Asset sale: Deja vu?
With the government now borrowing £175bn, an extra £16bn from selling off state assets is not to be sneezed at. And if the proceeds aren't used for anything else, they could help cut the deficit over the next three or four years. But it can only be a short-term fix.
Asset sales could raise £16bn by 2013-14. Last week, George Osborne proposed savings that would also come to about £16bn by 2013-14. But the following year, 2014-15, Mr Osborne's proposals are supposed to be still saving the Treasury £7bn. Whereas in that year we can expect these asset sales to be saving approximately zero.
Why? Because, in theory at least, if you limit benefits or cut the public sector wage bill, you cut spending in all years, not just this one. The same cannot be said for asset sales. You can only sell an asset once. It can help a government cut borrowing in the year of the sale, but the following year it has to sell something else to get the same effect.
In practice, the distinction between the two is a little fuzzier. You could see some of the impact of the public sector pay freeze reversed if there are "catch-up" wage settlements later on. More importantly, any saving from raising the state retirement age will only last until 2026, when the government was already planning to make all of us retire later.
But the difference in kind between the Conservative proposals and these asset sales is still fairly stark.
That was my second reaction to the prime minister's comments when we journalists were told about them on Sunday night. My first was: "haven't we heard this somewhere before?".
We had. Back in April, on Budget day, the Chancellor said he was planning to sell £16bn-worth of assets over the next few years. Ever since then, the stock answer to criticism about the government's plans to halve public sector net investment by 2014 has been that there were all these asset sales in the pipeline - the proceeds of which would be used to top up investment.
The prime minister said again today that the asset sales would be used for investment as well as for paying down debt. But, to state the obvious, they can't do both at the same time.
Number 10 said today that asset sales were just one part of the government's programme to get public borrowing under control. Many economists would say that's just as well.
In fact, the rest of the speech focussed on other differences between Labour and the Conservatives on the economy - with Gordon Brown saying how difficult it would be for any government to cut borrowing if the economy doesn't return to health. I discussed this issue at length in my last post.
But, as I said then, the difference of timing - if there is one - must apply mainly to 2010. As Evan Davis said to Lord Mandelson this morning, the government is forecasting more than 3% growth in the economy from 2011 onwards. If that's not a time to cut public borrowing, when is?
~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~28~RS~)
I'm 
© MMXI
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"Number 10 said tonight that asset sales were just one part of the government's programme to get public borrowing under control. Many economists would say that's just as well."
That's because most economists are libertian anarchists!
This is (just more) asset stripping to bail out the Private Sector and continue the privatisation/anarchistic process which has been going on relentlessly for decades.
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In conclusion then, Labour's plans are half-baked, not thought through properly, and were already announced months ago. Seems pretty much par for the course really.
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"the government is forecasting more than 3% growth in the economy from 2011 onwards"
LOL. I would absolutely love to see how this forecast is modelled.
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Dont these assets also earn income which will be lost forever. This really looks like a panic measure and the idea that local Councils should be forced to sell their assets (assuming the Government can) like land during the worst property market in living memory is absurd. What would make sense is to force councils to invest their considerable capital receipts in local housing and infrastructure particularly where revenue can be saved (e.g. fewer homeless families) Herts CC for example have over £300M tucked away (rather more before placing £28M with Icelandic banks!)
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When you sell something, its because the buyer believes it has more value than he bought it as.
So govt sells off assets at 16bn, it means the the buyers are going to squeeze 16bn, plus extra out of the 'customers' to pay out to their shareholders, the staff salaries, any bank interest payments for the debt they are taking on to buy and the massive bonuses the board are going to award themselves. Thank goodness I don't do the tote, use the dartford crossing or have student loans.
Also, selling out of desperation in a recession, hardly a formular for getting a good price on the assets either...
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Well spotted, Stephanie!
Once again we are being made to suffer the old trick of the same measure being announced twice. Is there no end to the deceit of this government?
Having rescued the financial sector from certain oblivion the taxpayer is now being expected to sell off assets they have invested in previously back to the banks so that the taxpayer can pay off the debts first incurred by the banks.
As a taxpayer it is difficult to be polite in such circumstances as we are clearly being had over.
A fire-sale in a depressed market already constrained by debt may not produce the GBP 16 billion expected. One is reminded yet again of a rather foolish sale of gold at the bottom of the market.
It is reassuring that the Prime Minister is an optimist as the longer he stays in office the more likely he will drive the rest of us to despair. This policy is not enough, as the only way a deficit in excess of GBP 175 billion and rising can be resolved is by cutting expenditure.
It seems the government is locked into the same mindset as the bankers: won't change, can't change. Sorry guys; but you will change.
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I'm reminded of the phrase "Don't kid yourself you've found an inivative way of heating your house by burning all your furniture"
What proportion of the assets being sold will be bought with money that only exists due to quantitative easing?
There seem to be two problems with the sale to me.
Is it right to sell what is being sold? The Tote, for example, seems a perfectly sensible thing to sell - that it is still in public ownership is the more surprising thing. But on the whole it looks like a cobbled together fire sale, which leads to the other problem: is now the right time to be selling all this?
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So once the government sell off the dartford crossing and the rail link i can look forward to higher than inflation price rises annually and an ever more costly journey to get anywhere in this country. Tied in with the ridiculous energy prices and increases, the higher rail fares and the cost of petrol is it any wonder im seriously thinking of emmigrating!
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To me, it seems that our former chancellor of the exchequer and now self nominated Prime Minister has been busy banrupting the country and now is going to the pawn shop selling whatever assets this country has.
It is not a pretty sight for a great country like Britain to have to sell good assets at the worst economic times, it is really a last resort action and in itself is a clear sign that Labour economic policies over the last 10 years have been careless.
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So the government is selling off the family jewels. Considering the financial situation, where are they going to find a buyer. Perhaps an oligarc in Russia? After all most of our football teams are now in foreign hands. They appear to be the only people left who have any money.
What next?
Gordon Brown seen coming out of the local 'pawn-shop'?
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So not content with flogging our gold reserves at rock bottom he now wants to flog the rest of the family silver on the cheap.
And to think that some people actually believe Brown to be an economic genius........
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The sale of government owned assets to raise cash has caused only a few ripples in part as GBP 16 Billion is small beer relative to total/annual debt etc.
