Tekforums
Chat => General Discussion => Topic started by: Serious on December 20, 2011, 03:48:46 AM
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I don't know, he just doesn't give the impression of being that competent in that job, or any other.
Then again, the whole government hasn't been that bright either. They were supposed to pull Britain out of the recession and we're in worse trouble now than when Labour was in power. Some of them seem to be unable to find their rears with a map, compass, satnav and both hands...
*pulls on fireproof suit*
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Thing is, its a Tory government.
They will cut everything to the bone just as Tories always have done. The caring Conservative that campaigned was just a rebranding excercise to stop the rot within the bigger brand.
As for Osborne, he is a rich person who really has no sense of what it means to be anything but rich and by the looks of his policy doesn't try to learn. That doesn't make him useless, it just makes him out of touch with all of us. Especially people who lean towards the left of the political spectrum.
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Thing is, its a Tory government.
They will cut everything to the bone just as Tories always have done. The caring Conservative that campaigned was just a rebranding excercise to stop the rot within the bigger brand.
As for Osborne, he is a rich person who really has no sense of what it means to be anything but rich and by the looks of his policy doesn't try to learn. That doesn't make him useless, it just makes him out of touch with all of us. Especially people who lean towards the left of the political spectrum.
well... they gotta make cuts because of the problems labour caused again.
same thing happened last time tories followed labour into power.
sort out their mess, then everyone has a gutsful & votes in the people who was caused the problem
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well... they gotta make cuts because of the problems labour caused again.
Really? I thought that was caused by the fat cat businessmen and bankers betting huge amounts of money in what turned out to be worthless investments.
The cause is also a worldwide issue, not limited to the UK as with previous issues. Many countries banks invested heavily including Iceland, Japan, France and America.
A Tory government wouldn't have done any better and have done a lot worse since. We are barely bumping along the bottom at the moment.
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well... they gotta make cuts because of the problems labour caused again.
Really? I thought that was caused by the fat cat businessmen and bankers betting huge amounts of money in what turned out to be worthless investments.
The cause is also a worldwide issue, not limited to the UK as with previous issues. Many countries banks invested heavily including Iceland, Japan, France and America.
A Tory government wouldn't have done any better and have done a lot worse since. We are barely bumping along the bottom at the moment.
no, the banking sector didnt cause the hole that labour left. Labour threw money about all over the place. Just look how many wasted public sector posts they created.
The goverment debt isnt all down to the banks
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I can think of two things that Labour could have saved money on.
U.K. war costs
As of March 2006, approximately £4.5 billion had been spent by the United Kingdom in Iraq. All of this money has come from a government fund called the "Special Reserve" which has a current allocation of £7.4 billion.[19][20]
As of June 2010 UK costs exceeded £20bn for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars combined.[21]
It is quite hard to judge a government on its term as there are probably loads of other things we are not aware of that they inherit.
My experience is they lie, the puplic are mostly ignorance or unable to do anything to change things. Maybe they should all jump in big brother and have done with it, at least then people will happily throw money at them.
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I can think of two things that Labour could have saved money on.
U.K. war costs
As of March 2006, approximately £4.5 billion had been spent by the United Kingdom in Iraq. All of this money has come from a government fund called the "Special Reserve" which has a current allocation of £7.4 billion.[19][20]
As of June 2010 UK costs exceeded £20bn for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars combined.[21]
It is quite hard to judge a government on its term as there are probably loads of other things we are not aware of that they inherit.
My experience is they lie, the puplic are mostly ignorance or unable to do anything to change things. Maybe they should all jump in big brother and have done with it, at least then people will happily throw money at them.
how much did the falklands cost?
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well... they gotta make cuts because of the problems labour caused again.
Really? I thought that was caused by the fat cat businessmen and bankers betting huge amounts of money in what turned out to be worthless investments.
The cause is also a worldwide issue, not limited to the UK as with previous issues. Many countries banks invested heavily including Iceland, Japan, France and America.
A Tory government wouldn't have done any better and have done a lot worse since. We are barely bumping along the bottom at the moment.
no, the banking sector didnt cause the hole that labour left. Labour threw money about all over the place. Just look how many wasted public sector posts they created.
The goverment debt isnt all down to the banks
I certainly agree Labour spent tons, too much. But from the point of 1998 the public sector was a shambles, the NHS was disgraceful. That isn't to say they spent above their means. They certainly did, they were guilty of being overly optimistic on growth figures just like any other government in my memory has. The problem was the growth was built on sand.
