfettered capitalism, gross inequalities and unjustified wage differentials are at the root of what is crippling western economies.

Hello sickchip,

You are always right. Well most of the time anyway
Glad to see you here.

( rrichh.wordpress.com)

" Honestly, George - how are you going to solve all those economic problems if you can't even deal with this dandruff..."

I should have been more specific OW. What I meant was "If the debt was paid off - or at least under control - would it be better to go further into debt for frivolous things or would it be better to use the money that would have gone to pay off interest payments for infrastructure etc."
 
Let's look at the US debt load for an example. One of our political commentators [Ezra Levant] has pointed out that from its founding in 1776 until the end of GWBush's term in office, the US debt load had increased from zero to about ten trillion dollars. This includes ALL federal government money that was borrowed for all purposes including several wars, Westward expansion, the railway system, the road building, taking on a role of the world's saviour for some charity cases, the space race and anything and everything else that can be classified as American debt. So that was ten trillion dollars and a few extra in 232 years.
 
Now we have Bammy in the Oval Office and he has increased it to over 14 trillion in two years and a few months. There has been a forty percent increase in an extremely short time and do we have anything to show for it? Absolutely nothing other than a couple of car companies are now owned in part by the gubmint and some banks that should have been allowed to fold are still raking off huge salaries etc for the senior staff.
 
As you have probably guessed, I am one of those old fashioned guys who like to think that debt is an abomination of the highest order. I don't have a lot of personal debt and I don't see why a government needs huge amounts of debt either.  :affraid:
 
gator

Nestled in the far northeast corner of Yorkshire is the town of Redcar, it sits facing the north sea and the mouth of the river tees, its a town that has always been unsure whether its a place of industry or a tourist resort.

One thing is certain, Redcar is definately not a good place to stand as a Coservative candidate, in the words of Sergeant Fraser of Dads Army, a Tory candidate in Redcar would be DOOMED.

In 2010, just three months before the general election, the steel works at Redcar shut down, it was closed down by its owners Tata Steel, the view of many in Redcar was that this was somehow the fault of the Labour government, and many wanted to punish Gordon Brown.

One of the shock results of the May 2010 general election was the Redcar result, the new MP was a Liberal Democrat, obviusly the good people of Redcar could not possibly vote Conservative, and so as a protest they voted LD.

I wonder what those voters who normaly would have voted Labour think now, I bet a pound to a penny they feel they have shot themselves in the foot, little did they know then that they were voting to prop up a Conservative led coalition government.

Today in October 2011, the Redcar area is amongst some of the highest unemployment black spots in the country, it is also amongst the areas with the fastest growing rates of unemployment along with the neighbouring borough of Middlesbrough.

The Lib Dems in Redcar should enjoy life with a Lib Dem MP, because it will be short lived, at the next election things will return back to normality, Redcar, like Sheffield and other places will dump the Lib Dems, for they are in colusion with the enemy - the Conservatives.

There must be many who feel they have shot themselves in the foot Witchfinder. Especially those who said "it's time for a change.

I doubt if things as you say "will turn to normality" at the next election as although Labour will undoubtedly win, the irreversible damage to the country and the people in it created by this Tory led so called government, will be massive as they rush through policies that benefit only the wealthy.

gator wrote:I should have been more specific OW. What I meant was "If the debt was paid off - or at least under control - would it be better to go further into debt for frivolous things or would it be better to use the money that would have gone to pay off interest payments for infrastructure etc." .................

.........As you have probably guessed, I am one of those old fashioned guys who like to think that debt is an abomination of the highest order. I don't have a lot of personal debt and I don't see why a government needs huge amounts of debt either. :affraid:

gator

In our modern Society, everybody has debt. Even with absolute moral rectitude it's not possible to avoid running up bills for Gas, Electricity, telephone and tax liability. Governments aren't different from people, just bigger. Some natural disasters simply cannot be foreseen, and have to be met with borrowed money. Victims of fire or flood would not vote for any Administration that declined to offer help because going into debt for such a purpose was considered undesirable.

