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Is The Budget The Wake Up Call?


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HOLA441
When you read the papers or watch the telly in other European countries or the USA which concentrate almost entirely on the dire straights of their own particular economies you can be left feeling that each place is in the worst position in the world.

If sterling is going to collapse, what is it going to collapse against?

erm the sterling already lost a huge amount in the last year against other currencies

yee brits have a long way to go :lol: DOWN that is

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HOLA442
When you read the papers or watch the telly in other European countries or the USA which concentrate almost entirely on the dire straights of their own particular economies you can be left feeling that each place is in the worst position in the world.

If sterling is going to collapse, what is it going to collapse against?

Spot on. As others have said, the vast majority of people do not care about anything, until it effects them directly. At the moment, that's not happening. I am not sure what will make them wake up.

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HOLA443

I got the impression yesterday that even those in the media who were in denial had at last publically grasped the enormity of the situation. Not only was it bad all the way on news, Newsnight etc but even C4 contributed to putting the boot in by its banking documentary.

Whether it is a tipping point or not remains to be seen but it must surely have shaken a few out of their complacency.

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HOLA444
I got the impression yesterday that even those in the media who were in denial had at last publically grasped the enormity of the situation. Not only was it bad all the way on news, Newsnight etc but even C4 contributed to putting the boot in by its banking documentary.

Whether it is a tipping point or not remains to be seen but it must surely have shaken a few out of their complacency.

Not Rinoa who still posted a thread this morning:

N. Rock Mortgage Applications Up 70%

Despite a thread already saying:

Northern Rock Arrears "sharply higher" ....The Newcastle-based lender said its bad debt charge for the first quarter was in line with its own expectations, and confirmed it would be "substantially loss making" this year
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HOLA445
Guest sillybear2
If sterling is going to collapse, what is it going to collapse against?

All fiat currencies are simultaneously collapsing, it's like a bunch of drunks jumping out of an aeroplane without a parachute, you can argue about their position relative to each other and which one will hit the ground first but the eventual outcome for each of them is obvious and predetermined.

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HOLA446
The press is still asleep.

Darling's growth forecast was complete nonsense.

Over the past five years, GDP growth has averaged around 3%, but government spending, which makes up about 45% of that, has been growing at more than 5% (i.e. a large part of the 3% was just the growth in government spending). Labour now say that government spending will fall to 0.7%, yet somehow GNP growth a year out from now is going to be 3.5%, higher than the previous average growth. Doing the math, Darling is claiming that growth in private spending is going to be almost 3 times higher than what it was over the past 5 years (a period of historically high growth). This isn't even anywhere close to being within the realm of reality, yet the press just say that he's being "optimistic" and let it go.

I believe there was also another problem, the budget didn't seem to cover more than 50% of the presumed income...the other half of the forecasted income "to be annouced" or more likely left to the next Tory chancellor to shit himself over.

As a footnote, that EA goon another poster quoted earlier:

He adds: “The housing market is the engine of the UK economy and it is likely that this Budget will be remembered as largely ineffectual given the magnitude of the problem.

housing market = ever increasing leveraged debt against an unproductive asset. No wonder we are ******ed with this kind of moron getting air time.

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HOLA447
People have no idea what 'billions' or even 'trillions' mean.

But 'doubling the National Debt in the next 3 years' and '£18,000 for every man woman and child in this country' and 'biggest deficit since WWII' etc etc etc have got to have some impact I suppose.

Very true.

Put another way a borrowing requirement of 175 billion (if Darling can make that stick) is not far off £3,000 for every man woman in child in the UK.

So in essence to maintain our standard of living for 2009/10 we are borrowing 3k each.

Now if we chose another route and just billed everyone £3,000 each, the public would get the idea of the calamity facing UK plc. Five in my familly so that is a bill of 15k.

If we did the above or alternatively doubled the take from income tax you would see social upheaval, rioting, genuine food shortages massive default on debt repayments et al. Sounds far fetched but the only thing that keeps us from that is the willingness of the gilt markets to continue to buy ever more government debt.

Put in this context it is outrageous that Brown has refused to tackle public spending until after the general election.

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HOLA448
Guest sillybear2
If we did the above or alternatively doubled the take from income tax you would see social upheaval, rioting, genuine food shortages massive default on debt repayments et al. Sounds far fetched but the only thing that keeps us from that is the willingness of the gilt markets to continue to buy ever more government debt.