The general thinking of nearly every single Western economy throughout the Labour government was that growth, any kind of growth, was all that was needed. It wasn't any worry if you run up a debt if you were growing, because you'd eventually be able to pay off the debt because of the extra tax revenue due to growth. The problem, of course, is that growth in the public sector not backed up by the private sector causes exactly the problem we are having now.
Thing is though, the amount of cuts that are taking place right now are widely being forecast to cause just the thing everyone fears. A stagnation of growth or even recession. Cuts definitely have to be made, its just whether or not you take a longer view or shorter view.
Either way we're all in the sh*t.
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I can think of two things that Labour could have saved money on.
U.K. war costs
As of March 2006, approximately £4.5 billion had been spent by the United Kingdom in Iraq. All of this money has come from a government fund called the "Special Reserve" which has a current allocation of £7.4 billion.[19][20]
As of June 2010 UK costs exceeded £20bn for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars combined.[21]
It is quite hard to judge a government on its term as there are probably loads of other things we are not aware of that they inherit.
My experience is they lie, the puplic are mostly ignorance or unable to do anything to change things. Maybe they should all jump in big brother and have done with it, at least then people will happily throw money at them.
I agree, with hindsight Iraq could have been left as it was and the government not bothered supporting the US in the invasion of Afghanistan. It seems that a lot of 'evidence' in the case of Iraq was created rather than investigated.
BUT... they could also have saved many more billions by not bailing out the banks...
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The thread wasn't intended as a Labour VS Conservative issue but a question of the present Conservative/Liberal leadership being the best available. So far it looks like Osbourne was given the position out of cronyism rather than actual capability. I'm damn sure that they should have more capable people than him to do the job.
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I can think of two things that Labour could have saved money on.
U.K. war costs
As of March 2006, approximately £4.5 billion had been spent by the United Kingdom in Iraq. All of this money has come from a government fund called the "Special Reserve" which has a current allocation of £7.4 billion.[19][20]
As of June 2010 UK costs exceeded £20bn for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars combined.[21]
It is quite hard to judge a government on its term as there are probably loads of other things we are not aware of that they inherit.
My experience is they lie, the puplic are mostly ignorance or unable to do anything to change things. Maybe they should all jump in big brother and have done with it, at least then people will happily throw money at them.
how much did the falklands cost?
I have no idea was before my time. :p
The thread wasn't intended as a Labour VS Conservative issue but a question of the present Conservative/Liberal leadership being the best available. So far it looks like Osbourne was given the position out of cronyism rather than actual capability. I'm damn sure that they should have more capable people than him to do the job.
Who would you have picked? Needs one of those rare breed that actually cares and wants to chnge the world for the better.
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I can think of two things that Labour could have saved money on.
U.K. war costs
As of March 2006, approximately £4.5 billion had been spent by the United Kingdom in Iraq. All of this money has come from a government fund called the "Special Reserve" which has a current allocation of £7.4 billion.[19][20]
As of June 2010 UK costs exceeded £20bn for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars combined.[21]
It is quite hard to judge a government on its term as there are probably loads of other things we are not aware of that they inherit.
My experience is they lie, the puplic are mostly ignorance or unable to do anything to change things. Maybe they should all jump in big brother and have done with it, at least then people will happily throw money at them.
how much did the falklands cost?
I have no idea was before my time. :p
£1.19 Billion.
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btw, we are still paying america for bailing us out ww2, shall we blame tories for that as well?
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£1.19 Billion.
Cheap.
btw, we are still paying america for bailing us out ww2, shall we blame tories for that as well?
Read up this is not a Conservative Vs Labour thread. I'm curious how much do we still owe?
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btw, we are still paying america for bailing us out ww2, shall we blame tories for that as well?
Read up this is not a Conservative Vs Labour thread. I'm curious how much do we still owe?
Absolutely nothing! The last payment was made in 1996.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4757181.stm
As to the Falklands war we very nearly lost, had the Argentinians used different tactics we would have done.
According to Thatcher the war cost $1.19 billion, about £700 million. It also cost 255 British and 649 Argentinian lives.
The proviso is that it was back in 1982, thirty years ago. Inflation means it would be considerably more costly now.
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Often "red" government has to repair "blue" gov. cuts and blue has to cut to pay for the red spending, it is long term strategies that is needed but in morden economy there is most often quick gaines that counts and the twain does not meet.