What caught my eye was Urenco, and Brown saying that there are no security issues to worry about. If this really was the case surely Thatcher would have flogged this off in the 1980's?
The enrichment of Uranium for civil and military purposes is strictly controlled by nuclear non proliferation treaties, so that rogue states or terrorists can gain the knowledge to produce a bomb.
The six companies (mostly state owned) in the world are:
China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC), which has two centrifuge plants in China
Eurodif, a joint venture between Belgium, France, Italy and Spain, with one diffusion plant in France
Minatom, the Russian state organisation, with four centrifuge plants
Japan Nuclear Fuel Limited (JNFL), with one centrifuge plant
Urenco, a joint venture between companies in Germany, the Netherlands and the UK, with centrifuge plants in each of the three countries
The United States Enrichment Corporation (USEC), a US firm with a diffusion plant in Kentucky
The ownership of the company is only the tip of the iceberg. The ownership of the knowledge of how to enrich Uranium and the mechanics of how to do so are a lot more valuable. In theory a PhD in Physics should give someone the knowledge of how to do it, but the practical skills and knowledge to carry it out industrially is a closely guarded secret.
Given the elite membership of the club above, I am surprised that a big stink has not been raised about this. Remember the old adage; you reap what you sow....
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"Whereas in that year we can expect these asset sales to be saving approximately zero. "
Really? Zero, or a negative amount?
If we sell of these assets are a time when the market is depressed, as it is now, we are likely to get less than their real value. Doesn't this mean that the future income we will forgo by selling these assets now will cost us more money in the long run?
I'm not an economist, but this whole plan sounds extremely short-sighted to me. A cynic might even suggest that Gordon Brown doesn't care about what this will do in the long-term, as he won't be the one who'll be in government and have to sort out the mess.
Am I missing something?
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And the revenue implications are that the lost state income e.g. from the Dartford Crossing is less than the cost of the debt repaid, for if not why would anyone buy at that price. So while the overall national debt falls by a significant sum, the annual deficit increases.
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#6 stallinic
''It seems the government is locked into the same mindset as the bankers: won't change, can't change. Sorry guys; but you will change''
Who is going to make them change?
How?
When?
Has anybody checked the migration figures recently for the well heeled professional classes with wealth based on new money?
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Perhaps the public-owned banks that were given tax money that they've not used could buy the assets.
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I take it this firesale will mean that we will no longer have to listen to Labour supporters whining about how Thatcher "sold off the family silver" in the 1980's?
We can but live in hope!!
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given it is the financial 'market' that needs the 176 billion to prop it up then all PROFITS in the financial industry should be taxed at 70% until they no longer need the public to bail them out.
otherwise all the politicians are doing is playing the privatise the profit socialise the loss model of economics?
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yes sell at the bottom of the market, normal behaviour for GB... what stupidity...are they even his to sell? National assets surely belong to the UK citizens and as such surely their permission should be obtained (perhaps by way of an election?) before any sale takes place...selling the family silver during a recession is just yet another dumb idea from a bankrupt government!
and just for a laugh let's forecast 3% growth..what planet is he on? according to the IMF Annual UK growth rates averaged 2.68% between 1992-2007 .....and they were the "boom" years!
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Conservatives don't lose ground or support after their conference. GB needs to get the spotlight back on him, decides to reannounce some measures and get a few photos in the paper.
Surely the people can see it's no time for a novice?
What happens - everyone sees it for what it is. Window dressing, clinging on to power, delusion.
It's time for a change of leadership and if GB cared about UK then he'd do us a favour and get out
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If every thing is sold off what are the assets of GB? Is the next thing sell off every first born child? There is not a lot left to sell
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Good spot, Stephanie
How much longer do we have to put up with this economically bereft and truth-light Government spinning out headline-seeking stories that are a rehash of ones that have already been announced. Seems like it was deemed a 'good day for bad news', given that the expenses scandal has reared its head again today. The bad news being of course that this is not a new £16bn proceeds/profit from asset sales and therefore appears to be an acknowledgement that the cupboard is now virtually bare and there are no more assets to sell which will produce any kind of sum relevant to the overriding debt problem.
And what part of this assumed sum is to be used for/or can afford to be used for investment, given the debt service obligations? Furthermore, what investment does the spin doctor have in mind?
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£16bn given labour's fiscal incontinence is not exactly going to make a big difference - selling £50bn of assets might be.
The real issue is why govt has this level of "surplus" assets in the first place. Surely, at least economically, the existence of so much surplus assets has led to a lack of fiscal discipline in the public sector (not the only factor by any means) and starving the public sector a little of these assets might improve productivity.
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1 - JadedJean
I don't think they sell off the assets because they are following some free market ideology - they are doing it because they don't know what else to do
The result of selling assets is counter-productive as what is the first thing the new private owners of the previously publicly owned assets going to do on day 1?
Answer - cut costs - which means jobs in the private sector - which means more on the dole queue - which means more social security payments - which means more borrowing for the Government.
The problem with Government is that is never thinks ahead. The 'savings' Government makes always revert to costs in the future.
It might have been better to start making these public owned bodies more profitable than simply selling them off.
As Stephanie pointed out in the last paragraph - if we're really expecting growth in 2011 why are we selling?
The answer is nobody expects growth in 2011 - it's like making a sales forecast exaggerating future sales in order to secure funding today. In the end it will spell disaster.
I suspect the Treasury are making the frankly amatuer mistake of assuming the price inflation and signs of growth are genuine - where as we all know they are as a result of growth of the money supply and not actual tangible growth.
We're currently running about 6 months behind the US in this crisis and they haven't seen positive GDP yet. I suspect they will seem some soon but it's merely a reflection of their own stimulus by expansion of the money supply.
QE has been like throwing petrol on a dying fire - we see some flame and some heat but there is not enough fuel to sustain burning for long. It may give the impression the fire has restarted but sadly it literally is 'smoke and mirrors'.
All QE is doing is creating a false consumption demand to replace the absent consumer demand - neither was sustainable and will be proved as such.
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Perhaps my memory is failing me, but I am certain I recall Peter Mandleson saying,after he abandoned the bill to part privatise the Royal Mail, just before the recess, that market conditions were not right and a realistic value would not be obtained,so whats changed over the last couple of months.