Most large company's run a debt, mostly for expansion, the last thing they will do is to use their existing capitol. If you have a million pounds sitting in the bank and want to expand your buisiness, you should borrow but only if the repaymentt are well within your budget. If you use your own money you end up with your planned expansion with the proffits that brings, but your capitol has shrunk. If you borrow for the expansion, you end up with a larger company, and assuming the debt is payed back by the proffits of your increased buisiness, you still retain you orriginal capitol. The loan can actually pay for itself if the circumstances are right. Countries work in exactly the same manner, and so they should. When we had an evil witch as Prime Minister, she sold of much of britains assets mostly to pay for the unemployement she created. We have never fully recovered from her. We now have a Government who's policies is to create yet more unemployement and will sell off anything the evil bitch Thatcher left. This Government just like Thatcher before them are the most self seeking animals on the planet, and must be got rid of at any cost.

Hello bobby boy, how are you? Are you back from Italy now?

You are absolutely correct, as usual.

People have been fooled by Cameron and Osborne. All this nonsense to have to "pay down debt" is a smokescreen to implement what they like and destroy all that Labour have done for the masses.

As I have said so many times. ALL countries borrow and most borrow heavily. Here for the benefit of gator and others is an explanation in brief.

The three primary ways nations do this is to either (a) issue bonds, which are a way to borrow money from its own citizens, (b) borrow from international banking organizations like the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, or the Asian Development Bank, and (c) borrowing from another nation.
Government Treasury Bonds are simply sold to the citizens (or anybody else who cares to invest) and then purchased back on the date of maturity at a loss reflecting the minor interest. The interest earned can be very low, since the security is so high. The bonds are normally issues during times of great need, such as the World War 2 Bonds. These bonds are bought and sold in the open market and their yield also varies.
Pawnbroking of a kind I would suggest.

The banking crisis is a another matter.

The solution to growth, is to borrow to spend upon our infrastructure, thus creating jobs and tax revenue for government to repay the borrowings and invest some of that revenue again within the framework of creating jobs, wealth and growth. It seems to me all they are interested in is further wealth creation for the already well off and little else.

The audience on Question Time last night from London were 99% anti Tory policies. I believe this is the feeling of the majority now throughout the country. Will Cameron and Co listen? no no no, stubborn as oxes and will continue with their disgusting policies, come what may.

Hello Mel, I am very well and have been back since Sept 22nd, and very much wish I wasn't.
Re question time last night, you you are right 99%,That is if you are counting the 1 person that agree with the Tory led Coalition as 1%.
I have never seen an audience so united against anyone in all the years I have watched QT, it seemed to me that even Bullenden Boy Dimbleby showed a bit of bias against Lansbury. As you say though, there is no way Herr Cameron and his herd will divert from their path of privatisation. I actually laughed when Lansbury said to a questioner, that there is no way they intend privatising or fragmenting the NHS, this I recon was just like Camerons pre election statement saying "there will be no top down reorganisation in the health service, They lied then and are lieing now.
It was good to see also that the 1 Labour representative Ken Livingstone only had one Tory to oppose, whereas normaly there is 1 Tory + 1 Lib-Dem = 2 Tory's.
I hope all is well with you and yours, and now that I am back in the UK I should be able to give more of my time for the fight against the Tory Scum.

By 2014 the public services we had in 2010 will either have gone, moved further away, shrunk by up to 25% or exist in some basic form that can hardly be called a public service, and when the defecit has gone and IF growth picks up again under this government, there are no plans to invest any extra money in any public services at all.

The Conservatives are the same dogmatic political party they were 20 years ago, all they wish to do is cut taxes, no matter what happens to the NHS or schools, libraries, infastructure or community centres, tax cuts come first, come second and come before everything.

If there was one reason more than any other why Labour had a landslide victory back in 1997, it was because the British public wanted better public services, not tax cuts, the public were fed up of hearing and reading about growing hospital waiting lists - the winter bed crisis - rising crime and crumbling schools.

Allready the chancellor is looking to the future and talking about lower taxes, but did anyone at the recent tory conference speak about better public services, or a much improved NHS. ?

I blame Pitt th younger for introducing income tax?

And heres another ConDem failure - the promise to rebalance the economy on a regional basis, as promised in the budget of July 2010.

Since this government came to power, 32,000 jobs have been lossed in the North east of England in the public sector, meanwhile the South has actualy seen government jobs increase.

The unemployment rate in the North east of England is now 11%, and in many areas it is double that figure, there is no sign that private business will take up the slack, and whilst the demand on the public sector grows, the sector is shrinking.

In areas of deprevation, this government has turned that deprevation from little hope, to no hope.

The head of the regions dedicated think tank "Ed Cox" has said that the scale and speed of cuts is too much for the region to bare, and has warned that unemployment figures will reach levels not seen since last time the Conservatives were in power.

