the Elephant in the room

[CheeseRolls]

I rather liked this verdict on Osborne

"What George Osborne did with his austerity programme was the equivalent of putting a sick patient on a starvation diet accompanied by cold showers. The UK economy without accelerated austerity would still have been in poor shape, but under George Osborne it has been a disaster."

The full article can be read here.

mainly macro: The final verdict on George Osborne as Chancellor

In summary cuts were necessary, the position inherited was difficult, but ideology has gone before pragmatism and essentially the wrong cuts have been made at the wrong time.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

I rather liked this verdict on Osborne

"What George Osborne did with his austerity programme was the equivalent of putting a sick patient on a starvation diet accompanied by cold showers. The UK economy without accelerated austerity would still have been in poor shape, but under George Osborne it has been a disaster."

The full article can be read here.

mainly macro: The final verdict on George Osborne as Chancellor

In summary cuts were necessary, the position inherited was difficult, but ideology has gone before pragmatism and essentially the wrong cuts have been made at the wrong time.

I have a much more succint verdict.

 

[spring hall convert]

Aren't these the same people that had Iceland at AA around the time their banking system collapsed? I'm not sure it means a great deal.

But then surely of everyone George Osbourne should know that, unless of course you were of the opinion of keeping people focused on this might distract them from what's actaully going on. At best, I suspect, this country is due for 20 to 30 years of stagnation, much like Japan (a country we share many economic problems with) and perhaps that's nothing to be so scared of, the Japanese are hardly sleeping in cardboard boxes are they? Or the Icelandic people for that matter.

The older I get the more I think that party politics does us no favours here, both sides have done untold damage to the economy because they run it idealisitically rather than pragmatically.

For instance, I suspect the Tories would have cut the size of the state dramatically regardless of the financial situation at the time they came to power and I don't think anyone could argue that it hadn't got a little out of control. But the economy gave them a narrative to do it.

However, the time to make cuts is in a period of growth, not when the economy is struggling, otherwise all you do is simultaneously reduce the size of both the state and the economy which results in borrowing exactly the same or more money. Wierdly enough, despite their tragic reputation on the economy the Darling plan looked far more realistic than what the Coalition came up with.

The idealism also means a rigid inflexibility to change plans and with something as complex as the economy both sides have to be prepared to change course. They can't always be right can they?

 

[ditchy]

Yeah at least they didn't put it up for auction and get £1billion less than they should have eh? That would just be stupid to do that wouldn't it?

Thats exactly what Brown did . He knew gold was at an historical low and bragged at the time that the worlds economies should not base their reserves on gold bullion .theefore sell it !
The same guy also fcked us over big time by raiding the money you saved in a pension . Not too different from a certain Robert Maxwell who fcked over the Daily Mirror pension Scheme to prop up his ailing newspaper . Brown thought he was being clever and boasting he put us on a firm financial footing ..yeah right !

 

[glasfryn]

Thats exactly what Brown did . He knew gold was at an historical low and bragged at the time that the worlds economies should not base their reserves on gold bullion .theefore sell it !
The same guy also fcked us over big time by raiding the money you saved in a pension . Not too different from a certain Robert Maxwell who fcked over the Daily Mirror pension Scheme to prop up his ailing newspaper . Brown thought he was being clever and boasting he put us on a firm financial footing ..yeah right !

but we don't owe the yanks for the last war now do we
50 years under governments of many colours but it was the last Labour government that seen it off
those were the pensions that thatcher sold the public on, along with selling off the major part of council housing that people had in the end to sell on because they could not afford the mortgages
brown is not my favourite person but the firm financial footing might have been OK had the banks not f***ed things up with their greed....I have said it before and will again Brown should have screwed the bastards to the floor and nationalized them when he had the chance.
there is only one Chancellor that is more inept than him and thats the one we have now ......not much difference I'll give you that but osbourne does things with that sneering look on his face

 

[ditchy]

but we don't owe the yanks for the last war now do we
50 years under governments of many colours but it was the last Labour government that seen it off
What has oweing the yanks got to do with it ?

 

[glasfryn]

but we don't owe the yanks for the last war now do we
50 years under governments of many colours but it was the last Labour government that seen it off
What has oweing the yanks got to do with it ?

lease/lend taken over the last world war= 31+ billion last payment of 83 million dollars made on the 29th Dec 2006 ....some 64 years after the war ended
these payments are finished this money one can only assume is now being used to bail out the banks and bankrupt ex-tiger economies that were at one time taking the p*ss out of our quite tidy economy.
the tears of the now chancellor and the bank of England are wasted on me all the time they are lending money to other countries

 

[ditchy]

That was a deal done so as we could get the necessary resources to be able to fight ,what was then a dominant Germany, whilst the USA could not enter the war . they sold us tanks etc which we basically put on the UK credit card. If that wasnt done we may well have gone under in terms of fighting the Germans and we certainly would not be posting statements on the subject on message boards. Thanks to those guys who fought with that equipment , we can have our free speech and liberty .
I still do not see your point vs owing the yanks ..is it that now that loan is paid back we have spare cash ?

 

[glasfryn]

That was a deal done so as we could get the necessary resources to be able to fight ,what was then a dominant Germany, whilst the USA could not enter the war . they sold us tanks etc which we basically put on the UK credit card. If that wasnt done we may well have gone under in terms of fighting the Germans and we certainly would not be posting statements on the subject on message boards. Thanks to those guys who fought with that equipment , we can have our free speech and liberty .
I still do not see your point vs owing the yanks ..is it that now that loan is paid back we have spare cash ?

got it in one
and the point that although it took so long to pay it back it seems that no one actually suffered that much
now we can lend european banks and the Irish 19 billion and it seems the ordinary joe is the only one to suffer

 

[ditchy]

Key to that maybe the terms of repayment

 

[Bevendean Hillbilly]

got it in one
and the point that although it took so long to pay it back it seems that no one actually suffered that much

You are joking I hope

 

[glasfryn]

You are joking I hope

meant in a fiscal way