Or would that have more do do with the fact he could not get the enabling bill through the commons without Tory support.
You can't have it both ways either it was wrong then and wrong now or it was right then if its right now
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
Even a £50bn asset sale wouldn't make a lot of difference. The £16bn sale will raise enough, at the current government rate of spend, to cover the budget deficit for 1 month. The £175bn deficit is the ANNUAL amount - and Brown / Darling are proposing to continue at that sort of level for another 5 years. At the moment the government is effectively re-mortgaging its house to pay for the monthly bread, milk and tea.
£16bn is spitting on a burning barn; we see no suggestion as to how the £175bn annual total is going to be addressed. We will not be able to continue to borrow and borrow for ever, and something has to give. Tax hikes or spending cuts, or most likely both.
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It's already been shown that selling the Student Loans off will actual cost more in the long term... This is just to make the books look better.
As for a 3% growth, someone should tell the government that orders are dropping again, there was a re-stocking boost in summer, but now thats over... 2011 will see a slight recovery, but with unemployment likely to keep trending upwards during 2010, not a 3% one.
Double dip time! And just in time for the run up to the GE.
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I'll buy the Houses of Parliament for 50Euro, if that helps.
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If a company were to sell off revenue-generating assets to pay down a debt crisis, you might feel that company is heading for bankruptcy. This is because, all this action does is move things around the balance sheet to ease an immediate cash flow crisis. If the immediate crisis is overcome, those assets are no longer available to the company and it's long term prospects suffer. The assets would likely be sold at below net book value because of the seller's weak position. City analysts would place a "sell" recommendation against that company's stock because of the immediate threat of collapse and the reduction in future revenues. The share price would collapse.
The good news I guess is that the UK doesn't have a share price. There is further good news because, unlike a company, the UK has a charitable benefactor who is contractually obliged to keep it afloat - the taxpayer!
It amazes me how this bunch of clowns act like they know what they are doing. They haven't got a clue.
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JPSLotus79 (#17) "I take it this firesale will mean that we will no longer have to listen to Labour supporters whining about how Thatcher "sold off the family silver" in the 1980's?"
This is not Labour, this is New Labour. Neo-Labour, as in Neo-Conservative!
Why else would it have been a) taking apart the state domestically in pursuit of efficiency and PFI for years whilst b) helping the US fight Stalinist (statist) 'terrorists' throughout the world and c) dregulating Financial Servoces? These are state wreckers with a makeover. It's what entryists do.
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Is it just me or does nobody seem to get what is going on?
This smacks of desperation, the same as the car scrappage deal the government are trying to think of any way to stimulate growth....If they cannot find a way out of this current situation this country will be crippled for years.
Has anyone seen how fast China is developing?
hmmm.....
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# 27 - but we have so much more to sell - think of the road transport network, hospitals, schools etc. This can all be sold off and rented back through payment of tolls etc. It has to be a winner for the politicians. The proceeds will help repay the national debt and the fact that we then have to pay charges for this infrastructure won't be reflected as tax in any official statistics. Just watch what happens in Claifornia. There's a fairly good chance it will happen here as well.
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Having listened to 5Live at lunchtime, it seems that £11billion of this asset sale are local authority assets. For starters, the govt can not force the local authorities to sell these assets. Secondly, if the do agree to sell, the money goes to the local authority not the Treasury. Thirdly, the suggestion from the minister on 5Live was that money raised by the local authorities this wasy would be used to improve local services.
To summarise; Up to £11b of this money may not materialise. If it does it goes to local authorities, not government. And it would be spent, not used to pay off debt. SO HOW EXACTLY IS THIS ASSET SALE SUPPOSED TO REDUCE OUR NATIONAL DEBT?
And surely, if these things really are assets that may be valued by private industry, are they not also of value to the existing owners (us)? If the Tote and Dartford bridge produce revenue, is it not better to keep them and have a steady income than sell them for a one-off bonus? Sure as eggs is eggs, in 10 years time we will bemoaning the sale of these things to foreign owners.
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Gordon Brown and labour cronies just don't get it..
Our public expenditure this year is £175 billion MORE than tax received, in relation to our borrowing over the next few years £16billion is chicken feed.
We have no choice but to reign expenditure or
1.The country will go bust and salaries / pensions will not be paid.
2.The IMF will give us a loan but insist on stringent cuts in public sector expenditure.
3.We keep on borrowing, interest payments increase and real public sector spending is reduced significantly.
Gordon Brown believes the country will have significant growth for the next decade and in 20 years we should be OK..
He criticise's the banks for taking risks, he is the biggest hypocrite going. He can't admit he got it wrong and built a bloated public sector on the taxes of a dodgy financial industry.
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writingsonthewall (#24) "I don't think they sell off the assets because they are following some free market ideology - they are doing it because they don't know what else to do"
Then why have they been doing this for years, well before the Credit Crunch'? Public Services have been put under strain for years not just under The Conservatives but under Neo-Labour. One way this was done was through recruitment targets.
You need to look at the bigger picture. These have been classic anarchistic policies. State-busting. Wrecking. See Stalin's speech of 'double-dealers' in the 1930s (linked to here many times). Forget about what people say they mean or intend (psychological terms) to do, just look at the behaviour, i.e. the outcomes. The con is to make you talk and think in psychological (intensional) terms, which are inert - a distraction from behaviour, i.e accountability.
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#30
Very good point gogoginger
By the way do you think that Stephanie Flanders is getting a good seeing to?
I think the rot set in a long time ago and the chickens are coming home to roost.
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I agree with all the above who say (a) that the lost income from assets like the Datford Tunnel; (b) the fact that any private investor will be looking to cut costs, and most likely lay off workers, leading to greater unemployment and public spending; and (c) sooner rather than later we'll see above inflation price increases on these services.
Pretty desperate if you ask me!
Now, perhaps someone could help me regarding the sale of the "student loan book". as I understand it these loans are at a preferential rate of interest and not repayable until the student begins to earn above a certain threshold.
Presumably these limitations reduce the commercial value of these loans significantly (unless the Government underwrites the difference?). More importantly, the people who buy the loan book will presumably put in place some sort of "debt collection agency" to chase people and check whether their earning exceed the threshold.