Put in this context it is outrageous that Brown has refused to tackle public spending until after the general election.

That's why Labour governments always take the cowards way out when they run out of money, and all Labour governments always run out of money in the end. So they gamble with the stability of sterling and the gilt markets instead, it's basically the last operational ponzi scheme in town, they're down to their last credit card and they're planning to test its limit. Brown has nothing to lose.

Labour fail to grasp a basic concept, "there is no such thing as a free lunch", every boom, every benefit, every subsidy and sop to their supporter base has to be paid for by somebody, eventually. Labour are so morally bankrupt they've decided to dump the burden onto the next two generations.

Edited by sillybear2
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HOLA449
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HOLA4410
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HOLA4411
I got the impression yesterday that even those in the media who were in denial had at last publically grasped the enormity of the situation. Not only was it bad all the way on news, Newsnight etc but even C4 contributed to putting the boot in by its banking documentary.

Whether it is a tipping point or not remains to be seen but it must surely have shaken a few out of their complacency.

Although the media has grasped the enormity of the situation the sheeple have not.

This maybe generalised but yesterday at work out of 40-50 i was the only one actively listening to the budget and the responses to it - i work in what i would like to think is at least a semi-intellectual based industry, i could hear everyone on lunch in the kitchen chatting the usual consumer tripe and laughably in the same conversation wondering why they are spent up at the end of each month.

Again this morning no one mentioining anything about it, including the rather worrying and headline fact that this country is borrowing in 4-5years more than every single govenrment combined has done in the previous 2-300 years.

We really are largely a zombie nation, drugged up on consumerism and celebrity. Now if some untalented, thicko racist who got her minge out on TV died...........

You really could pull all sorts of shit running this country and get away with it, it really is like some kind of dystopian Huxley or Orwell based reality.

Has anyone else been able to gauge whether this is a hot topic with joe public today/yesterday.

Although The Apprentice was on last night.......

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HOLA4412
People have no idea what 'billions' or even 'trillions' mean.

That much is obvious from the oft-quoted error that a billion is a thousand million. Only if you're one of those dumb-****** colonials. To everyone else it's a million million; a thousand million is a milliard. So all the figures are wrong.

But hey, what does that matter when the amount of useful money in the world will be precisely zero if things carry on like this?

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HOLA4413

Well one of my friends on facebook put a message that the the economy really looks in bad shape.

So it is slowly sinking in to the average joe.

But I have had a couple of arguments just lately with people that just really dont get how bad things are and

cannot see whats coming down the pike.

I used to avoid arguing with people about it but now I feel strongly that I need to put people straight.

Maybe its because I feel more confident I am right.

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HOLA4414
That much is obvious from the oft-quoted error that a billion is a thousand million. Only if you're one of those dumb-****** colonials. To everyone else it's a million million; a thousand million is a milliard. So all the figures are wrong.

But hey, what does that matter when the amount of useful money in the world will be precisely zero if things carry on like this?

According to Wikipedia, since 1974 the British government has been using the short scale thousand million rather than the long scale million million.

What really bothers me is how many times watching the news I have heard presenters mix up millions when they mean billions

and billions when they mean millions. It happens a lot and no one seems to notice, they're just big numbers guv.

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HOLA4415
It happens a lot and no one seems to notice, they're just big numbers guv.

It's a shame that people don't realize that such "numbers" are all that our money actually is.

They might then see that a radically different system of issuing and managing such money-numbers could be a useful utility for production and trade, rather than a subtle way for an unproductive minority to skim wealth.

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HOLA4416
I disagree. I think people aren't talking about it because of the enormity of the situation, it is just so bad. What can you do?

I agree in as far as I think the vast majority of the population can't comprehend what has happened - but I don't think the reason is the 'enormity' - but rather that they simply didn't have the faintest grasp of how the economy, in which they were interacting, worked. I think that people had woven their own narratives for why things were the way they were - not always the same narrative - but almost universally fallacious. This, in turn, affects their interpretation of the news.

