Monday, Dec 22, 2008
Criticism will lose you your job!
Telegraph: ArchB of Canterbury warns Britain must learn lessons from Nazi Germany
Dr Rowan Williams risks causing a new controversy by inviting a comparison between Gordon Brown's response to the economic downturn and the Third Reich. Williams later quotes Marx. He then denounced Mr Brown's plans to increase debt, saying: "I worry about that because it seems a little bit like the addict returning to the drug.
Posted by alan @ 07:21 AM (609 views) Add Comment
16 Comments
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1. bellwether said...
Can't blame him for trying to boost COE numbers with some timley press coverage. Lot of opportunistic sh!te all the same. Needs to sort those denis healy brows.
2. tyrellcorporation said...
'Needs to sort those denis healy brows'
Well let's see if Santa gets him some Crimpers for Christmas!
3. mountain goat said...
I agree with RW. Borrowing more is going to make our debt crisis worse. Taking this approach is not facing facts that the world is changing. We in the West are not guaranteed to be wealthy anymore. Trying to maintain the status quo risks us losing everything to insolvency. Time to scale back, scale down, pay off our debts and survive the next 10 years. Borrowing more just makes our hole deeper.
4. growler said...
Well said MG. Putting aside the religeous aspects and a beautifully aloof use of the Nazi word that is the right of the pure academic - RW is right.
The Bank of England deputy also agrees " BoE failed to act on 'crazy borrowing' as per article http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/financialcrisis/3899347/Bank-of-England-failed-to-act-on-crazy-borrowing-deputy-admits.html
5. bellwether said...
MG in fairness you have a vested interest, you are a saver, your grow your own vegatables, you are probably debt free ie pretty much you are going to say that.
As Kirsty and Phil amply demonstrate it is always more interesting if people say things that don't simply square with their own self interst
6. str 2007 said...
Bellwether
Is MG's ability to practice what he preaches such a bad thing ?
Could it be he's right as well as self interested.
Borrowing should in the main be a tool to smooth out the quieter times in the economy, to be repaid in the better times. This works.
Borrowing to create good times only to effectively create worse times and then to attempt to get through those with more borrowing - doesn't work.
7. mountain goat said...
Bellwether - you are right about me, I shun debt whenever possible. So perhaps deflation suits me better than high inflation. However, investment-wise I have also positioned myself for hyper-inflation with agriculture and precious metals. So from that point of view I should be cheering a devaluation of our currency (which will result from more borrowing).
However, my main point is that quantitative easing lacks imagination. They have drawn a line from the past 50 years and expect us to keep growing and prospering at that rate. If they succeed, maybe all this quantitative easing delays pay-back time another decade. But it can only be a delay, when they fail we face Armeggeddon level of deflation, insolvency and default. I think the risks are not understood because there is this delusion that things can keep going for another 50 years as they have been. It is a going-for-broke stategy. Prudence is a lower risk strategy.
8. jackas said...
Bellwether
Therein lies the true tragedy of the situation - the fact that people think this is all about which VI camp you fall into.
The way I see it there are two camps.
Camp 1 - borrow more, attempt to amintain the satus quo and the illusion we are wealthy. Risk: Total monetary collapse where everyone loses.
Camp 2 - take your medicie. Pay down debt, let asset prices deflate, allow the invisible hand to do its work. Risk: Overstretched borrows suffers for a prolonged period, but eceonomy eventually recovers.
I believe MG is in the latter camp. And if you have a VI in avoiding total monetry collapse, then so should you.
9. Brownout said...
"Gordon Browns Downfall" the video = horribly close to the grim future being discussed above ... ?
(and one of the most hilarious 2 minutes of video I've seen in ages !!!!!!)
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=wtIjgsxe-jM
Well worth 2 minutes of your day :-)
10. bellwether said...
6,7 and 8 are all contain the same naive assumption; if we are prudent now we will somehow be saved.
11. mountain goat said...
Just need to borrow a bit more and we can grow out of this debt problem!
12. mountain goat said...
Just need to borrow a bit more and we'll be sorted.
13. mountain goat said...
Charts above from FT Alphaville Welcome to debt central
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