Friday, Nov 14, 2008
Brown Makes an Ass of Himself Abroad
Guardian: Brown: major countries must cut taxes
"Gordon Brown tonight called on the world's most powerful industrial nations to agree a programme of immediate and coordinated tax cuts to prevent the global economy sliding deeper into recession."
The sheer arrogance of this amazes me, has any other leader, ever told other countries around the world to cut their taxes ? Is it just me or does anyone else think that Gordon Brown has lost it completely ?
I know there is a tendency for Brits to stand behind a leader and prove that British is best but this is getting embarrassing.
Posted by andrew @ 02:13 PM (498 views) Add Comment
9 Comments
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1. Fjcruiser said...
running like a headless chicken
2. Mikeb said...
It is staggering arrogance (and a bit of political smoke screening).
I wonder why people (journalists, Tory politicians, other world leaders etc) do not ask him "Gordon, why aren’t you at home when the pound has suffered its biggest fall since 1992?"
"Gordon, how low will the pound have to go before the BOE has to raise interest rates?"
3. Alan Lubin said...
he will borrow to pay for his tax cuts + and can't understand why others don't want to. the same way that he wants us all to get further into personal debt. i thought he was an egomaniac. it turns out he is just a maniac.
4. Greytornado said...
Four or five years ago, there was a Pyramid Scheme in this part of Southern England. entitled 'Women empowering women' and huge numbers of local women jumped on the scheme, throwing £3,000 a go at it. The local Nat West Bank in Ryde even ran out of cash at one stage and a lot of silly women took out loans in their frenzy to get aboard. A few obviously made a pile, but the majority lost all their money as is the nature with pyramid schemes. I heard one of these silly women on the Local Radio at the time - they were unable to understand the logic of why such a scheme is bound to fail.
Likewise, Gordon Brown is unable to understand why it is not possible to spend your way out a financial mess. The man couldn't organise the proverbial piss up in a brewery.
5. mark wadsworth said...
"the world's most powerful industrial nations"
That excludes the UK, then.
6. mrmickey said...
Yes they will cut taxes and just print more money to make the difference up, this is just the usual bluster from Brown.
7. Gadger said...
What amazes me, is the fact, while he tells the world leaders this. He has not been given the mandate by the electorate
8. fahrenheit451 said...
Hate to suggest this, but if he drops the interest rate to 1%, it probably makes sense. Oh hang on, what happens when the interest rate starts to rise again, and you have huge interest payments to make, yep it's time to put the taxes up again, but for every £1 you borrow today, plus inflation, plus interest rate increases, plus general ineptitude, you have £2 to pay back "tomorrow".
This is just a recipe for disaster. We give you 2 years max to reap a whirlwind of (not banking but) government financial crisis.
First taxes will rise 10-20%, then he will go to the IMF again, finally there will be a lot of smoke as government "quangos" get axed, which have been created by outsourcing government jobs to the "private" sector, and generally off-loading whole government departments. At the end the basics will suffer, police, health, education. We will have to pay for doctor appointments (as in the private sector), police will charge for anything that might be wasting their time, and schools will loose staff (because of the population boom classes have to be larger, etc).
There will be huge distraction therapy due to the build up to the Olympics, and a new war in the bottom half of Africa that we will get involved in, which will take over from Iraq/Iran. This and other side effects will also increase paranoia and enable more big brother interference, and dare one say red tape to keep some government departments safe.
Just wait and see, we really do not have to say "told you so".
9. Smithofborneo said...
Gordon was mentioned on the radio this morning by an American nobel prize winner for economics. He (the prizewinner) said he met Gordon just two or three days ago and was amazed at how intelligent and knowledgeable he was. He understands finance and the current situation in a way the Hank Paulson just does not get and is scrambling to appreciate, he explained. He also said that he didn't know how long Gordon would be prime minister but afterwards, if he wants, he will have a great future advising governments on their fiscal policies.
Gordon Brown is not dumb. This situation is partly his (and Britain's and Tony Blair's but mainly Thatcher's, Reagan's and GW Bush's) doing, but he is one of the very few politicians in the world that truly has a handle on how to deal with it. He might go down in history as a great man because of what he is doing now.
In my opinion.