It's funny how it happens. Someone asserts something as fact, no matter how unbased, and it becomes the established wisdom.
- Did you know that all Polar Bears are left handed?
No they're not. Extended studies have been made and there's no evidence to back the idea that left-handed occurances are any higher than in humans.
- Goldfish have a 6 second memory.
The University of Plymouth have run experiments involving little levers that dispense food and found they have memories distinctly longer.
- Gordon Brown is an awesome economical genius.
No, he's a lucky, opportunistic, irresponsible boom-and-bust merchant
Let me make it plain here. I am not peddling any other party or politics. I am just getting annoyed by this perceived common wisdom. It is trotted out like a tired show pony everytime Nu-Labour get criticised.
Gordon Brown came to power at the best possible moment. The world economy was recovering from the recession that had gutted the world throughout the early nineties. China was burgeoning as a production centre and opening up its economy. Most importantly, the bull-run on property that had occured during the 80's was about to be dwarfed. None of these factors were down to Mr. Brown, any more than he can claim responsibility for a day of good weather. So why are these things so important?
There's nothing quite like the optimism, growth and reckless good feeling that comes from a recovering economy. After all - what better returns are there to be had than those from getting in at the bottom of a bull run? The investment from such financial environments spark growth even further. A great time to be in business.
China's emergence, along with all of the other "BRIC" economies (Brazil, Russia, India and China), is hard to over-estimate. Improving productivity and investment in these economies has driven down the price of goods dramatically. Normally, huge growth is accompanied by rampant inflation. The BRIC economies have stopped this from happening for the past decade. Lucky wasn't it?
Lastly, the house prices. I have a mate from Poland who cannot grasp the obsession with house prices in this country. It occured to me that we are among a small group of developed countries who rely on property prices to underpin growth. Only New Zealand and Ireland have more than us to lose by falling house prices. There have been small global recessions in both 1999 and 2002 that we should have had. But we didn't. Luquidity was maintained by people withdrawing moving against their equity.
Gordon Brown has milked these phenomena. We have gorged ourselves on credit and grown FAST as a result. But we have put nothing back. It's now time to start the repayments. We now owe more than our GDP - £1.44 tn, an incomprehensible amount of money. It has been irresponsible behaviour from a man who proclaimed "no more boom-and-bust" These 3 pillars are now starting to look shaky or have now crumbled altogether:
It's safe to say the whole country is sliding into recession as it the US, Russia, the Eurozone and the UK. The run of the last 10 years is completely over. Buckle up for a long deep recession. If the rule of thumb is "the bigger the boom, the worse the bust" we're all in a lot of trouble. To make things worse, all indications are pointing to a pending bubble burst in China and India. Russia's run in with Georgia has slimmed their stock market by a third. When these economies tank, all hope will be lost for even the most pig-headed of bulls.
Lastly, the housing market is buggered. I mean stuffed. Unless it's a home, buying houses now is toxic waste. Everything has been done by this government to stop it. Pushing all kinds of theories like increasing yields for landlords will underpin the BTL (Buy-to-let) market as more people rent. It's true that there are 25% more renters, the shitter is that there are 35% more landlords as people who hold out for unrealistic sales prices are renting out to cover costs.
The house of cards is falling and people should be turning around hand crucifying Crash Gordon. Instead, we are tutting at the weird eyebrow patsy that has been brought in to replace him. It's either impeccably timed or extremely lucky again.
The question we all need to ask ourselves is this:
Is he criminally and wilfully negligent or just moronically fortunate?
- Did you know that all Polar Bears are left handed?
No they're not. Extended studies have been made and there's no evidence to back the idea that left-handed occurances are any higher than in humans.
- Goldfish have a 6 second memory.
The University of Plymouth have run experiments involving little levers that dispense food and found they have memories distinctly longer.
- Gordon Brown is an awesome economical genius.
No, he's a lucky, opportunistic, irresponsible boom-and-bust merchant
Let me make it plain here. I am not peddling any other party or politics. I am just getting annoyed by this perceived common wisdom. It is trotted out like a tired show pony everytime Nu-Labour get criticised.
