Rolling UK Economy Into The Shitbin Thread

I hardly think Lord Myners is equivalent in importance and influence to Geitner and Paulson. Not that I'm disagreeing with you, by and large.

The thing is Myners is wandering around slamming people for ludicrous salaries whenever he gets the chance, Adair Turner is basically working out what exotic financial practice to ban first for not being "socially useful" and even Mervyn King is arguing for a Tobin Tax. Hell, even the IMF is calling for exchange controls and higher inflation targets. I feel that to a great extent, the left has won loads of the arguments.

That's why it's particularly galling to have people nominally on the left essentially parroting Dan Hannan or whoever.

The thing is Myners is wandering around slamming people for ludicrous salaries whenever he gets the chance

slamming people is all well and good but the bonuses were paid. if you're right, great. but i don't personally think there's a snowball's chance of anything much happening: the political agenda for the election is about who will cut when. if there is movement towards regulation it's being kept very quiet.

Yeah anyone who thinks all of this represents this represents a triumph for the left will be celebrating a pyrrhic victory, and losing the argument over welfare and public service funding strikes me as defeat bigger than the 'victory' represented by state intervention in the market.

Why is there such a huge deficit in the public finances? I'm sure this has been covered before, but I can't remember.

Obviously there have been a lot of one-off costs over the last 18 months or so where the government has had to step in to stop the collapse of the banking system, but presumably these aren't costs that will continue to be paid each year (and so don't contribute projected future deficits) and presumably also a lot of it is effectively equity in the banks which can be sold in the future (perhaps at a profit) and so isn't really money which has disappeared down the drain.

In terms of the actual deficit, I can appreciate that in a recession tax receipts fall and benefit payments rise and this can lead to a shortfall, but this must have been true in every other recession as well, and unemployment is nowhere near 1980s levels at the moment. So what is the problem?

lol overpaid public servants

lol equity in banks

Since the last recession, the government's become more reliant on tax generated by the financial sector and its problems have contributed to the hole that's opened up in the public finances. Probably a huge fall in the amount generated through stamp duty as well.

Also the interest payments on that debt have to be enormous.

Also the interest payment on that debt have to be enormous

Ah, yes. That's probably the big thing I forgot.

Lol Glazerite.

Yeah, you'd have thought I could have figured that one out for myself.

There is certainly an argument to be had about how the UK cuts its overdraft, but voters aren't getting that debate – instead they have to contend with the Mafioso-like figure of the market.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/may/18/brain-food-markets-politics-religion

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/oilandgas/7862246/How-a-broker-spent-520m-in-a-drunken-stupor-and-moved-the-global-oil-price.html

The 34-year old broker at first claimed he had spent the night trading alongside a client. But the story began to fall apart when he refused to put the customer in touch with his desk for official approval of the trades.
By 10am it emerged that Mr Perkins had single-handedly moved the global price of oil to an eight-month high during a "drunken blackout". Prices leapt by more than $1.50 a barrel in under half an hour at around 2am – the kind of sharp swing caused by events of geo-political significance. Ten times the usual volume of futures contracts changed hands in just one hour.

In this circumstance it seems only fair to hate the game and not the playa

ya was gonna say wld kick it with tbh

Well done BBC on only showing this in Scotland:

In an interview due to be broadcast on BBC Scotland on Monday, Mr Tate - group executive director of Lloyds - told reporter Mark Daly: "There are a whole lot of people, myself included, who would love to get the kind of return on their investment that the taxpayer has made into this bank.

Here we go again kids

did you ever hear that thing about the british being the only group who feel schadenfraude toward themselves? totally all i am getting out of this whole thing, some kind of sick pleasure in being proved right that the people in charge are terrible. it's like willing your driver to crash.

Nah, don't think it's just a British thing, I don't really believe any opposition politician anywhere who says he wants the economy to do well, they want to go down the toilet so they can get elected!

here's the interest rate on 10-year UK bonds right before the con-dems got elected:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/chart?h=200&w=280&range=1y&type=gp_line&cfg=BQuoteComp_10.xml&ticks=GUKG10:IND&img=png

can someone explain to me where the "crisis of confidence" is here? a crisis that required austerity budgeting?

Feb-May 2010 looks pretty bad TBF although so does Nov 10 - Present. Feb May looks like response to uncertainty, Nov 10 - Present looks like the response to the certainty of Cuts and Contraction.

August 3, 2011, 7:25 am
Osborne’s Delusions

Britain’s experiment in austerity is going really, really badly. But the Chancellor of the Exchequer is finding solace in well, fantasy. Interest rates on UK debt are falling, and:

“This is proof that we are now seen as a safe haven, we’re not seeing the increase in yields seen in Europe and the US,” said Mr Osborne’s spokesman.