So, following the withdrawal of the grant system, the generation promised low interest loans from a benign government may suddenly find themselves exposed to the tender mercies of the debt collection industry.
That will be a significant disincentive to those interested in further education: particularly if you also consider the steady devaluation of the resulting qualification.
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15 jericoa
Please be assured that when change is necessary it happens. Of course it is resisted by those who will lose out but they have a choice: either embrace the inevitable or go down screaming like the Bourbons.
I would rather have peaceful and gradual change. However, if we can't have that then we will have to put up with something a bit more abrasive.
When? Good question: either soon or after the next banking collapse.
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What is most alarming is that the cupboard of assets is bare. The Government talked of selling off the waterways network then found it needs too much investment + maintenance to appeal to buyers. I expect a number of other assets have been considered for sale and discarded. What GB has left is the £16bn "low hanging fruit".
Also read that there are problems in reducing Whitehall employees as the deal is that Civil Servants are offered 3 x annual salary when made compulsorily redundant! The talk is that to finance this cash outflow will impair departments ability to deliver current core services.
Government seeks to reduce this to 2 x annual salary, but unions are getting tetchy.
I hope someone gets a grip and changes the terms for civil servants to get statutory minimum redundancy and reduced pensions, as we in the private sector will do. They have to understand that they were employed in unsustainable jobs, so as Stanilic says "Sorry guys; but you will change"
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#36 Jadedjean. State assets are assets owned by the population of the state. If the state then takes these assets and sells them, then that is just theft.
It has nothing to do with Stalin, anarchists, intelligence or anything else. If someone comes round your house and robs it then the only thing you can deduce is that you will have been robbed. You will not know whether the thief was more or less intelligent than you, you will not know whether the thief loved or loathed Stalin, and neither will you know whether the thief was an anarchist. All you will know is that the person who robbed you was a thief.
Only an idiot would pay any attention to a person caught red handed engaging in theft who then denied that he was doing what he evidentially was doing.
Not all things are complicated.
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This sell off sounds like desperation to me. Now is not the moment. The market has hardly recovered. If the sell off our gold reserves or the fire sale of Qinetic are to go by, the Labour Government will give these assets away and not for £16 billion. So for a change, if it has to happen, why can't they be sold to us, like BP, BG etc were? I am sure the Dartford Crossing would a nice steady earner and shareholders could go across for nothing - that would spark a bidding war from Essex and Kent drivers.
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#12 excellentcatblogger. Maybe Thatcher was worried about places like Pakistan developing weapons technology. Today there is no need to worry -they have developed it.
Ask yourself how and why could AQ Khan have been left in peace for so long to complete his work.
The forces that confront you are more nefarious than you imagine.
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# 36 - JJ, I read your posts (and the posts of many of the other contributors to this blog) with interest. I have to say that I am agnostic (perhaps not the right word) on much of what you write as I do not have sufficient knowledge of the areas you write on; I acknowledge that you include many links in your entries but consider that I would have to invest many, many hours of investigation, research and thought to be able to take a properly informed position on what you write. At the moment, I do not have the time to do this. I of course do have views on many of the issues but frankly do not have the expertise to say if these are well founded. In any case, on the references to the instensional in your latest entry, I was left with an image in my mind of the old "cowboy and injun" films - you know the bit where the native american say "White man speak with forked tongue". This is certainly true of the Labour Party. With the change of economic circustances, they are desparately trying to revert back to the old battle lines between labour and the Tories but the truth is there is no substantial difference between their respective policies and ideologies.
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This is typical Gordon Brown behaviour - re-announce something (anything!) to make it look as though he actually has a plan and is not really totally bereft of original ideas. I just wish he would not play his pathetic games with our money. He does not have a particularly good record of such sales (the Big Gold giveaway, the Qintetic bargain of the decade, etc).
He continues to do so much damage to this country. His behaviour should be considered treasonable.
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The problem with the final period of this dying Parliament prior to the election is that we're increasingly going to get knee-jerk policies like this, formulated on the hoof and not thought out. The sooner the election happens to clear the air the better. Caledonian Comment
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When you borrow money you do so against the payment of interest and secured against an asset. We have the asset. The profits from that asset pay the interest. Why sell the asset instead of borrowing against it? Makes no sense. Also how can the government sell to a non government body the right to tax its citizens? This is what the Dartford toll is. Otherwise it would have been abolished when the debt was repaid.
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43. At 3:13pm on 12 Oct 2009, armagediontimes wrote:
#12 excellentcatblogger. Maybe Thatcher was worried about places like Pakistan developing weapons technology. Today there is no need to worry -they have developed it.
Ask yourself how and why could AQ Khan have been left in peace for so long to complete his work.
The forces that confront you are more nefarious than you imagine.
----------------------------------------------
Thanks for that, I did not know about AQ Khan and that he had access to the most restricted parts of Urenco when he worked there. And then passed this info onto pakistan, Libya, Iran, North Korea...
Not sure if I will be able to sleep soundly at night from now on. Words fail me.
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Stephanie Flanders wrote:
"if the proceeds aren't used for anything else, they could help cut the deficit over the next three or four years".
I'm not a highly paid BBC commentator, but surely the proceeds cut the debt, not the defict.
Don't we need to compare the reduced income stream from the assets sold against any reduction in servicing that portion of the national debt that is reduced by the asset sale? Not easy to reduce to a sound-bite.
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Steph: "...any saving from raising the state retirement age will only last until 2026, when the government was already planning to make all of us retire later."
Errr... no. It's still a saving beyond 2026. Just because it was planned doesn't meant that it isn't still having a beneficial effect.
Gordy: ".. and for investment". Ah, you mean public spending don't you Gord?
Slippery as ever. How much will be used for repayments and how much for election sweeteners then Gordy? You couldn't keep your hands out of the cookie jar even now.
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armagediontimes (#44) "It has nothing to do with Stalin, anarchists, intelligence or anything else."
'Stalinism' is usd as a term for statism as just as National Socialism once was. 'Anarchists' are deregulating free-marketeers (see the history of anarchism and Judaism at the turn of the C20th in the UK and USA), and 'intelligence' is one of the two main (groups of) statistical factors (data reduced form correlations of lots of variables ranging ofver cogntive behaviour) used as variables in the scientific prediction and control of behaviour. When I talk of these things I assume people will know what thsi refers to or at least, follow up trhe links. It seems you do not. Therefore, you do not understand my posts. You need to understand that you do not understand them, or you will keep posting comments to me which make no sense.
