The Full Horror Of Chancellor's Debt Binge

[Guest Charlie The Tramp]

Almost two weeks on, the dust has settled after Gordon Brown's final budget. Or has it? I'd like to raise some points about the extent to which this Chancellor has increased government indebtedness.

This sounds obsessive. But as a taxpayer I'm genuinely worried: the more I pore over the Budget fine print, the more I feel that Brown is seriously damaging this nation's finances.

The Chancellor presented his Treasury swansong as "a budget for families, fairness and the future". Consider the first two of those buzz-words. And then consider that since Brown addressed the Commons we have learnt that poor families will actually end up worse off because of his measures.

The full horror of Chancellor's debt binge

[music man]

It clearly is a miracle economy!

WTF is he playing at, I guess things don't change and we still get puppets / muppets in govt. time and again.

We'll never learn...

Edited April 1, 2007 by music man

[ripandcap]

The full horror of Chancellor's debt binge

Yes and people on 13 - 14k with rising council tax, rising interest rates, rising shopping bills, rising fuel and then being robbed in the budget by the removal of the 10% burden are going to find difficulty paying their mortgage.

[laurejon]

Yes and people on 13 - 14k with rising council tax, rising interest rates, rising shopping bills, rising fuel and then being robbed in the budget by the removal of the 10% burden are going to find difficulty paying their mortgage

Well at least there is some light at the end of the tunnel............they will be paying for the PFI in the future, and having done that they can look forward to retiring after a lifetimes graft to having no pension, whist Gordon and Tony live a Champagne lifestyle rubbing their grubby champagne socialist noses around royalty in Monaco.

[Realistbear]

Blind ambition and running the nation's economy are incompatible goals. Gordon's drive for power will stop at nothing and he will sacrifice the nation to get there. What is amazing is that this man's power is so great that no one in the NuLabour party dare stand against him or even hint that they might. Milliband looks ashen with fear.

But--TB is the far shrewder politician and he has given Gordon a lot of rope recently:

Due to the grave turmoil in the middle east and the resignation of Gordon Brown from the front bench I have been asked by my cabinet to remain in office until the crisis has been fully dealt with. Let me make one thing absolutely clear................................

Think its possible?

[UNSHURE]

Blind ambition and running the nation's economy are incompatible goals. Gordon's drive for power will stop at nothing and he will sacrifice the nation to get there. What is amazing is that this man's power is so great that no one in the NuLabour party dare stand against him or even hint that they might. Milliband looks ashen with fear.

But--TB is the far shrewder politician and he has given Gordon a lot of rope recently:

Due to the grave turmoil in the middle east and the resignation of Gordon Brown from the front bench I have been asked by my cabinet to remain in office until the crisis has been fully dealt with. Let me make one thing absolutely clear................................

Think its possible?

Hope so.

[dog]

Given all those extra state workers, such pension costs reached an estimated £640bn in 2006 and £685bn today. So again, Brown has jacked up taxpayers' liabilities over the last year - this time by £45bn.

The government can fudge things for a while but the only way to balance the books in the end is to cut government spending (as a nation we are at limits of taxation). This means job cuts in the public services and/or jobs on goverment funded projects. The interest rate on £45bn is the equivalent of between 100,000 and 200,000 jobs and this is only 1 year's damage.

When the day reckoning arrives, we will lose more than 2,000,000 jobs.

[THE BALD MAN]

The full horror of Chancellor's debt binge

Old labour=new labour. The only difference is that you try to hid the taxation or borrowing e.g. PFI (or Enron for governments), pension accounting, robbing pension funds.

Policies:

Tax and spend to the max. .

Use the money to buy votes.

Encourage HPi and excessive consumer spend to keep this going.

I wonder if in a couple of years we will be going cap in hand to the IMF?

[skanked]

Old labour=new labour. The only difference is that you try to hid the taxation or borrowing e.g. PFI (or Enron for governments), pension accounting, robbing pension funds.

Policies:

Tax and spend to the max. .

Use the money to buy votes.

Encourage HPi and excessive consumer spend to keep this going.

I wonder if in a couple of years we will be going cap in hand to the IMF?

If we do go cap in hand to the IMF don`t expect much help from them

[Guest Charlie The Tramp]

If we do go cap in hand to the IMF don`t expect much help from them

Not this time around, in the 70s we asked for a couple of billion just petty cash then, equal to 10 billion in today`s money.

Brown can raise that amount by sleight of the hand now which he is gifted at.

[ChinaReader]

Not this time around, in the 70s we asked for a couple of billion just petty cash then, equal to 10 billion in today`s money.

Brown can raise that amount by sleight of the hand now which he is gifted at.

