Chancellor admits economic incompetence

[Tangled up in Blue]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-20571621

It's official.By Wednesday(the half way point of the Coalition Government)we can expect confirmation that neither of the Chancellor's deficit or debt targets for the UK will be met by 2015.

 

[Yorkshire Blue]

Barna admits reading comprehension incompetence

It's official.

Can we expect his pupils to have their fees refunded in full by Wednesday?

 

[superblue24]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-20571621

It's official.By Wednesday(the half way point of the Coalition Government)we can expect confirmation that neither of the Chancellor's deficit or debt targets for the UK will be met by 2015.

You do realise that this issue was brought on by an irresponsible Labour government in the first place?

 

[hockleyeast1964]

You do realise that this issue was brought on by an irresponsible Labour government in the first place?

None of the lefties blame gordon brown or brown bottom as he's called in the city.

 

[superblue24]

None of the lefties blame gordon brown or brown bottom as he's called in the city.

Evidently. There was no "incompetence" on display when Brown sold all of our gold reserves for next to nowt.

Or when the coalition took control and Liam Byrne decided that leaving a note on the desk saying "there's no money left" was a responsible action given the mood of the country at the time.

 

[Tangled up in Blue]

You do realise that this issue was brought on by an irresponsible Labour government in the first place?

None of the lefties blame gordon brown or brown bottom as he's called in the city.

"Despite the claims of Conservative party politicians and centre-right commentators the deficit was caused by the financial crisis and the subsquent collapse in tax-revenues,not by Labour,or specifically "Brownite" overspending between 1997 and 2010."
(Mehdi Hassan & James Macintyre,Ed)

 

[Tangled up in Blue]

It's official.

Can we expect his pupils to have their fees refunded in full by Wednesday?

I'll admit my "reading" of the news, as expressed in the headline, was a bit cheeky.
However,whatever way you look at it,this has been a disastrous year for Osborne, ever since his "omnishambles" of a budget in March.The Tories have been in freefall in the polls ever since.
(Btw,I don't give refunds).:winking:

 

[hockleyeast1964]

We could sell some of that nice gold reserve and prop up the economy,oh no we can't mr brown ****ed that up the wall .When he sold it we weren't in recession or did he know something to make him knock it out at below the market bid?I.e him and his labour cronies had already destroyed a bouyant economy inherited from the previous government.

 

[Neil_F]

"Despite the claims of Conservative party politicians and centre-right commentators the deficit was caused by the financial crisis and the subsquent collapse in tax-revenues,not by Labour,or specifically "Brownite" overspending between 1997 and 2010."
(Mehdi Hassan & James Macintyre,Ed)

Two left wing hacks; hardly a considered economic opinion.

This is also a nonsense argument. Tax revenues did collapse because they were artifically inflated by an asset bubble and financial services activity. That tax revenue was temporary yet the government of the time considered it to be permanent (end of boom and bust). As such they used temporary tax yields for permanent revenue spending.

The government of the time was running a structural deficit even in the boom (as admitted by Ed Balls). When the crash happened it was therefore the high spending that gave rise to the structural deficit. The argument advanced by Hassan and MacIntyre is equivalent to someone addicted to shopping blaming their debt problems on the bank refusing them any more credit.

I know you won't care about this, Barna. In your eyes the left can do no wrong and nothing is ever their fault. It doesn't matter what the Labour government did and that Hollande is doing the opposite to what he said he would in the worst way possible, a sure route to further recession. It doesn't matter to you because he is left wing and anyone that disagrees is just corrupt, stupid or evil aren't they?

 

[Yorkshire Blue]

"Despite the claims of Conservative party politicians and centre-right commentators the deficit was caused by the financial crisis and the subsquent collapse in tax-revenues,not by Labour,or specifically "Brownite" overspending between 1997 and 2010."
(Mehdi Hassan & James Macintyre,Ed)

That's a very simplistic viewpoint. The knock on Labour from any serious commentator wouldn't be that they caused the financial crisis, but that the regulatory regime that they created (at great expense to both the tax-payer and competitiveness) failed to prevent it and that Brown's disasterous (sic) policies put Britain in a far worse position to counter it than should have been the case considering Brown's much vaunted "prudence".