"If someone comes round your house and robs it then the only thing you can deduce is that you will have been robbed."
Most of these crimes remain undetected. That is, they are reported, but the culprits are not detected, apprehended, prosecuted, convicted. Only crimes against the person have a high detection rate. Many offences like the above have detection rates in single figures! Of 16m crimes a year, only about 600,000 offenders are prosecuted, about half get off and only about 80,000 get custodial and 120,000 community sentences!
"You will not know whether the thief was more or less intelligent than you, you will not know whether the thief loved or loathed Stalin, and neither will you know whether the thief was an anarchist. All you will know is that the person who robbed you was a thief."
We know from statistics of offenders that hey are below average IQ, about 8 points lower. We also know that most of them have Axis II Cluster B Personality disorders. Tey have empathy (aka self-esteem) problems. That is, they take what hey want from others as they see others as objects.
"Only an idiot would pay any attention to a person caught red handed engaging in theft who then denied that he was doing what he evidentially was doing."
See above. The problem is that most are not caught at all. We know who they are, why they do it etc - the problem is getting the evdience.
"Not all things are complicated."
I wish! You don't know the half of it! ;-)
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I'm confused. How can selling national assets at a depressed price, removing our income in future years make any kind of long term economic sense?
Oh, wait, it can't (unless, fair enough, the asset is not strategic and the returns are lower than the bond rate).
Dartford Crossing - already responsible for horrible queues. The choices being mulled over by were to either make it toll free (since it paid for itself in 2002 and we were promised that it would be free THEN), or to build a new crossing. Selling off this crossing will kill the chance of another one. Who'd buy it if it became worthless later?
Result: Environmental and economic misery.
Brown has killed off the long term chances of this country on a 10 year binge drinking session. Someone with an E at A level would be a better chancellor than he was, and now he's still running the treasury from No. 10.
Gah!
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Selling student loans was mentioned too. A friend asked me "how do you sell student loans?". I think he has to ask the sub-primes markets that one... once more round the carousel please, guv'.
And 'deja vu' indeed it is, Stephanie. Being 63 I've seen all this nonsense before. BBC moderators rejected my reply to "how would you save energy?" which was "... by burning next year's ballot papers!"
Ah well, perhaps we shoud sell the students? Slaves are going to be the ONLY trade in the UK soon!
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nedafo (#44) "In any case, on the references to the instensional in your latest entry, I was left with an image in my mind of the old "cowboy and injun" films - you know the bit where the native american say "White man speak with forked tongue".
Close enough. The problem with intesional contexts (the psychological verbs essentially) is that they are non-truth functional. They are thus the favoured tools of spin-doctors etc. Take Clinton's speech in NI today. Try putting a NOT before all her sentences as see what it reads like. It was vacuous nonsense. Can anyone imagine a British Minister like Miliband going to California and telling them how to sort out their socio-economic problems? We also get a sympathy showing of 1984 bombing of the Brighton Hotel!
Maybe Obama should be advised to devolve a few States, maybe offering New York and Hollywood independence (or allowing them to become Israeli/Jewish settlements)?
The BBC had a naive/Lysenkoist piece running today about education throughout the world, with e-mails from total nitwits being read out. The verbiage being peddled as news these days is outrageous - be critical of the presenters and their productions team's language/assumptions/agendas.
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#1 and subsequent JJ
and
#41 armagediontimes:
JJ consider this: The problem with all that you contribute is that the psudo complexity and naming of parts that you engage in detracts from the analysis of what is actually happening. And because of this obfuscation, that which you contribute actually results in letting off those who are doing the things that many (including you) complain about.
The consequence of this is that those who are in error, and even deemed to be in error by you, continue to get away with their erroneous actions. I am also led to wonder if you are deliberately confusing things so as to support the status-quo. (You like conspiracy theories so how about this one!)
In short: I do not care what label you want to give economists - as it is not helpful in analysing where they are in error.
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Ahh I see Gordon is back to his misuse of the term "invest"; it sounds so much better than consume and spend, but its use is deceptive (not that anyone believes him anymore) either deliberately so as a sound bit or self delusional and demonstrating a lack of economic understanding.
Investment = spending now to recoup more in the future.
Indeed there is a solid rational for selling unproductive assets to generate funds to apply to more productive investments.
There is even an argument for selling assets to reduce debt and therefore avoid debt interest.
However, without measures to reduce /eliminate the structural deficit, the proceeds are just spent, and will vanish into sustaining public sector inefficiency and maintaining non-productive jobs for political ends. Not that they will finance this for any time.
The irrelevant amounts involved will do nothing to add to confidence in the UK economy and indeed the refusal to address the underlying issues indicated in such announcements may further weaken the position (which as has been mentioned in previous threads isn't as bad as it could be as markets don't expect Brown to be around much longer and have discounted for future policy changes by another government acting to repair the mess).
It all seems like window dressing being seen to do something, without owning up to the fundamental mistakes in mismanaging the economy, i.e. spending beyond our means, total reliance on financial services, etc.
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# 47. neverspeakbadly wrote:
"When you borrow money you do so against the payment of interest and secured against an asset. We have the asset. The profits from that asset pay the interest. Why sell the asset instead of borrowing against it?"
Not strictly true.
A secured loan (e.g. mortgage) is secured on assets, however other loans are given on an unsecured basis and are based on expected ability to pay.
The assets that are being mentioned for sale are of nothing like the value required to be considered as adequate security for current government borrowing.
Of course the expected ability to pay as security issue is an often mentioned concern - if you keep over spending and growing a debt, eventually confidence in ability to repay falls, and lenders charge more to cover the perceived risk.
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I think we have to put this one down to the government playing us all for idiots.
They have so far printed the mind boggling sum of £175 billion pounds to boost the mioney supply in the economy.
A piddling sale of a few pocket money assets at a time when they have billions of toxic assets coming out of their ears does not even warrant a mention.
Just another attempt to diffuse the subject of MP's expenses and pospone the real problems for another day. So typical.