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Politicians are not interested in the long term, when has that ever kept them in power? No, it's reactionary and short term flash measures that they want to secure their place with.
We haven't had anyone truly great in parliament since the likes of Churchill and I have no doubts that we ever will again.
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Hang on, Parliament is a bit strong. There have been some outstanding parliamentarians in the past.
As for people within government or around the upper echelons of their party. I concede you are correct.
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UK economy in double-dip recession
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17836624
Prime Minister David Cameron said the figures were "very, very disappointing"
/cue large number of voices shouting 'I told you so!'
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UK economy in double-dip recession
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17836624
Prime Minister David Cameron said the figures were "very, very disappointing"
/cue large number of voices shouting 'I told you so!'
while the obvious answer was to borrow more money to pay back the money owed?
on a smaller scale, I wonder how many individuals have done that & ended up going bankrupt?
Its quite easy, if you owe more than you bring in, you make cutbacks. not borrow more in the hope
you can use it to generate more. Thats called gambling.
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When was it a good idea to cripple your economy so you can't pay it back?
People in work generate money and pay the bills - those not in work cost.
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UK economy in double-dip recession
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17836624
Prime Minister David Cameron said the figures were "very, very disappointing"
/cue large number of voices shouting 'I told you so!'
I wouldn't be so quick to shout that yet - tis debatable whether debt fueled spending would help at this point in time - we might well have an answer to the question in a few years or so... then you might well be able to shout 'I told you so'
France is seemingly about to elect Hollande, if they do then we'll have an interesting experiment - France has a similar sized economy to ours, their new govt is likely to go down the road of debt fueled spending whereas ours is going for austerity measures... it would be quite interesting to see the impact of both in a few years time.
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France is very different to the UK and not really comparable. They have the Euro and we don't. The only way to compare is to have two worlds, one voted Conservative/Liberal at the last election, the other retaining Labour. Then you might have a system that you can compare the results.
We were out of the recession problem, had we just continued everything would have gone a lot better than at present.
And I agree, we can't go on trying to spend our way out of trouble forever - it has to be done at the right point and kept going, otherwise the chance is wasted. OTOH putting taxes up excessively when the country is already in a very bad way is asking for recession.
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unlikely
and yes you can make a comparison, the economy is of a similar size and they're about to follow the opposite philosophy to the one you're criticizing here - if it significantly harms them and they turn into the next Spain, Portugal, Ireland etc... then you'll have your answer, if not and they perform significantly better than us....yes we don't have the EUR but the rate between our ccy and the EUR is significantly influenced by govt policy affecting inflation and therefore interest rates.
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It's a comparison between chalk and cheese. They are DIFFERENT.
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Hmm yeah they are diffetent, it's a reasonable enough fit for this comparison.
Chalk and cheese - nah more like chedda and Edam - whilst you can point out the obvious, that one is orange and has a wax layer it doesn't negate the fact that leaving one unwrapped and outside the fridge will have a noticeable effect as the impact of that action is significant enough.
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We haven't had anyone truly great in parliament since the likes of Churchill...
And even he was an incompetent tosser, tbh...
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Well here we go... they've elected Hollande - lets see how the UK and France fair over the next couple of years with austerity vs debt fueled spending.
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Hmm yeah they are diffetent, it's a reasonable enough fit for this comparison.
Chalk and cheese - nah more like chedda and Edam - whilst you can point out the obvious, that one is orange and has a wax layer it doesn't negate the fact that leaving one unwrapped and outside the fridge will have a noticeable effect as the impact of that action is significant enough.
There are many differences such as the kind of party and economics. While UK Labour might be regarded as 'left wing' the actual running of the country was moderate conservative under them. Similarly a French government deciding to splurge money and hope for the best can't be compared to a British one being far more prudent in it's spending.
Remember also that it was THE BANKS who got us into the mess in the first case - not the political parties. Much of the money that ended up being owed by the government was because they bailed out the banks, not because the government spending was excessive.
Labour warned the coalition they were making a huge gamble, the political pundits warned they were taking a huge gamble, and guess what? They took the huge gamble and got snake eyes.
George Osborne comes from a family of gamblers. So far it has paid off for them personally. It looks like it didn't for anyone else though.
