Sunday, Dec 28, 2008
I have been waiting for this - read if you have a strong stomach
Guardian: Brown: we need Dunkirk spirit in 2009
A few quotes from Mr Brown; 'he and his government will be the "rock of stability" ', 'It will be my unwavering focus to make the right decisions', with 'the failure of British governments in previous downturns was to succumb to political expediency'. Somehow that fact that all this germinated and grew under his watch is lost on the man.
Posted by enuii @ 04:37 PM (1642 views) Add Comment
34 Comments
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1. Mrflibble said...
He led us into this mess now he expects us to lead him out of it - yeah right.
2. paul said...
No, how about we have a good old-fashioned military tribunal and firing squad for him then. eh?
3. Jzod said...
Churchill helped Britain win World War 2 and was voted out when the war was over.
Gordon Brown ruined our economy in the boom times and will wreck it more in the downturn.
And now he is comparing himself to one of our true great leader?
Why dont we all vote this deluded leader out?
Anyone with delusions of grandeur like this is dangerous in these times for our country.
4. last_days_of_disco said...
Yeah these losers have undermined everything that made Britain able to pull through that crisis. Now he wants to pull on some mystical force that only exists in a fraction of the population all of which support the opposing party.
5. Saywhat said...
So while tax money is used to bail out UK banks, these UK banks are happy to layoff workers and move work offshore so that they can make more profits... does not sound very Dunkirk spirit like to me.... You got business leaders say leave min wage at 2008 rates but then in 2009 they layoff thousands, mmmm sounds very Dunkirk spirit like to me... It will be interesting to see what happens when taxes finally go up to pay back all this borrowing, we can then see this great Dunkirk spirit in action. I think what they've done is going to set the UK back and it will take a long time to get back on track again...
Also I've been thinking about the pound change over to the euro and I can not see this happening even under GB/Darling lead. The reason is that the UK interest rates differential with the euro zone. We supposed to be going to near 0% interest rates, so they only way we could go with the euro would be if euro rates also go to zero. If the UK joined the euro say next week it would be an interest rate increase situation which would hurt. Given this as long as interest rates keep failing the pounds going to go to 1 to 1 and then below... how far it goes I got no idea.
6. sneaker said...
Usual Brownism - strong on rhetoric, lots of words telling you about himself, attempts to stir the emotions and connect with people's sense of higher service - but what does it all mean? And the stuff about not succumbing to political expediency is just raucously risible, from the grand master of spin and leaks himself. Or perhaps he really does believe in his own BS?
People who think they can do only good (call it naivety, rather than hubris) can be a LOT more dangerous than malign people who know they are doing bad. They haven't had the epiphany that we're all capable of errors and that the "truth" is a lot vaguer than most people recognise.
7. growler said...
It's what all politicians do when they have nothing of substance: talk emotion and stir the nationalist hearts. Anyone who doesn't believe my passion for the good of the country is the enemy? Sound familiar: It's the kind of troop rallying you'd expect in a beer hall.
8. Growler said...
in fact, when I read the last lines..
"Referring to the Tory government of the early Nineties, he says: "The failure of British governments in previous downturns was to succumb to political expediency and to cut back investment across the board, thereby stunting our ability to grow and strangling hope during the upturn. This will not happen during my watch"
It much as much as you'd have heard from the brown (sic) shirts in the beer halls.
9. it_is_going_with_a_bang said...
I seem to remember Sadam Hussain telling his people to believe in him too.
A virtual dictatorship in panic mode.
10. Monks said...
Brown is now Comical Ali and the economic catastrophe is the Americans coming over the hill behind him. According to Wikipedia, Ali said this...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_Saeed_al-Sahhaf
When asked where he had got his information he replied, "authentic sources—many authentic sources".[8] He pointed out that he "was a professional, doing his job".
DOING HIS JOB !!!
So now we know who Brown has honed his political rethoric on.
11. Ulfar said...
Said it before, he completely insane and believes everything he says. The man is no longer in touch with any sort of reality.
12. plato said...
Was there something of great wisdom I missed in this article?............... A subtle warning perhaps of a great self-inflicted economic collapse about to descend on us in 2009?
13. hpwatcher said...
The stuff that comes out of GB's mouth......far worse than any estate agent's bull.
14. crunchy said...
Making correct choices are easier before a major mistake rather than after.
Browns choices are now A, Further damage or B, Disaster.
For as long as Browns choices are reactionary he will never gain control over what is unfolding Globally.