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#51 Jadedjean. You just don´t get it do you? The people selling assets that do not belong to them are the government and their paymasters in high finance. There is no issue in detecting them, everyone knows who they are.
There is a problem in prosecuting them because they have captured the institutions responsible for defining crime and for prosecuting criminals. Look at MP´s expenses - try that in private industry and there would be no problem in bringing prosecutions.
Logic does not seem to be your strong point does it? You can only know anything about anyone if they have been identified. If they have not been identified and only their actions have been identified (as per my example) then the only thing you can possibly know about them is their willingness to engage in the actions described.
There is no problem in obtaining evidence. Look at Iraq and look at the law as developed and implemented at Nurnberg.
This is very simple. All you do is develop a huge fog of opacity which acts as the prefect smokescreen for the master criminals who walk brazenly amongst us all. If the law were to be applied then you would most likely be facing a charge of aiding and abetting or of providing a false alibi.
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There's a word for asset strippers in private business - SCUM!
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Why stop at the QE2 bridge??? - surely they could sell the Queen and the crown jewels too!
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Oh dear, this really smacks of desperation.
Does the government have any idea how much damage it is doing the reputation of the UK by acting so unprofessionally ?
Have Labour ministers lost their empathy with the country that they are supposedly serving ?
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A very good article Stephanie exposing another attempt by Peter Mandelson and his government (of which Baroness Scotland is still a member)to hoodwink the electorate. Let's have the election and move on.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
I am in the very fortunate position of largely being without access to British TV.
Imagine my surprise when I saw a British TV advertisment for a company offering short term loans to people that had run out money. The APR? Why a mere 2,356%. Yes: TWO THOUSAND THREE HUNDRED AND FIFTY SIX PERCENT. Apparently the most they will lend you is GBP1,000!!!
What kind of country has this turned into? Does no-one have any shame? Insanity does not even begin to describe it. Will someone appear promoting cannibalism next?
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Cut the deficit? Rubbish - it will just about cover August's overspend of £16 billion.
So what will he sell for the remaining months of his maladministration?
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armagediontimes (#59) "You just don´t get it do you?"
Yes, I get it only too well. You don't though.
You can't tell the differnece between what I've prompted (shaped) you to think, and what you think yourself! You're confusing things which are dawning on you, with what I don't get. I've induced you to grasp these things you nitwit ;-)
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I am glad to hear that you are trying to hold this government to account and can now spot these re-issues of statements
Whereas Gordon probably thinks that we can just roll everything up together and not notice
It is noticeable, however, that they haven't done anything yet
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DEMOGRAPHICS
Study these data #5 very closely. Then consider 9/11 and geopolitics.
Who is paying for what? With what? Why?
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#67 Jadedjean.
"And as I was standing by the edge
I could see the faces of those that led p*ssing theirselves laughing
(and the flames grew)
Their mad eyes buldged their flushed faces said
The weak get crushed as the strong grow stronger
We feast on flesh and drink on blood
Live by fear and despise love in a crises"
Pual Weller (Circa 1979).
My thinking has not changed.
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No 10 "So the government is selling off the family jewels."
I beg to differ, Sir !! The government had already sold the family jewels *AND* silver long ago !! They are now selling the lead off the roof !! Soon, they'll be selling their grandmothers !!
Is this supposed to be the grand and glorious "Labour Investments" ?? What is there to "invest" in when all the assets are sold ??
When the government start to believe their own lies, we'll know the end is nigh !!
Err....excuse Mr. Noah, but can I book a seat in your ark to wherever you're going ?? It looks like rainy weather ahead !!
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Ms Flanders,
Do these sales do any good?
The idea seems to be to make the government a bit more credit worthy. However, If the governemnt sells assets ot pay off debt, the net balance between between its' assets and liabilities does not change, and lenders to the government are no more secure.
That is if the governemnt gets a fair price for the assets it sells. This government and its predecessor have usually sold assets at prices which turn out to be less than they could have got for them. If that happens this time, the governments asets will be reduced by more than its liabilities; the net balance will worsen. That cannot improve the government's credit worthiness.
If some (or all) the money is reinvested in new assets which have a higher return than the old assets, the Governemnt might come out of this more credit worthy. But if it is used to borrow less at today's very low interest rates, isn't cash flow out from reduced debt repayments going to be less than cash now coming in from the assets to be sold? That would imply that the sale makes the government less credit worthy
All in all, is this sale anything more than piece of dubious accounting offerd in the hope that it will fool the markets for a time?
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armagdeniotimes (#70) "My thinking has not changed."
A bit like John_from_Hendon then? He lacks insight too. ;-)
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No 12 "The six companies (mostly state owned) in the world are:!
I think you missed out a few others !! Both India and Pakistan didn't get their fissibles from thin air, you know !! And just where did Israel and Iran get their nuclear material from ?? And DPRK had successfully tested a nuke or two !!
Welcome to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Age !!
One thing is almost certain. Neither Russia nor China, two of the countries with spare cash to buy this company, will have any need for it since they've been cheerfully churning out more of that stuff than they need !!
A certain Saudi gentleman would have the cash to buy it but I think he's unavailable for comment from his "mountain resort", somewhere in Afghanistan !!
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No 13 "Am I missing something?"
Yes !! A possible directorship in one of the "sold" companies for a mere £1 million per year !! A trifle, really !!
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No 20 "It's time for a change of leadership and if GB cared about UK then he'd do us a favour and get out"
He cared ?? When ??
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If the cancellation of the M4 relief road around Newport and then resale of the compulsory purchased land for the cancelled project is anything to go on, £20 million lost on properties.
http://www.southwalesargus.co.uk/news/4673510.AM___s_anger_at____wasted____M4_relief_road_cash/
I suspect a lot more lost on Gordon's Ebay sale
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#64. JadedJean wrote:
"what drives that is genes and their distribution"
R U B B I S H
Please desist from such absurd 'explanations' particularly when arithmetic and a more or a less complete access to information is all that is needed to 'explain' economics. Just because you can't do sums.....
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ishkandar (#72) "Is this supposed to be the grand and glorious "Labour Investments" ??"
No. This is the Not The Labour Party and its 'investments'. This was The Labour Party. Do you see any similarities to Neo Labour?
