Tuesday, Jan 13, 2009
Bad times ahead, kupo
BBC 'News': UK economy downturn 'frightening'
Business leaders have painted a bleak picture of the UK economy, with a survey suggesting a "frightening deterioration" towards the end of 2008. The British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) said its survey results were "awful" and the worst since records began in 1989. Like-for-like sales in December were down 3.3% on a year ago while total sales shrank 1.4%. This is despite the government cut in VAT.
The BCC's chief economist David Kern said that he now expected the UK economy to shrink by up to 2.4% in 2009, rather than the 2.2% he had earlier forecast, making this worse than the 1990s recession. Mr Kern said more rate cuts were likely, but that the authorities would have to go further to avoid a prolonged depression, including printing more money.
9 Comments
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1. paul said...
The public will get its apology from Gordon Brown yet. In every interview with the lump, I'll expect the interviewer to ask the question.
Obviously I'm not including the BBC there though because they'll just fawn over him instead.
2. Shockedandy said...
So basically all the dodgy business models and investments and falling apart, no surprises there. Good old Gordon swopped shorter boom and bust for longer ones, or just one long bust? Great. And yet another reference to printing money. They must be discussing it all over in Whitehall. Gordon will love this, great propaganda. Nice. It’s going to happen, but when and to what cost? The people who got us in this mess and trying to get us out of it, (not good), as are the commenter’s that did not see it coming!
3. japanese uncle said...
Mega-wealth shifted in the midst of the bubbles, must be seized by the states and re-invested/consumed, otherwise such assets will stay dormant never to be circulated for consumption nor investment. The trillions of money siphoned through countless con schemes not least Subprime CDOs, must be refunded, including the bonus/salary paid to investment bankers, dividend paid to shareholders of those institutions, money gained by the property charlatans, etc.by retroactive prohibitive taxation. Seizure of all assets in excess of 30 million dollars, while 95% tax over all annual incomes in excess of one million dollars realized during 1999-2007, let alone the imprisonment of those responsible. CDS covering banks must be cancelled each other, to eliminate/reduce the 'systemic melt-down risks', as Webster Tarpley insists. This is the only way out. Yes, this is an extraordinary measure denying the principle of capitalism. Yet we are witnessing the denial of capitalism in the form of nationalized banks, etc, anyway. Extraordinary once-in-a-century catastrophe warrants such extraordinary measure to be deployed only once in a century, for the total welfare of mankind!
4. plato said...
Quite so JU, but that requires a world with moral values in which case it would never have happened in the first place. I fear we have gone too far this time and this multiplication of concentrated wealth gives power to a relative few giving them a cloak of immortality.
Against them,they are confronted by a vast majority of uneducated,immoral and legally impotent mortals, carefully cultured during their formative years.
5. japanese uncle said...
plato
Unfortunately you may well be right.
After all God help those help themselves. Those who are happily laughing drunk, watching the likes of Big Brother, without seeking any knowledge beyond the gossip of the football players and silly entertainers, cannot be helped anyway.
6. plato said...
Lets look on the bright side JU. Our feeble leaders may undergo a change of consciousness and become honorable. It only requires those in control to do this.
7. shipbuilder said...
JU/Plato - absolutely. We are conditioned from childhood onwards on how the world works - the world is run for the benefit of those in authority and with power (money), not the majority. Laws are passed to protect this minority. We must serve in the hope that one day we might become part of the minority, which, by definition of course, is impossible. We are told that this set-up competition is 'natural'. The lie that these people's and their system's purpose is to benefit us is repeated and repeated until we believe it.
Unless we question these fundamentals the status quo will not change - we need to understand that those in power will never change.
8. p. doff said...
7. shipbuilder said...''We must serve in the hope that one day we might become part of the minority, which, by definition of course, is impossible''.
Not sure about that. There are many obscenely wealthy and powerful people who started out from humble beginnings or back-street slums. Some slaved all hours God sends to get there; others were just plain lucky. Many achieved success on the backs of others, or by exploitation of the masses. I would guess quite a few did something illegal to get there.
I do think that to become one of the 'elite' it helps to have a certain type of personality though, where you don't give a stuff about others. but this is quite common among humankind unfortunately.
The 'elite' as individuals undoubtedly profit by controlling the masses, but IMHO there is no joint game plan and no conspiracy of the 'elites', - each is merely out to grab what he can for himself.
9. shipbuilder said...
p. doff - I agree that there is no conspiracy or game plan, just greed - what I meant by the line you quoted is that we we are sold this lie that we can all be rich, if only we work hard enough - obviously we all can't, so we are set in competition with each other. Who benefits most from this competition for wealth? Our employers, bankers.....