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Remember also that it was THE BANKS who got us into the mess in the first case - not the political parties. Much of the money that ended up being owed by the government was because they bailed out the banks, not because the government spending was excessive.
hmm... who de-regulated the banks? LABOUR! its labour who is at fault. Apart from spending all the Goverment money (or giving it away), they allowed the banking sector to regulate themeselves.
in turn, they made a mess of it, credit became easy to obtain, then when the bubble burst, the finger pointing started.
Budget after budget Gordon Brown spent fistfuls of cash & never kept any back for a rainy day. Cycle after cycle. Be interesting to see if labour win the next gen elec & the state on the country 4 years after that, as he tories wouldnt have had long enough to fix the economy & save some pennies in the goverment coffers.
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There are many differences such as the kind of party and economics. While UK Labour might be regarded as 'left wing' the actual running of the country was moderate conservative under them.
erm yeah, under a center right Blairite regime... current Labour opposition is a bit of a mixed bag really with some Blarite relics the current Leader doesn't really have the 'Balls' to remove, as highlighted by Livingstone yesterday - obviously they'll oppose the coalition but who's to say what they would have done - there is a reasonable chance that, if in power, they wouldn't have been too different. Anyway its completely irrelevant as we're interested here in comparing two clearly different philosophies not guesstimating what sort of half baked ideas might have been tried here had the other side got in...
Similarly a French government deciding to splurge money and hope for the best can't be compared to a British one being far more prudent in it's spending.
Not a comparison but rather a contrast - if one significantly under performs vs the other then we will get a fairly strong confirmation re: which side took the correct approach with austerity over here vs debt fueled spending over there.
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The government wouldn't be the same, the country wouldn't be the same, the economy certainly isn't the same. So nothing that might make them comparable is the same.
Therefore they aren't comparable.
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While you are working on that I also invoke the butterfly principle of chaos theory. Even if there is the slightest difference you are probably going to get two completely different results. Therefore the starting conditions for any trial have to be identical.
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Its not actually a trial, clearly. If you want to get technical you can call it an 'observational study' if you like.
Unfortunately we can't run controlled experiments on whole countries - we can however draw conclusions on observed data. There are obvious limitations but to be blindly ignorant and deny that you can't look at the effects of one policy vs the other while accounting for any other significant factors is rather silly.
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On those principles you can compare a jet fighter with a snail and find the snail is faster.
You started off with a far higher expectation that 'observational study'
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If you're really interested you should perhaps do some reading on macro economics, if not then you can continue being ignorant and making silly posts. You could at least attempt a coherent argument then other than coming out with the facile statements you've made so far.
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Pot kettle grimy bottom calling.
This is politics, and unless you provide evidence to the contrary I can keep my stance going forever.
Macroeconomics is just another series of theories as to how things can be described. Unfortunately it does not take in to account the public attitudes and may not reflect the true state of any single country. In order to try and cover this it is very complex and tbh I can't be arsed to read about it.
The issue here is are the UK and French economies sufficiently similar and I disagree. Britain was coming out of depression and now it has been put back into it. France has been bumping along the bottom, its economy is in a worse state than even Sarcozy's peeps have admitted.
A massive increase in government spending isn't going to do France any good. The chances are it will do the reverse. For the UK we were recovering, and had no change taken place then the economy would have been fine.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/may/06/francois-hollande-rescue-french-economy
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Macroeconomics is just another series of theories as to how things can be described. Unfortunately it does not take in to account the public attitudes and may not reflect the true state of any single country. In order to try and cover this it is very complex and tbh I can't be arsed to read about it.
but you're happy to stick your head in the sand...
yes they're different - does that negate a looking at the impact on each of opposing ideas to tackle this crisis - erm no....
am quite happy to visit this thread in a few years time and you'll very likely find that a few articles have been published doing exactly that....
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In this case my head is in the sand up to my armpits :P
No doubt there will be people writing books trying to do exactly that but I doubt it would be that successful. A proportion of the writers at least will be politicians and I doubt if there will be any consensus as to the conclusions to be drawn.
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I think we're talking on rather different levels here... not sure any politicians will have articles published in any journals covering this.
Am happy to re-visit this thread in a few years - interestingly France and the UK both have a target of 2017 to 'balance the budget'.
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Just thought I'd bump to say the UK is now the fastest growing economy in the developed world....
Still another few years to go and an election to get through but this austerity policy is hardly looking to be all doom and gloom as some people were indicating... In other news France is growing at a somewhat slower pace.
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It'd be interesting to see the quality of life statistics for Britain as well as France, seeing as you mentioned them.