These Neocons have got everyone thinking that they are the Labour Party. That way you jump back into the fire of the anarchistic Conservative Party who will continue the same policies but with a little less spin (perhaps).
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No 24 "The 'savings' Government makes always revert to costs in the future."
Hey, that's somebody else's problem after the election !! They just want to look good now !!
"All QE is doing is creating a false consumption demand to replace the absent consumer demand - neither was sustainable and will be proved as such."
And it generates soooo much confidence and trust in the hearts of foreign investors and creditors that they'll queue up round the block to let us have their money !!
Call me when I reach that planet, I'll have a nap now !!
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No 29 Frank - "I'll buy the Houses of Parliament for 50Euro, if that helps."
Complete with squatters on the roof ??
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8301586.stm
Enjoy !! :-)
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No 37 "I think the rot set in a long time ago and the chickens are coming home to roost."
Chickens ?? Those look like vultures to me !!
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No 38 "So, following the withdrawal of the grant system, the generation promised low interest loans from a benign government may suddenly find themselves exposed to the tender mercies of the debt collection industry."
Obviously these students are learning a good lesson in politics from a famous politician, Machiavelli - "Put not your trust in kings and princes (or politicians, for that matter)" !!
Or to put it in vernacular, they've been played for suckers for someone's political ambitions !! Welcome to the School of Hard Knocks !!
Cynical ?? Moi ??
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John_from_Hendon (#79) Arithmetic, like logic, is just a set of empty tautologous transformations to help the extensionally challenged human brain deal with empirical reality. It's what one applies it to which matters, and for some time, I've been telling you what matters, and yet you aren't paying attention, nor are you posting anything worth reading at present.
Read this and see if you learn. ;-)
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ishkandar (#80) "Chickens ?? Those look like vultures to me !!"
It's chickens
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#85. JadedJean wrote: GARBAGE as is usual.
You are either the stupidest person ever to blog, or alternatively you are just a joker!
There is northing remotely logical about any of you absurd genetic nonsense and you know it - it is just a smokescreen to deliberately preventing critical examination of the realities of the economic World. What you say are 'explanations' are rubbish and nonsense and totally without any merit whatsoever. You arrogance is laughable in fact you should do stand-up!
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"They accuse the Labour Party of wishing to impose controls for the sake of control. That is not true, and they know it. What is true is that the anti-controllers and anti-planners desire to sweep away public controls, simply in order to give the profiteering interests and the privileged rich an entirely free hand to plunder the rest of the nation as shamelessly as they did in the nineteen-twenties. "
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#85 again Jumped Up
You are clearly a cretin totally unable to understand that any argument that uses generics in it as a discriminatory factor is racist and that puts it beyond any further consideration. You must stop this objectionable nonsense.
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#74 Jadedjean. Sounds like nefarious rhetoric to me.
Maybe you should take to some time to listen to the Jam - perhaps you too could learn something.
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No 47 "Also how can the government sell to a non government body the right to tax its citizens?"
Hello ?? Ever heard of tax farmers ?? It's a ancient and "honourable" profession, I believe !!
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Sorry about my sudden disappearance but we just had 2 blackouts in North London in 2 hours !! Is Blackout Britain here to stay ??
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If I didnt know any better I would swear Gord is deliberately trying to start a riot that would lead to a revolution
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The thing I find interesting about this announcement is how paltry it is by comparison with the reality of government borrowing.
The headline number is £16 billion, yet it seems that three quarters of that is to come from unspecified asset sales by local government, which may or may not materialise, and even if it does, the proceeds might not be used for debt repayment but rather for "investment". This leaves us with about £3 billion of identified asset sales. As others have noted, that figure is the very largest sum that might be realised (or else Brown would have claimed the higher figure) and Brown will likely divert some of that away from debt management and into "investment". So, in practice, this announcement might well correspond to about £2 billion of debt relief - or less than 4 days borrowing - to be realised over a period of two years.
What this tells us is that asset sales will play no meaningful part in repaying the exploding debt. The sums in this announcement are far too small to matter and this is the good stuff. If Brown had, say, a £25 billion asset to sell, he would have announced it by now. So, the cupboard is bare. There is no secret room filled with priceless antiques that can be sold off to save the family home. Oops.
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John_from_Hendon (#79) "what drives that is genes and their distribution"
R U B B I S H
You try telling a successful Western farmer that genes don't determine crop/stock yield.
You haven't a clue.
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No 65 "Will someone appear promoting cannibalism next?"
Not when there are still a few dogs and cats around !! They are very tasty when cooked properly !!
And then there's the rat kebabs.... :-)
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JJ / Arma / Ish
Do any of you have Mathcad installed?
F
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RE: 89. John_from_Hendon
"any argument that uses generics in it as a discriminatory factor is racist and that puts it beyond any further consideration. You must stop this objectionable nonsense."
No. That absolutely will not do.
Use of genetics to "discriminate" ie draw meaningful distinctions between groups - is absolutely essential to rational medical care. Tay-Sachs disease is an inherited genetic disorder that typically kills its victims before they are four years old. The recessive gene in question is much more common among Ashkenazi Jews than in the general population. If we took your raving seriously then simply making that observation would be racist. Happily, the affected population ignored your moralising, recognised that they were a group at risk defined by their shared genes and took effective action to reduce the incidence of Tay-Sachs. The action took the form of discouraging mating between pairs of people who were likely to have Tay-Sachs children. It is a harsh discipline with an obvious emotional cost that is rooted exclusively in genetic discrimination and it works.
The last thing people in that position need is for someone like you to start calling them racists.
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John_from_Hendon (#87) "any argument that uses generics in it as a discriminatory factor is racist and that puts it beyond any further consideration."
Unproductive countries (groups) are so because of their low mean IQ. This in turn is mainly genetic.
Low productive farms tend to be so because of their poor stock. This in turn is mainly genetic.
If you replace good stock/crops with inferior stock, productivity will deteriorate.
Talking to plants etc (all dure respect to Prince Charles etc) doesn't work.
Talking to John_from_Hendon is much like talking to plants etc.
Substitute 'educating' for 'talking' to. Substitute 'kids' for 'plants' etc.