In Britain, millions must have assumed that they were being offered massive credit card limits because their prospects were great; a different millions interpret news about banks being in trouble in the context of the behaviour of the counter staff at their local high-street branches. Millions believed their houses were going up in value because there was a massive shortage, or that their choice of magnolia/DIY tiling was especially important, or that their village/town/city had become more affluent or desirable - irrespective of where it was. Millions thought hedge funds (private equity) were either staffed by brilliant minds, or crooks. Hardly anyone, as far as I can tell, thought that their currency had been debased... and if you suggest that today, the words (I assure you) will wash over whomever you tell. I live on an island where the entire population are embarking en-mass in an exercise of trying to rationalise what they are now being told... in the context of engrained beliefs - which, for most, have remained unchallenged for their entire life. I expect millions to blame politicians; millions others to claim it is green issues at the heart of our problems; millions will latch onto "class divisions" - millions others will get angry with whichever demographic they understand least... and blame them.

People are talking about this - they're simply talking about it from different perspectives. There's lots people can do - they're the little things... Recognise the frailty of any employment contract; consider personal positions with assets and liabilities; try to pay down credit cards - and build cash buffers in the context of mortgages; consider pension positions; re-think non-essential spending... etc. etc. Just as no individual was responsible for creating this debacle, no individual can effect a systemic fix... This is happening right now...

Edited by A.steve
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HOLA4417
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HOLA4418
Well one of my friends on facebook put a message that the the economy really looks in bad shape.

So it is slowly sinking in to the average joe.

But I have had a couple of arguments just lately with people that just really dont get how bad things are and

cannot see whats coming down the pike.

I used to avoid arguing with people about it but now I feel strongly that I need to put people straight.

Maybe its because I feel more confident I am right.

Jeez fudge, i have been pilloured for using the 'notes' section as an imformal HPC inspired blog. Not one jot of status commentary on my facebook folk. Although is Facebook the wrong place to be mixing it with political and current affairs views?

A.Steve

+1 good post

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HOLA4419

'Can we watch news love, budget's on.'

'Budget? Nah, borrin. Politics, innit'

'S'important though'

'Nah. All same in't they, politicians. Turn over ter Sky12, Whites utd v. Real Dynamo'

'Reckon things in't that bad then?'

'Courrrse not! Ohhhhhhhhh see that gowwl! Fookin fantastic!'

'Ow bout us gerrin that new tellie then? This un is two year old now'

'Course, whoi not. Gerrus down precinck on Satdy. Plenty left on't credit card....ohhhhhh are you fookin BLOIND, ref???'

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HOLA4420
The investors shunned government bonds just a few weeks back. Quantative easing comes next, then maybe a period of massive inflation, huge job losses, entire industries collapsing (we've seen the banks and car industry go). The country is right on the edge.

Most of the occupants of HMS Britain will go down with the ship, watching that ugly bird Susan Boyle singing away blissfully unaware of that "boring economic stuff". This latest round of bank bailouts was a torpedo to the bow of an already over-laden vessel.

Susan Boyle = Bernard Manning in a dress !

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HOLA4421
According to Wikipedia, since 1974 the British government has been using the short scale thousand million rather than the long scale million million.

What really bothers me is how many times watching the news I have heard presenters mix up millions when they mean billions

and billions when they mean millions. It happens a lot and no one seems to notice, they're just big numbers guv.

And then trillions will slowly drip in to the psyche.

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HOLA4422
'Can we watch news love, budget's on.'

'Budget? Nah, borrin. Politics, innit'

'S'important though'

'Nah. All same in't they, politicians...

I think that conversation will be repeated in many homes with posher accents too.

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HOLA4423
I disagree. I think people aren't talking about it because of the enormity of the situation, it is just so bad. What can you do?

Just about everyone at my place of work hasn't mentioned the budget. The only person who mentioned it was in excitement regarding the £2'000 allowance for trading in your 10 year old car, someone else asked did alcohol or petrol go up, and then somebody casually said 'nothing major was announced really.' Then the conversation turned to shopping and how nothing was on TV recently, so they think they might have to get Sky......zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

This could well be just the sleepwalkers I work with though so you could well be right about people just not wanting to talk about it because it's too big to comprehend.

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HOLA4424
Jeez fudge, i have been pilloured for using the 'notes' section as an imformal HPC inspired blog. Not one jot of status commentary on my facebook folk. Although is Facebook the wrong place to be mixing it with political and current affairs views?

A.Steve

+1 good post

Facebook is not the place to discuss politics but that is why I thought it significant that this friend, who is not a politico

was thinking the economy was screwed and put it out there into the mainstream.

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HOLA4425

Most people dont realise that the Government doesnt have its own money. How many people have you heard say "the Government pays". People simply dont understand that its OUR money.

Given that people dont understand that, I have very little faith that people understand what is happening and the consequences.

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