Gordon Brown Finally Admits He Is Not An Economics Expert

[Tired of Waiting]

Gordon Brown finally admits he is not an economics expert

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/davidhughes/100067022/gordon-brown-finally-admits-he-is-not-an-economics-expert/

Gordon Brown finally admits he is not an economics expert

( By David Hughes - Daily Telegraph's chief leader writer. )

There is an extraordinary disclaimer in the opening pages of Gordon Brown’s Beyond The Crash which might go some way towards explaining our economic plight. He writes: “I am neither a finance expert nor a trained economist but fear of making technical mistakes (of which, I am sure, this book is full) should not silence us altogether when the task before us is so urgent.” Hang on. Isn’t this the chap who ran the UK economy for a decade? Who treated the Treasury’s expert officials with open contempt and relied instead on a handful of cronies? Who proclaimed the end of boom and bust, before presiding over the biggest bust since the 1930s? And all the while he was an amateur. I’ll be jiggered. It’s rather nice to have this admission of his fallibility – it would have been even nicer to have had it before the roof fell in on the British economy.

Just as galling is the positively oleaginous tributes he pays to all those officials he treated like doormats. They are either brilliant or invaluable or outstanding or incredibly effective or have superb minds or can conjure up the most intellectually rigorous insights. So stellar are their abilities that it’s quite hard to believe they helped Brown turn the public finances into a smouldering ruin. Why does he lay the flannel on quite so thick? A guilty conscience?.

There is just one reference to Tony Blair (which, I admit, is one more than I was expecting) – “Tony Blair and I had spent 20 years building New Labour”. And that’s your lot. That’s it for the most successful leader the Labour Party has ever had, courtesy of one of the least successful. And lest you think that is purely personal, there’s no mention at all of the man who has since succeeded him as party leader, his very own protégé Ed Miliband. Not a sausage. The closest the current Leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition gets to a walk-on part is in the Acknowledgements, where he is mentioned as a member of Brown’s Council of Economic Advisers. On balance, I think that’s probably a good thing as far as Miliband is concerned. You are well off out of it, Ed.

Edited February 2, 2011 by Tired of Waiting

[Georgia O'Keeffe]

Gordon Brown finally admits he is not an economics expert

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/davidhughes/100067022/gordon-brown-finally-admits-he-is-not-an-economics-expert/

fortunately for you though Ed Balls is

[Realistbear]

“I am neither a finance expert nor a trained economist .."

Why then did Tony appoint him to the job where he was expected to be a finance expert and highly trained economist?

Osborne is similarly ill equipped leaving Vince who has some good experience as former Shell top executive. We need to get rid of these career poltiticians and put them in the Civil Service and draw up some job descriptions that we, the public, decide are the minimum requirments for the top government jobs.

1. Experience

2. Expertise

3. Integrity

[scrappycocco]

I prefer the toilet paper with his face on that is properly rolled up in a roll but this book might be useful when the SHTF.

[thecrashingisles]

Calling Vince a former top executive at Shell more than somewhat exaggerates his role there.

[Tonkers]

Chancellor of The Exchequer should probably come up on the job centre print outs, you know, the ones they give you for which you are not remotely experienced or qualified.

Worse still is the piece Gordon brown wrote as a student referring to money from the welfare state as free money, which you should claim as much of as you could. He also said you should take a carrier bag of bricks to a party, and pretend it was cans of lager.

There you go.

[Tired of Waiting]

“I am neither a finance expert nor a trained economist .."

Why then did Tony appoint him to the job where he was expected to be a finance expert and highly trained economist?

Osborne is similarly ill equipped leaving Vince who has some good experience as former Shell top executive. We need to get rid of these career poltiticians and put them in the Civil Service and draw up some job descriptions that we, the public, decide are the minimum requirments for the top government jobs.

1. Experience

2. Expertise

3. Integrity

+ 1

That is a major advantage of the American system over ours. The president appoints experts for each department, not politicians.

[Georgia O'Keeffe]

+ 1

That is a major advantage of the American system over ours. The president appoints experts for each department, not politicians.

, yep that seems to have worked a treat

That is a major advantage of the American system over ours. The president appoints GS experts for each department, not politicians.

Fixed

The problems have very little to do with economics or lack of understanding, plenty of economists work for the chancellor, its just good old fashioned corruption blended in with bog standard self preservation on the political front for want of better words known as pretty standard human behaviour

Edited February 2, 2011 by Tamara De Lempicka

[Billy Ballyckz]

+ 1

That is a major advantage of the American system over ours. The president appoints experts for each department, not politicians.