15. crunchy said...
"he insists that he is entirely focused on the three main challenges facing the world: the global economic downturn, the fight against climate change and the need to bolster international security."
Hold on, , "the fight against climate change and the need to bolster international security." Since when in the last ten years has he or Bush worried about these?
No further comment.
16. bellwether said...
The impulse is global. A long term bull market, reflected in stocks since 1981 is reversing and will take years to unwind. Yes the UK could have been a bit better placed if matters had been better managed but this goes way beyond politics and way beyond the UK. Everyone is implicated and no-one will escape. Job losses will be enormous and will affect us all, directly or indirectly. 2008 was our time to gloat but the real pain begins from here. Our wish to see house prices drop is unfortunately part of a far larger curse.
17. alan said...
I agree with sneaker. More rhetoric from Brown, supported by lap dogs in the government....
Does Brown really want the people of this country to take on more debt?...... "In a sideswipe at Tory leader David Cameron, who has criticised Brown's plans to revive the economy with a £20bn tax cutting, stimulus package, the prime minister insists it is time for leaders to intervene in the economy and to invest for the future, rather than reduce spending as the Conservatives would do".
Even the Bishops reckon that Brown is immoral for telling people to keep on buying when we are the most indebted country in Europe...! We have too many shops and shopping malls - let a few fall over. It will teach them business planning!
18. Yoss said...
Lets see how long that "Character" lasts when he starts taxing the cr@p out of everyone to pay for his misplaced dream.
Why work? Any rewards for you efforts will be taxed down to the point you may as well not have worked at all (We have been there for some years now)
Here's an alternative option, do what so many poles have done in the past and seek work abroad and better yourself.
The pension time bomb in this country is about to go BOOM! When it does our bloated public sector will weigh heavy on the countries ability to compete.
Every private sector worker will be expected to carry 2x OAP's + 2x Public sector workers + 2x People deemed un-capable of working...They all need warm homes, Sky TV and food, so buckle up, their votes count much more than yours!
GBP is outnumbered 6-1
19. mytimeisnigh said...
Gordon Brown’s mismanagement of the public finances has been on an on an epic scale. His misguided public spending policy is unsustainable as it has been funded by borrowed money and a debt fuelled credit boom. We would be far better positioned to weather this global storm, if a huge budget deficit had not been accumulated during boom years, if housing inflation had been controlled, if consumer debt had been discouraged and saving encouraged.
20. gone-to-colombia said...
Churchill he is not, wan%er he is.
21. sovietuk said...
We do need the Dunkirk spirit. After the advancing German Army ran rings round the British Army in the weeks leading up to the Dunkirk evacuation many of the British Generals were replaced for being responsible for what was essentially a rout of the Britsh forces. In the same way Brown is mainly responsible for the current mess and therefore should be replaced. Some solutions - well how about making life easier for wealth creators (i.e private businesses - after all they do employ 80% of the workforce) like cutting business taxes, cutting regulation and reversing the obscene client state that is slowly strangling the country.
22. peter_2008 said...
This may look like Dunkirk. But this man ain’t no Winston Churchill. This is Neville Chamberlain misjudging that Hilter “has missed the bus.”
Actually, I would suggest read the wiki entry of Neville Chamberlain. Particularly the pre-war financial and economics background in the UK. Try to replace the word “Hitler” with “Banks”. You may find that interesting.
23. bellwether said...
Useless chancellor but in fairness he just implemented similar policies to those pursued in one way or the other across the globe. There is a real lack of breadth in just banging on endlessly about his incompetence. What we face is far far bigger than this. Mind you if it makes you feel better I guess.
24. Bryan Kavanagh said...
The signal that Gordon Brown's anything more than a pompous vegetable will be when you hear him say the UK's going to capture more of its publicly-generated land rents and slash all other taxes. As ol' Gordie seems to revel in the role of a self-congratulating veggie while he's carried along by the same gormless economists who brought the UK to this point, I won't be holding my breath.
They're much the same down here in Oz though .... high priests for the speculative status quo, ritually sacrificing taxpayers dollars into bailouts and into the deflationary vortex and praying. They don't understand this can't work because there's a structural problem with our perverse tax regimes remaining unaddressed. www.lvrg.org.au
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26. mytimeisnigh said...
As the recession deepens even Gordon's party faithful will begin to turn against him.
27. stillthinking said...