Growth is definitely not the be all and end all of existence. I think most working class people would be more worried about being able to live in a nice house and feed their families easily, with a few little treats chucked in, rather than celebrate growth.
There has been a massive social cost to the cuts and whether or not you deem that a price worth paying will highlight your political leaning and socio economic situation.
As you can probably tell from my post I would rather other measures were used to gauge the performance of the government, rather than economic growth.
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Fair points but the subject of the thread is economic growth. While our economies and populations are of a similar size and the economic approaches taken by our govts a rather different they will have at least one potential inherent advantage as far as one aspect of quality of life is concerned - they've got double the land mass.... also throw in a better climate, cultural differences too - my firm has an office in the south of France very different to London - they have a chef, swimming pool, tennis courts on site, eat lunch on balconies/terraces, start work at 9-ish and are out of the office 5pm on the dot... Then again any Frenchie with some sense of ambition and a desire to earn more will move to London. Having said that I'd happily live there and commute over the border if I had a job in Switzerland.
It really depends what you want to consider but in some ways we do better... for example you'd probably be better off as a poor person in London than in Paris... they concentrate their proles out in ghettos on the outskirts whereas places like Islington, London have 50% social housing with council estates just around the corner from town houses in Georgian squares selling for a few million each. Conversely if you're a (not too successful) 'artist'/performer of some form then you're likely much better off in France - you get very very generous benefits - essentially the govt pays you your usual salary in between performances/shows.
In terms of the raw data we're not too different at all (well we rank immediately below them as far as the Economist Intelligence Unit is concerned - placing France 26th and Britain 27th).
http://www.economist.com/news/21566430-where-be-born-2013-lottery-life
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Another year on, and UK economy really pulling away from the joke that is Europe.
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thats because people realise they need to get up off their arses & work under the tories.
Thought Cameron party speach today was good.
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Yeah. I don't think the Tories are perfect; I'd change a lot. But I am constantly shellshocked anyone votes Labour.
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It isn't about Cameron, who could still do with some more sense. It's Osborne.
Wow, like I'll take 3 billion pounds off those on low pay and benefits and give it to my uber rich friend's families when they pass on?
A sure vote winner.
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I think we're talking on rather different levels here... not sure any politicians will have articles published in any journals covering this.
Am happy to re-visit this thread in a few years - interestingly France and the UK both have a target of 2017 to 'balance the budget'.
just thought I'd bump this...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3404921/Hollande-declares-France-state-economic-emergency-throws-1-5-BILLION-reducing-unemployment.html
French President Francois Hollande has declared France is in a 'state of economic emergency' and has promised to spend £1.5billion to try and reduce the country's high unemployment rates.
Mr Hollande today pledged huge spending on a package of measures to fight the stubbornly high unemployment that has dogged his four years in power.
Labelling the country in 'a state of economic emergency' and requiring urgent new measures, the socialist also promised the spending would not come from tax rises.
what a surprise the lefty French govt has made a big mess of things whereas the centre right UK govt (not that I agree with them on everything - NHS for example) has done pretty well as far as economic recovery is concerned
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I think we're talking on rather different levels here... not sure any politicians will have articles published in any journals covering this.
Am happy to re-visit this thread in a few years - interestingly France and the UK both have a target of 2017 to 'balance the budget'.
just thought I'd bump this...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3404921/Hollande-declares-France-state-economic-emergency-throws-1-5-BILLION-reducing-unemployment.html
French President Francois Hollande has declared France is in a 'state of economic emergency' and has promised to spend £1.5billion to try and reduce the country's high unemployment rates.
Mr Hollande today pledged huge spending on a package of measures to fight the stubbornly high unemployment that has dogged his four years in power.
Labelling the country in 'a state of economic emergency' and requiring urgent new measures, the socialist also promised the spending would not come from tax rises.
what a surprise the lefty French govt has made a big mess of things whereas the centre right UK govt (not that I agree with them on everything - NHS for example) has done pretty well as far as economic recovery is concerned
Expect this to be bumped later in the year, private debt peaking combined with quantitative easing leading to asset appreciation does not define a 'recovery' the wheels are already coming off, and I doubt it'll matter too much what country we're in anyway, global contagion yo!
Economic recovery? So why has the interest rate not gone up? You can't taper a ponzi scheme.
Steve Keen is worth a listen, one of very very few to have correctly predicted the 08 crash,
17:30 is where specific countries are discussed (24:20 UK)