[ nebusiness.co.uk ] - owned by The Journal (Newcastle) & The Evening Gazette (Teesside)

I have noticed an increasing volume of press comment about the government's strictures having a disproportionate effect on women.

They'd be sensible to do something about that perception before there's an election.

OW please don't give them any clues as to HOW to do their jobs!

They're a despicable, divisive and selfish lot, but stupid they're not.

The problem for Tory administrations is always being able to resist putting their zest for spitefulness ahead of strategies which may attract albeit the more naive voter...

Extracts from an article by Michael Dugher MP:-

"The Tories blamed the impact of the previous global economic crisis – the collapse in tax revenues that followed the banking crash – on the last Labour government. This is the ridiculous assertion that somehow Lehmans collapsed in the USA because Labour built too many schools and hospitals. It is a supreme irony that the Tories are now blaming the impact of their own decisions – the fact that growth has all but disappeared in the last year, as the spending cuts and tax rises have gone too far and too fast – on a global economic crisis, principally on what has been happening in the eurozone. Yet the British economy slowed down well before the current eurozone crisis.

Treasury minister David Gauke tried to claim on ‘Newsnight’ that the UK had grown as much as the USA. The truth is that over the last 12 months the UK has grown by 0.5% (compared to 2.6% in the previous 12 months) while the USA has grown by 1.6%. Over the last year, only Greece, Portugal and Cyprus have grown more slowly than the UK in the EU, and only Japan in the G7.

In opposition, Cameron criticised Gordon Brown for saying the global economic crisis was to blame for the worldwide recession, arguing instead that it was a recession made in Downing Street. But since coming to power, this out-of-touch government has become a government of excuses. First they blamed Labour. Then they blamed the royal wedding and even the snow. Now it’s all the fault of the eurozone crisis. Next they’ll be blaming the strikes, if they go ahead next week. But the government is fast running out of excuses."

For the full article:-
http://labourlist.org/2011/11/the-government-is-running-out-of-excuses/

"Those who do not learn from History are doomed to endlessly repeat their mistakes."

Britain grinds to a halt on Wednesday. Just as it did while that bloody woman was Prime Minister. The Tory Party have not learned anything at all in the ensuing years.

God help us all, and Tiny Tim!

Here's a shilling boy, go and get a bigger turkey.

oftenwrong wrote:[

Britain grinds to a halt on Wednesday. Just as it did while that bloody woman was Prime Minister. The Tory Party have not learned anything at all in the ensuing years

Where were the public sector workers when Gorden Brown started taxing private sector pensions? This pretty much killed private sector final salary pensions. Why should my pension be taxed to pay for the short fall in public pensions? The simple fact is we are all living longer and hence need to put more money into both public and private sector pensions and take less out of them. Pensions were design to pay for 5 years of retirement not 30.

So tell me why the generation that can not afford housing, has to pay for their eduction and pay down the national debt, that has no hope of being able to afford a pension, pay for the gold plate retirement of the generation that created the mess?

It would be a good idea if all political parties were giving out the same message to the unions ahead of next week's proposed strikes. Indeed, it would be refreshing to see an Opposition and Government speaking with one voice where the national interest was at stake.

However, the Labour Party no doubt reflects upon the sort of mindless opposition it faced on all matters which beset it during some very difficult economic times from around 2008, and it is doubtless the case that they will now take the opportunity to give Cameron some of his own unpalatable medicine - and who can blame them in taking full advantage? What ye sow, so shall ye reap.

Aside of the chance to give Cameron a richly-deserved good kicking for what he so callously visited upon the last government - and , indeed, the nation itself- the Tory attack on public service pensions is a vicious one and is surrounded by the usual deliberately divisive propaganda we see from them so often , and that makes it difficult for any political opponents to stand with them on it.

Will the day ever come when a Conservative Party can manage to deal with anything without its usual spiteful attack on anyone who stands in their way or without utilising a strategy of misinformation , distortion, lies and smears in retaliation?

Some of us know it is beyond them, simply because, as Tories, it is their their very DNA to act in such a manner...

I have NO wish to tell Cam----- Ca (spit) HIM how to do his job as he is obviously doing it so well, but, if he were to tell the unions that he is reversing the Brown TAX on pension companies, and that money MUST go back to account holders, as opposed to Bonuses for Actuaries CEO's, dinner ladies and shareholders, he just may get the unions to react like they have been kicked in the old proverbial shadow chancellors! (Balls, get it??)


YET???