Gordon and his whole party are ideologically against the only solution. Which is;
The Tories are wrong to oppose government borrowing, what we need is huge quantative easing i.e. borrowing from the BoE. This money is required to replace the missing readies held as capital reserves by the net creditor nations. Now the government is wrong about the fiscal stimulus targetting, in that they will use it to further expand the state, this is a disaster. The printed money should be used to fund tax cuts. Essentially those tax cuts are on loan. There is a more practical reason for tax cuts instead of government projects, in that they are quick and time is short. Government spending will take years to go forward and is also not sustainable because must end, a larger sustainable private sector is needed here. Banks should have all compulsive lending policies abandoned. There is no need for the public to borrow as the government is doing so on their behalf.
Simultaneously cut the size of the state as dramatically as possible. A key element is that the costs of the state are reduced -below- the reduced tax take.
OK. At this point we should have reflated leading to problem number two. Should China/Japan/etc recover they might possibly even spend some of their reserves on goods manufactured in the UK(!!!). When this happens we will have demand led inflation. However, as the tax take is larger than the costs of the state(see first step), and also as taxes are relatively low they could increase(see first step). So increase taxes if necessary,even restore to current levels. This gives the government a surplus. This surplus is destroyed, cancelling out the quantative easing in the first part and reining in inflation without necessary having to raise rates.
Now the main problem with this is that 1) New Labour won't ever reduce the size of the state 2) this create mass unemployment amongst former public sector workers which might go down badly(!) 3) the money markets might not believe in the surplus being destroyed later 4) a bit tricky to judge 5) the pound will collapse 6) it isn't fair because anybody who knows the plan can take appropriate action to benefit.
Also I think 2% as an inflation target is too low. This should be raised to 3 or 4%. On the plus side this approach allows for maintaining borrowing costs at around 5-8% range which is what people are expecting. What we cannot afford is a later inflationary spike as our heavily indebted population really can't take that.
Ta da !!!! Abracadabra !
Until this is adopted the UK will collapse more and more and more and more, no limit. So it is kind of a shame that this plan doesn't have a snowball in hell's chance.
28. beartil2010 said...
Stillthinking - I agree with what you are saying and think that that plan would actually save the UK a lot of pain.
I disagree with inflation targeting though. Surely flexible IR management is better, and we also need the measurement mechanisms (basket of goods etc.) to be updated to be truly representative?
I agree that the UK could end up truly destroyed by UK GOV spending more at this time, all of it ineffectually.
(What a great time to be having the olympics!)
29. beartil2010 said...
Stillthinking - I agree with what you are saying and think that that plan would actually save the UK a lot of pain.
I disagree with inflation targeting though. Surely flexible IR management is better, and we also need the measurement mechanisms (basket of goods etc.) to be updated to be truly representative?
I agree that the UK could end up truly destroyed by UK GOV spending more at this time, all of it ineffectually.
(What a great time to be having the olympics!)
30. beartil2010 said...
Stillthinking - I agree with what you are saying and think that that plan would actually save the UK a lot of pain.
I disagree with inflation targeting though. Surely flexible IR management is better, and we also need the measurement mechanisms (basket of goods etc.) to be updated to be truly representative?
I agree that the UK could end up truly destroyed by UK GOV spending more at this time, all of it ineffectually.
(What a great time to be having the olympics!)
31. beartil2010 said...
sorry about triple post!!!
32. bellwether said...
Stillthinking as usual a thoughtful comment. I broadly agree, the spend in the public sector (particularly pensions) does not contribute enough economically to justify its size and a policy of debt devaluation (and consequently currency devaluation) in the mode you describe might work best. The govy in fairness is pursuing policies of deval but likely, as you point out, its going the wrog way about it.
That said what succeeds econmically for UK will come to be understood in very relative terms. There is going to be the mother of all econm contractions no matter what policy is pursued.
The best we can hope for is maintenance of a finance, int trade and the avoidance of war ie that we keep going.
As I understand it little will really work unless on int scale ie the debtor nations agree with the creditor nations to ameliorate the debt and move on - although even with this there will be an ongoing decline as the illusory confidence that keeps everything going and everyone trading is shot through.
That said if ecomomic problems are ultimately a manifestation of poluation v resources, I'm unclear and worry if there is any long term solution that does not involve redressing this balance.
33. ontheotherhand said...
What amazing doublespeak! To claim that Tory cuts were driven by 'political expediency' and implying that in contrast his print and spend and buy votes is therefore a brave unpopular move is ridiculous.
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