Yields in the US have, of course, plunged rather than risen. And they’ve plunged for the same reason UK yields have plunged: a scarily weak economy suggests that it will be years before the central bank raises rates.

For what it’s worth, credit default swaps suggest that perceived risk of a UK default has been low all along, except for a panicky few months after Lehman.

It’s sad, actually: the wolf is at the door, and Osborne thinks it’s the confidence fairy.

was about to say 'who dat?' but then read 'confidence fairy'

and knew

Anyone else cynical enough to think Osborne is happy to have austerity now and a few green shoots before the election followed by a campaign that says Labour got us into the mire and can't be trusted to maintain the "recovery"? It's worked for the Tories before. It's not about what's best for the economy, it's about getting your timing right.

Osborne long term plan is surely to sell off the bank stakes or some of them and use some of that to pay off debt but also a large chunk to fund tax cuts right before the election. But he'll still be wanting better growth than this regardless - as it is we're teetering on the brink of another recession and that'll be disastrous for them. Assuming Labour can actually string together a narrative that sticks on this, which is a huge huge 'if'.

this'll sound student-y, but i think the crisis is so vast that the 'solution' (aka means of muddling through) has to be more than even the labour party of ed balls can offer. i don't think we're going to see really 'green shoots' at any time -- house price inflation, sure -- and much as i loved the last ~15 years, i don't think another round of what we had will see us through.

hollow laugh: george osborne is coming home from his hols early to... do whatever the fuck he does

so has ed milliband actually said anything about this yet?

ha, wrong thread, but i guess it works here too.

awaiting policy review iirc

there are a few 'i agree' kinda things on his twitter account. really feel like he could seem sorta persuasive if he said like, thoughtful things he probably thinks, but he seems a bit trapped in trying to sound like a guy who is able to say the right boilerplate politician things, for the most part, as a demonstration of his grown-up real-and-viable politician skills. like banal 'my heart is with the people of _____' platitudes.

https://si0.twimg.com/profile_images/135126819/404-fffuuu_bigger.png

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aC19fEqR5bA&feature=player_embedded

.

the good people of twitter are coming around to the opinion that it's a Yes Men stunt?

have been trying to find mention of 'alessio rastani' on the interwhat prior to april 2010 (that's quite a long game!) but it's rendered surprisingly hard by automated news tickers/rss type things - google brings up pages ostensibly from 2007 but with recent headlines etc on 'em.

that would be so awesome.

i can't decide whether it would or not! if it's a stunt, then wouldn't it be easier for people to ignore?

i am pretty bad at faces but it didn't seem to me that this was the same man as the Bhopal disaster interview, this one is so much younger.

Yeah, reading the Yes Men theories now as well. Soz about that.

Still, I wonder what percentage of people who saw it were disgusted v the percentage of people who went to look up "how to make money in a downmarket"

if it's a stunt, then wouldn't it be easier for people to ignore?

it's gotten through to enough people already to have made a difference i think.

His advice to protect your assets as best you can is very good advice right now.

The great majority of ilxors have few or no assets other than their skills and abilities. Sadly, in a cash famine and deflationary spiral (which is what this guy is obv predicting) there is no good way to protect those assets, since they must be converted to cash to become negotiable. Therefore, the best strategy would be to reduce debt, save as much as you can from your present earnings, and keep your powder dry. Also, evaluate your skill set and try to strengthen it by adding as many valuable skills as you can.

So the dude is kind of a fraud, but not a hoaxer.

"Not only are we going to be in debt to the bank, we're also in debt to our parents... we're probably never going to afford to get married, and god forbid we ever decide to have a child. I've worked my arѕe off, (so) how the hell has this happened?"

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/01/05/uk-housing-analysis-idUKTRE8040EK20120105

speaking of houses the benefit cap comes into effect this week i think?

"Not only are we going to be in debt to the bank, we're also in debt to our parents... we're probably never going to afford to get married, and god forbid we ever decide to have a child. I've worked my arѕe off, (so) how the hell has this happened?"

i've had a few and it's late here so i'm not pumped to get into it but it seems to me that this kind of argument, which you hear a lot re: the recession/economic climate/decline of the West/whatevs is loaded with entitlement and ahistoricity and point-missing and it doesn't pull at the heart or brain-strings as to why we're at the evil end of an evil age

they're using the word ARSE in a reuters article next thing it will be big bottom this and blood sausage that all over the newsy wewsies

nv otm, difference being i'm sober

i feel bad for the dude if he can't afford to get married tho, it's only 60 quid

yah god forbid those feebs ever have kids

housing is a universal right oh and also a maketable good oh and also yr pension kthxbye

UK/Irish govts, 1993-2007