I'll admit my "reading" of the news, as expressed in the headline, was a bit cheeky.
However,whatever way you look at it,this has been a disasterous year for Osborne, ever since his "omnishambles" of a budget in March.The Tories have been in freefall in the polls ever since.
(Btw,I don't give refunds).:winking:

Too bad for your pupils, too bad.

They've been robbed blind.

 

[Jam_Man]

Who really believes that if labour had remained in power things would have been any better anyway.....

 

[Tangled up in Blue]

Who really believes that if labour had remained in power things would have been any better anyway.....

Anyone who believes that Alistair Darling or Ed Balls would be better at running the economy than George Osborne,I suppose.

 

[Earls Hall Blue]

Who really believes that if labour had remained in power things would have been any better anyway.....

Or that the tories would have really done anything different if they were in power in 2008.

Politicians now are largely the same, all career politicians with little or no real life experience. The only thing that matters to them is re-election & getting their snouts in the trough for another 5 years.

 

[Tangled up in Blue]

I know you won't care about this, Barna. In your eyes the left can do no wrong and nothing is ever their fault. It doesn't matter what the Labour government did and that Hollande is doing the opposite to what he said he would in the worst way possible, a sure route to further recession. It doesn't matter to you because he is left wing and anyone that disagrees is just corrupt, stupid or evil aren't they?

Actually,Neil, I think you made some good points,which I don't have sufficient economic expertise to answer.That also goes for Superblue 24's point about Brown and the selling off of the gold reserves.

While I'm happy to admit to being a lefty,I'm also well aware that neither I (nor the Left in general) have all the answers.One of the tragedies of the left (for me),is that since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of Communism, there's been no successful attempt to formulate a thorough going critique of modern 21st century capitalism.

As for Hollande, it seems far too soon to come to any judgement on him,(though his opinion poll ratings have fallen spectacularly in the last few months).

 

[Midnight Rambler]

The problem for both Conservatives and Labour is that the British public want a high-spend low-tax government. It's an impossiblity to deliver and the reason why goverments of both parties usually end up in an economic situation that is unpopular with all but their most hardcore supporters.

 

[Cricko]

You do talk a lot of highfalutin jargon at times Neil. Are you on the road to being a politician?

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-26/is-remedy-for-next-crisis-buried-in-iceland-view-correct-.html

 

[Lord Football]

The problem for both Conservatives and Labour is that the British public want a high-spend low-tax government. It's an impossiblity to deliver and the reason why goverments of both parties usually end up in an economic situation that is unpopular with all but their most hardcore supporters.

Actually its not.

I've been rattling on for years and years and years about Tax Justice. Now its all starting to come out. Huge corporate companies avoiding paying their tax here. The super rich off shoring. Tax avoidance schemes all over the place. Collect all that and you pretty much pay off the defecit.

Interestingly enough, when we explained this to Brown's ministers they weren't interested. The same people seem all on board now, years after they could have done something other than slashing HRMC workforce and turning a blind eye.

We've similary explained it to the current mob, but its like talking to a brick wall. All they are interested in is looking after their big business mates. They'll whine that legislation needs to be changed and it takes years. Actually that's a complete lie, as they proved when they moved their Money Act last year in about three weeks to fleece public sector pensions. It can be done.

So, yes, please. Lay the blame at both this Government and the last.

But, all that said. No country has ever recoved from recession by austerity. To get out of recession you need growth to stimulate markets, not reducing the amount of money in the public's pocket thus causing a fiscal stagnation. Osborne's policies are not working and will not work. But as a Tory he sees no other way.

Oh, and yes, if the banks hadn't been completely irresponsible and greedy, we would not be in the mess we are. So you can throw the blame at them as well.

Who pays for it. You and me.

 

[Cricko]

The only people who don't seem to have suffered much is the banks and politicians that put us in this mess in the first place. The top lays off a few staff to show some action.They sail on regardless whilst the country continues to pay for their mistakes....this does not effect the rich, just preys on the poor.

 

[Neil_F]

how very kind.... which bit did you disagree with?

 

[Cricko]

how very kind.... which bit did you disagree with?

I disagree with most you say no disrespect, but it is just jargon....the facts as Kerry (Lord football) posted earlier are more relevant than some bollocks about how the government are trying to get us out of this mess , whilst they sit in their million pound houses and try to think of the next ploy to get the deficit down attacking the poorest in this country whilst letting multi nationals walk away without paying sod all in tax....There is more than one way to skin a cat and this current policy of starving future growth with this austerity will not work.