Monday, Jan 26, 2009
Speechless!
Timesonline: Gordon Brown: "I called for global financial reform ten years ago"
Gordon Brown claimed today that he had been warning for ten years that the international financial markets needed to be more strongly regulated.
The Prime Minister said that it was a decade ago in Harvard that he first called for an international early warning system to alert countries to developing crises in any part of the world, because the huge global growth and reach of financial systems meant that all markets, all economies and all banks were now interdependent.
Posted by flintster1994 @ 03:39 PM (1223 views) Add Comment
20 Comments
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1. str 2007 said...
Really
So 10 years ago he knew and 10 days ago he said no-one could've predicted what happened. Apart from him obviously, except he forget he predicted it.
2. letthemfall said...
For early warning systems to work, one has to note the warning when it sounds, and then do something about it.
3. flintster1994 said...
If one wanted to do something about!
4. hubbers said...
I all honesty you could have written it in big red letters on the wall of the inside of his living room and he still would have ignored it because Labour WANTED house prices to go up so that the wealth was "created" and tax revenues went up so that Labour could pay for all the social engineering they planned.
A decade later it's hard to say whether schools/health/security are any better or worse and ALL OF THE MONEY IS GONE.
People spending other peoples money rarely have any motivation to see that money is spent prudently or carefully.
5. hubbers said...
Also if he claimed that he warned for stronger regulation then why didn't he do it in England?
6. andrew said...
????
7. mark wadsworth said...
STR, nice logic there.
The Goblin King came up with this 'counter factual version of events' (or Big Fat Lie) last October and I am surprised that journalists fall for it.
http://markwadsworth.blogspot.com/2008/10/brown-relieved-that-he-can-blame.html
8. need-a-crash said...
@4. Totally agree with you.
Labour's social engineering consisted of overcoming what they see as the 2 main barriers to social mobility:
1. Money - So give everyone lots of it by inflating house prices & enabling the poor to borrow, borrow, borrow.
2. Education - So give qualifications to all and to hell with any meaningful standards in education.
Nearly 10yrs on and we are now reaping what we've sown.
9. fjcruiser said...
He also said nobody saw this economic crisis coming. Well he must be the only one then !
10. flintster1994 said...
need-a-crash,
"now reaping what we've sown."
now reaping what THEY have sown.
11. mountain goat said...
;-) I like the first comment on the Times website "I also saw a disaster coming as soon as Labour were elected in 1997. "
12. martin said...
@Need-a-crash:
Spot on with your view of barriers to social mobility.
13. crashpad4me said...
Good orators have the ability to shape reality around themselves
14. 51ck-6-51x said...
Wasn't it Brown who removed the BoE's regulatory role in 1999?
I'm all for light regulation too Flash, but there needs to be a watchdog, and it needs sharp teeth, even if it usually only barks a little.
15. icarus said...
Wall Street has always wanted light-touch regulation and since the early '90s it's been in cahoots with its buddies in Washington to obtain it. Elliot Spitzer opposed this consensus and he quickly became history. Wall Street investment banks operated from London as well as New York (UK investment banks had been pretty well wiped out by Wall Street in the early '90s) and they got Brown on board in 1997 to give them even lighter regulation - regulation by 'principles' rather than by rules. Self-regulation was the main principle and this enabled the Wall Street-London axis to crank up leverage massively and to create a shadow banking system that cranked it up even more.
The resulting massive pool of gambling money is what enabled the axis to create bubbles (which themselves boost leverage) and shift markets in the gamblers' favour. This latest from Brown is as Orwellian as crashpad's comment @13 suggests.
16. Saywhat!! said...
My word, I wounder if Brown is trying to have a competition with Mugabe to see who can speak the most trash.
17. goweresque said...
Need-a-Crash said: "Labour's social engineering consisted of overcoming what they see as the 2 main barriers to social mobility:
1. Money - So give everyone lots of it by inflating house prices & enabling the poor to borrow, borrow, borrow.
2. Education - So give qualifications to all and to hell with any meaningful standards in education."
Ironically the only way out if one is born into a poor household/area is a genuinely discriminatory education system. IE one that takes able children from all backgrounds and gives them a rigorous elitist education. The old grammar system. Under the 'all shall have prizes' comprehensive NuLabour system there is no way out because the exam certificates are worthless. The class/wealth barriers are entrenched because only the wealthy can afford to privately educate their children. Many private schools don't even bother with GCSEs anymore, and are beginning to discard A levels too. State educated children will fall even further behind.
18. mdmick said...
Did he state principles back then or outline details?
Would Standard and Poor accurate reporting of risk be a part of such an early warning system?
19. shipbuilder said...
It is the measure of Brown's arrogance and contempt for us that he will knowingly contradict himself and expect it to be lapped up by the press and public.
20. japanese uncle said...
A firefighter having failed to come to the scene in time (thus having done nothing while the fire was raging), saying 'This is exactly why I have been telling everone all along, never to smoke in bed!!' in front of a burnt down house.