Sunday, Jan 11, 2009
You can't bully a saver into spending money on UK goods
Times Online: You can’t bully a saver into spending
Political view on failure of Conservatives to make any adequate response. Makes the valid point that we suffer from excess savings (same as debt). I think the UK savers do want to spend, and they have been spending. Unfortunately they don't want to spend their savings on goods made by people who owe them the money, aka the UK debtors. Savers want to buy stuff like large LCD screens, holidays in Venice, laptops, fruit, energy. None of which are made in the UK. So the UK debtors cannot work it off in aggregate, irrespective of how many government jobs are made. Unless they move to taxing savings...Hence the impasse and the economic breakdown.
Posted by stillthinking @ 07:55 PM (641 views) Add Comment
5 Comments
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1. alan said...
My savings are attracting very little interest these days even is my ISA. Ok... I'm willing to spend some and support the UK economy, but what does it actually make?
Even if I get a new PC, its probably not even made in Europe. How about more clothes? Well, unless you want something overpriced, it isn't made here either.
Our economy was always unbalanced, and we knew it. We placed too much reliance on Financial Services, paid vast sums to very ordinary people and now we have no goods that anyone wants - Blackadder was great, but we have achieved saturation in market for selling off DVDs
2. it_is_going_with_a_bang said...
The economic problems in this country primarily are down to not having the property inflation cash machine spurting out money for people to spend on their lifestyles as they have done for 10 years.
This is not about savings this is about not having anything that makes money any more.
That is why this is a huge problem with no real fix.
3. crunchy said...
Savers lost their powers when the gold standard was dropped and printing was accepted.
Facts of life. Through adversity comes change.
We are going through another change. Some may think that this is all quiet by accident.
4. Hev said...
Great article
5. drewster said...
Alan,
You could buy a caravan. They are manufactured in the UK. Also, bookings of caravan holidays are up 40% over last year.
If you want to spend on UK-made things, it has to be services rather than goods. That means taking a weekend break by coach or train, staying in a hotel, eating at restaurants and drinking at bars. Go skiing in the Cairngorms and go the the beach in Blackpool.
You can buy overpriced designer fashions made in the UK. You can buy a Saville Row tailored suit (though sometimes these are made overseas). You can buy books and magazines and newspapers. You can buy DVDs of UK television series and CDs of British artists.
It still won't save the housing market :)