Cuz like that works ...

[Democorruptcy]

“I am neither a finance expert nor a trained economist .."

Why then did Tony appoint him to the job where he was expected to be a finance expert and highly trained economist?

Because it might have looked suspicious if they had a chimpanzee sign off the 1998 Bank of England Act?

Give me control of a nation's money and I care not who makes her laws.

Mayer Amschel Rothschild

[Milton]

New Labour were a party of 'Economic Fascists'

In the sense that the most notable characteristic of a FASCIST ideology is the separation and persecution or denial of equality to a specific segment of the population. []

The preferred class lives in relative comfort, while the oppressed class lives in a Fascist state.

Labour's Fascist State.

[i.E the Transfer of Debt, leading to a massive division in society, between 'the haves' and 'have nots' could unarguably be described, as Economic Fascism. ]

Obviously not a 'socialist' or 'democratic' act.

[some of you seem to think it would have been as obvious as people wearing black shirts marching down the street?!!]

Fascists seek to organize a nation according to CORPORATIST perspectives, values, and systems, including the political system and the economy

Fascists tend to support a "third position" in economic policy, which they believe superior to both the rampant individualism of laissez-faire capitalism and the severe control of state socialism.

One of the most prominent forms of corporatism is economic TRIPARTISM involving negotiations between business, labour, and state interest groups to set economic policy.

Italian Fascism and most other fascist movements promote a corporatist economy.

[The disastrous TRIPARTITE system Labour created is an example of Corporatist Fascism]

The Disastrous Way Brown Mis-used PFI is a perfect example.

Example:

On Gordon Browns orders, the government, up to 2007 signed more than 750 public sector deals with private companies using PFI.

Including:

64 out of 68 hospitals in Browns first 8 years as chancellor. As were 230 new schools, 185 new hospitals, health centres, 43 roads and bridges

Debt acrued by 2007, owed by government to private companies was in excess of £55Billion. [All basically hidden]

By the time Brown stopped being Chancellor he had lumbered £54billion in debt just for the cost of buildings onto the taxpayer.

[in reality, to repay that debt will be closer to £160Billion]

Governments can always borrow money more cheaply than private companies.

But Brown chose not to do this, as It was PFI which enabled Brown to keep public borrowing below 40% of GDP. An accounting Fiddle.

This enabled him to keep public spending off the governments 'current account' books. And claim he was an economic wizard,

The bankers who financed these deals walked away with absurd profits.

One group of Bankers/Finaciers walked away from one PFI deal with 662% profit. The equity in the rebuilding of the M40 has been sold at least five times. With different building contractors making huge profits. One company sold a prison for six times what it had paid. Etc, Etc....

If Brown was in business he would have been bankrupt in months. The only people who made money out of this were the bankers and financiers. The taxpayer has been royally screwed.

Many roads and bridges which were owned, ALREADY paid for by the taxpayer, prior to Browns stint as chancellor were then sold off to private companies, on the quiet, who now charge us for using them.

Point being Brown, as chancellor, using PFI has spent all the money, was selling off the family silver, on purpose, knew what he was doing, and it still has not even begun to be repaid.

The taxpayer got royally screwed.Instead of accepting a little pain around 2003, and a correction, he stuck the knife into us even further.

[instead of admitting to the bubble, he moved the housing inflation figures from RPI to CPI.]

People forget what PFI was intended for:

Big, capital projects with a relatively high level of uncertainty and risk - such that it would be unacceptable to leave the taxpayer with the bag if things went sour.

The epitome of PFI was the Channel Tunnel. [under the Tories 1987-1993] A risky venture, as the scale of engineering work was in uncharted territory, with enormous cost. The govt of the time set it up as a PFI scheme - so that the private sector, in the form of Euro Tunnel, would finance and oversee the construction. Investors were attracted as the venture looked attractive at the time.

As it was, the project went massively over budget and was completed late. Euro Tunnel collapsed and the investors took a massive haircut on their investment. However, taxpayers were protected from the spiralling costs, which was one of the key drivers for selecting PFI for this project.

For more conventional infrastructure and state operations, PFI is less suitable due to the higher costs and lower control, which are not outweighed by the risks of the projects. E.g. building a school or hospital is not a high risk project - projects on this scale can be managed fairly easily and the costs predicted accurately.