Gordon Brown came to power at the best possible moment. The world economy was recovering from the recession that had gutted the world throughout the early nineties. China was burgeoning as a production centre and opening up its economy. Most importantly, the bull-run on property that had occured during the 80's was about to be dwarfed. None of these factors were down to Mr. Brown, any more than he can claim responsibility for a day of good weather. So why are these things so important?
There's nothing quite like the optimism, growth and reckless good feeling that comes from a recovering economy. After all - what better returns are there to be had than those from getting in at the bottom of a bull run? The investment from such financial environments spark growth even further. A great time to be in business.
China's emergence, along with all of the other "BRIC" economies (Brazil, Russia, India and China), is hard to over-estimate. Improving productivity and investment in these economies has driven down the price of goods dramatically. Normally, huge growth is accompanied by rampant inflation. The BRIC economies have stopped this from happening for the past decade. Lucky wasn't it?
Lastly, the house prices. I have a mate from Poland who cannot grasp the obsession with house prices in this country. It occured to me that we are among a small group of developed countries who rely on property prices to underpin growth. Only New Zealand and Ireland have more than us to lose by falling house prices. There have been small global recessions in both 1999 and 2002 that we should have had. But we didn't. Luquidity was maintained by people withdrawing moving against their equity.
Gordon Brown has milked these phenomena. We have gorged ourselves on credit and grown FAST as a result. But we have put nothing back. It's now time to start the repayments. We now owe more than our GDP - £1.44 tn, an incomprehensible amount of money. It has been irresponsible behaviour from a man who proclaimed "no more boom-and-bust" These 3 pillars are now starting to look shaky or have now crumbled altogether:
It's safe to say the whole country is sliding into recession as it the US, Russia, the Eurozone and the UK. The run of the last 10 years is completely over. Buckle up for a long deep recession. If the rule of thumb is "the bigger the boom, the worse the bust" we're all in a lot of trouble. To make things worse, all indications are pointing to a pending bubble burst in China and India. Russia's run in with Georgia has slimmed their stock market by a third. When these economies tank, all hope will be lost for even the most pig-headed of bulls.
Lastly, the housing market is buggered. I mean stuffed. Unless it's a home, buying houses now is toxic waste. Everything has been done by this government to stop it. Pushing all kinds of theories like increasing yields for landlords will underpin the BTL (Buy-to-let) market as more people rent. It's true that there are 25% more renters, the shitter is that there are 35% more landlords as people who hold out for unrealistic sales prices are renting out to cover costs.
The house of cards is falling and people should be turning around hand crucifying Crash Gordon. Instead, we are tutting at the weird eyebrow patsy that has been brought in to replace him. It's either impeccably timed or extremely lucky again.
The question we all need to ask ourselves is this:
Is he criminally and wilfully negligent or just moronically fortunate?
My assumption given boom and bust is naturally cyclical, is that Brown was fortunate to ride the wave of boom that followed the hard work put in by previous tenants of no.11. However, I also would have to say that my gut feeling is that New Labour were rather pre-occupied with making rafts of changes, as they had waited for so long to be in power, to have examined any financial structures. Also of course as banking/financial services are our only 'successful' exports over the last 20 years, its a dangerous animal to play with. The bloated financial sector that tortures us with its greed also happens to be where so much of our tax revenue comes from to keep rioters in benefits after all. Oh and lets never lose sight of the Machiavellian desire to govern for its own sake always being a motivation to achieve enough to stay in power term by term, NOT make sweeping changes to societal economic structures that would serve us best in the long run. But then career politicians have always done that.
ReplyDeleteSo, to have made any substantial structural economic changes would have impacted the electorate. That is a unlikely pill to want to swallow given a choice. Pretty much like global warning. So long as measures to tackle it are not a forced decision, they wont be made. Anyway, no country will act alone as restructuring would be disadvantageous for such an extended period as to be potentially destabilising. So, until the threat of destabilisation is imminent anyway I cant see much happening. Why the focus on Brown anyway?