He can raise it in revenue streams, but can he raise it in cash? It's one thing getting a slow bleed from people, another to get 166 quid from every person (or 500 quid per household) to pay the debt-collectors.

[Woot]

It clearly is a miracle economy!

WTF is he playing at, I guess things don't change and we still get puppets / muppets in govt. time and again.

We'll never learn...

At least it looks as though he will never be PM. Surely noone will vote Labour in again...! Oh, for a viable alternative though!

[BossCat]

Blind ambition and running the nation's economy are incompatible goals. Gordon's drive for power will stop at nothing and he will sacrifice the nation to get there. What is amazing is that this man's power is so great that no one in the NuLabour party dare stand against him or even hint that they might. Milliband looks ashen with fear.

But--TB is the far shrewder politician and he has given Gordon a lot of rope recently:

If I may suggest a possible scenario. Gordon accedes to the throne. A certain amount of hand-wringing and superficial redress goes on initially to distance himself from the more unpleasant aspects of TB's tenure. Circumstances continue to deteriorate, albeit slowly. Local elections (polls) show appallingly bad showing for Labour. Result, schism within the Labour party.

We are assuming that TB will disappear off the face of the earth whereas, in fact, he will be agitating against Gordon from behind the scenes. Support will then grow within the Labour party for a New new labour candidate (Milliband?) vs a quixotic lurch for an "old style" labour candidate in the belief that the country really wants a radically socialist Government (old new new labour perhaps?).

Additionally, and I admit I have no hard evidence to support this, I believe that should GB find himself in the run up to an election against the Tories he will need to create a war chest to fund the usual NuLab ploy of baksheesh. I think he will attempt a raid on what could then be the increasingly unpopular banks, by levying a windfall tax. Yes, this would be killing the goose that laid the golden egg but "he must needs go that the devil drives".

[Sinking Feeling]

At least when Robert Maxwell got into debt and robbed the pension funds he had the decency to drown himself.

I wonder if Gordon likes yachts?

[Guest Bart of Darkness]

The government can fudge things for a while but the only way to balance the books in the end is to cut government spending (as a nation we are at limits of taxation). This means job cuts in the public services and/or jobs on goverment funded projects. The interest rate on £45bn is the equivalent of between 100,000 and 200,000 jobs and this is only 1 year's damage.

When the day reckoning arrives, we will lose more than 2,000,000 jobs.

I remember seeing mention of plans to sell off govt. assests to plug the financial black hole Gordy has created. Due to the bubble in land/building prices, this could (in theory) bring quite a bit of loot in. Could this be used to postpone the evil day a bit longer, or are the amounts involved just too great?

[dog]

I remember seeing mention of plans to sell off govt. assests to plug the financial black hole Gordy has created. Due to the bubble in land/building prices, this could (in theory) bring quite a bit of loot in. Could this be used to postpone the evil day a bit longer, or are the amounts involved just too great?

Exactly! The student debt sell off is a typical example of this scrabbling around to pay another months bills.

Edited April 1, 2007 by dog

[Ipodjunky]

Just in case your reading Gordy

Gorden your F***ed, We will dodge taxes at every point possible. Gorden you financial rapist we aren't playing anymore....now piss off.

Edited April 1, 2007 by Ipodjunky

[A Fool & His Borrowed Money]

Sue the Government for abuse of Public Finances.

They're not in charge, they are elected representatives acting in the public's best interests (not)

Edited April 1, 2007 by A Fool & His Borrowed Money

[Guest Popalot]

This is how it may all go.... 1. HIPs cause surge of properties (widely reported that this is happening, and I have been assaulted by number of for sale signs in sunny London today). 2. Everyone busts their final bit of mortgageable gut to move up, and after June the for sale signs cease....for a while. 3. US subprime and Iran tip markets into dive, but Bernanke does NOT want to be seen as a Greenspan cloned helicopter and holds rates. Our idiots over here HAVE to raise them for fear of an economics lynch mob. In the retrospective account, the HIP factor will have caused an overblown market to swell to bursting... and the crash moves closer than it would have normally....KERRRRRPOOOOOOOPPPPPPPPP!!!!!

[Meditating Hamster]

Well at least there is some light at the end of the tunnel............they will be paying for the PFI in the future, and having done that they can look forward to retiring after a lifetimes graft to having no pension, whist Gordon and Tony live a Champagne lifestyle rubbing their grubby champagne socialist noses around royalty in Monaco.

Define Socialism: adherence to the theory social organization which believes the proprietorship and the authority of the means of production, capital, land, etc. should belong to the entire community.

"grubby champagne socialist noses"?

I guess those of us who believe a select few people shoudn't own all the land or resources necessary for survival must be 'communists'