The problem has been a breathtaking level of misuse of PFI for low-risk projects, which can be more cheaply and more effectively provided by conventional government procurement. And, most galling of all, the bailing out of bust PFI private sector firms because their projects collapsed due to financial mismanagement. Not only had the tax payer paid a high price so that the private sector could take the project risks, Gordon simply took the risk back when things went bad - completely undermining the whole point of PFI.

PFI was just a massive hire purchase scheme which allowed brown to keep public spending, mainly infastructure off the books. AKA Fraud.

And acrue debt, to be passed onto the next governmnet. And future generations. It makes you think, it must have been Labours plan all along.

Brown just let it continue......[PFI was never intended to be used in this way.]

It is a sign of [Economic] Fascism when government and business are merged in such a way. [brown also left us with trillions of debt in unfunded public sector pension obligations, whilst destroying private sector pensions]

There are also many other examples, such as the destruction of civil liberties, massive increased surveillance of our society that took place under Labour, which could justifiably be construed as 'Fascist' in intent.

You could of course argue, that is was never their intention, rather, Lies, Deceit, Incompetence and Theft, is what fuelled the Labour Government for 13 years.

The coalition have a chance to rectify this situation. And have made some of the right noises. I would have liked them to do more, but after suffering under 13 years of Labour, I am prepared to give them a little more time

Edited February 2, 2011 by Dan1

[Tired of Waiting]

, yep that seems to have worked a treat

That is a major advantage of the American system over ours. The president appoints GS experts for each department, not politicians.

Fixed

The problems have very little to do with economics or lack of understanding, plenty of economists work for the chancellor, its just good old fashioned corruption blended in with bog standard self preservation on the political front

I knew someone would confuse absolute with relative, and general with particular.

I repeat: The American system is better than ours.

[exiges]

And that’s your lot. That’s it for the most successful leader the Labour Party has ever had,

Define "success", since his term in office doesn't resemble any concept of "success" in my book.

[Georgia O'Keeffe]

I knew someone would confuse absolute with relative, and general with particular.

I repeat: The American system is better than ours.

The american system is the same as the UKs, self preservation at an individual level, thats all thats happened

Edited February 2, 2011 by Tamara De Lempicka

[Tired of Waiting]

Cuz like that works ...

http://www.housepricecrash.co.uk/forum/index.php?showtopic=158806&view=findpost&p=2879736

[miko]

Of course he is not an Economics Expert he is a

MORON .

[Tired of Waiting]

Of course he is not an Economics Expert he is a

( DERANGED ) MORON.

[R K]

I really don't want to think about the further harm he would have caused had he actually been an economist.

[Tired of Waiting]

The american system is the same as the UKs, self preservation at an individual level, thats all thats happened

So systems don't matter then, just individual motivation?

[Blod]

Lest we forget that the first few years of NuLabour they had a moratorium on changing the previous Tory economic policy which explains why things only started to go wrong from the the turn of the century.

[Tired of Waiting]

I really don't want to think about the further harm he would have caused had he actually been an economist.

Like Vince Cable, who was able to see the credit bubble, understand its danger, and who tried repeatedly to warn the nation about it?

[Tired of Waiting]

Lest we forget that the first few years of NuLabour they had a moratorium on changing the previous Tory economic policy which explains why things only started to go wrong from the the turn of the century.

Exactly.

BTW, Brown was very happy to save money during Tony's premiership...

Pity Tony stayed (much) longer than Brown had planned...

[Georgia O'Keeffe]

So systems don't matter then, just individual motivation?

the economic system is moreless completely immaterial if the individual motivation of the controllers are self preservation, particularly in the case of economics because it allows for completely diametric views in how to achieve a goal, the controllers need only listen to the economic viewpoint that supports their chosen path

Edited February 2, 2011 by Tamara De Lempicka

[Tired of Waiting]

the economic system is moreless completely immaterial if the individual motivation of the controllers are self preservation, particularly in the case of economics because it allows for completely diametric views in how to acheive a goal

Firstly, we were talking about the system of government - secretaries of state.

Secondly: The very central idea of liberal economies is to channel individual self-interest into common good. Well governed liberal democracies manage to do that better than less well governed countries.

Systems are central here.

[interestrateripoff]

I really don't want to think about the further harm he would have caused had he actually been an economist.

Doesn't that depend on what sort of economist he was and whether he was prepared to sell his sole.

Reading Greenspans book he clearly understands but decided it was better to comply with his political masters. I think he hoped he'd be dead before the shtf, unfortunately for him the grim reaper had other ideas.