Get it now? if not, give up...;-)
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Gordon has pinched my idea. I solved our economic problems on my blog a few days ago:
Is there an easy way out? Suppose we were given, say, £1tn? Would that solve our current problems? Of course it would. It would also leave enough money to get our energy infrastructure fixed. It would leave enough to solve a lot of problems provided we trusted the party in power to do it right. Not sure we could.
So how do we get £1tn? Is there anyone out there got that much money? Of course the Chinese have. How can we persuade them to give us the money? I have thought about this a lot and the answer... is obvious. We’ll sell them Cornwall. We might have to add in Devon as well to get the full amount. Think about it. There are not many people live there and it is really out the way. With global warming it will be a prime holiday spot. The politburo or whatever they are called can have their holiday villas there for some pollution free time away from Beijing. But the tourist industry will be big and give a good return on the investment. The Prince of Wales owns a big chunk already. Get him on board and the ball will roll. We might get into a bidding war if another country fancies a bit of the UK. This is not without precedent as the UK owned the bit of France around Calais until relatively recently. The US owns bits of Cuba. There are many more examples.
Of course Cornwall is only the start as there are a lot of other bits that will not be much missed but with probably lower prices. What about Cumberland? It is a long way from anywhere. Few people live there. It is very wet. We could probably get a good price for Norfolk if we are sharp about it. In another few years it will be under water. We can get some money before it goes.
It is obvious: selling off a county in one transaction is much more efficient than doing it piecemeal which is what we are doing now.
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DEMOGRAPHIC WARFARE
Postscript: Think of mass low-skilled immigration as like spinkling another grade of seed amongst crops. Will it make any difference if the new seed propagates faster?
Famous eugenicists: Darwin, Galton (his cousin, coined the word, started differential psychology), Pearson (correlation coefficient) Fisher (ANOVA and father of population genetics, plus design of experiments), JM Keynes (once famous economist), N. Chamberlain (PM, appeaser) - lots more too many to mention. Today, see Steve Jones and most sensible people with any knowledge of science.
Infamous eugenicists: Hitler and National Socialist Germany (lost WWII, ergo very bad people).
Who might want to sprinkle seed amongst another farmer's crop? Might they be deemed an enemy within (or over the fence)? A competitor?
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No 98 "Do any of you have Mathcad installed?"
Nope, sorry !! I'm more into databases and business processes these days !!
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#87 John_from_Hendon. Do I assume that you consider medicine to be a racist profession?
Maybe we could learn a thing or two from Pol Pot, shoot all the intellectuals (i.e. anyone that can read and write, wears glasses or has soft hands) and return to a paradise Year Zero existence.
It didn´t seem to work out too well in Cambodia, but maybe it will have a different outcome in Europe. Or not...Either way crazy idea. Unless of course you actually did mean to refer to generics.
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hants_gw (#99) Same with NCAH. 1/3 Ashkenazi carry 1 CYP21 polymorphism on C6P21 and 1/23 carry two. It's autosomal recessive, in fact, it's the most common autosomal recessive disorder known to man, and most common in the Ashkenazi. They are about 5x more prone to BRAC1 and BRCA2 breast cancer too. That's one reason for arguing it's 'Not In Our Genes', as if you have something in your group at a much higher prevalence rate than your host nation, and you are a very small group, donations for research or treatment etc of such disorders massively favours your groupm as there will be lots more money coming from lower prevalence out-group donors!
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Well maybe you might like to try and find something that can mimic mathcad. Have a look at this:
http://www.debtdeflation.com/blogs/2009/10/10/multi-sectoral-production-one-for-geeks/
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#100 Jadedjean "Unproductive countries (groups) are so because of their low mean IQ. This in turn is mainly genetic"
Really? Are you sure?
Look at Enron - for a long time their hype to Wall Street was that they employed the smartest people in the world, and that this gave them an unmatchable competitive advantage, and that this in turn meant that no matter how high their share price went it was always too low. Business news channels used to report this stuff as gospel, Houston TV more or less had it on as a loop.
Presumably you would have been a shareholder.
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No 101 "The politburo or whatever they are called can have their holiday villas there for some pollution free time away from Beijing."
Actually, they have much better pollution-free and far warmer resorts in Hainan *AND* it has 5* hotels too !! And no punitive taxes to deal with, either !!
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# 103.
ishkandar wrote:
"Nope, sorry !! I'm more into databases and business processes these days !!"
Which explains why I can relate to much of your rationale.
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I scanned Nick Robinson's blog the other day. The discussion descended to name-calling. In my opinion, the childishness is aggravated by a lack of clarity regarding the state of affairs in which we find ourselves.
Which organ, for example, has published, in stark terms, the total size of the current debt and the annual interest payments. Why isn't this repeated? Nevertheless, the BBC carried a 'front page link' to a report about the US but not the UK.
Which organ has simply stated that the debt to be incurred this year (not next or last) will be 175bn or that the debt is increasing by 16bn per month or 267 pounds per month for every man woman and child. Put in terms of the individual, it can be grasped more easily. You, your wife and your two kids - that's another 1,000 pounds this month.
16bn of assets to be sold might seem a fabulous return if you don't see it doesn't cover interest charges.
Press releases passed on as news just compound the problem.
Whilst I am sure that there are many people who don't give a damn nor want to, many more minds might be better concentrated if 'the meedja' presented facts and data in a more open, consistent and transparent and understandable way.
If someone, anyone could say 'do you know that the debt incurred this year could keep the whole NHS going for 3 or 5 years' this might have meaning. Or perhaps 'the interest charges on 800bn of debt incurred would run the NHS for one year'
Don't you think this is the sort of thing we should see on the six o'clock news rather than regurgitated sound-bites or Jackie Smith's expenses?
Can't the BBC do some real journalism for the mainstream not Newsnight?
Can't they present the facts in a way that most can relate to?
Can't they ignore 'today's' press release in favour of something that might take a bit of time but is facts, data and might be 'new' to the listener?
Do we have to give airtime to the twice disgraced spinner in chief?
If not, why not?
If this doesn't happen, how are most to know they are debt and tax peons? How are they to understand that the state has to diminish if this this is to be addressed in any meaningful way? How can a sense of entitlement be reduced?
Perhaps, Ms Flanders or one of her colleagues might consider a 'UK economy for dummies series ata bout 6.10pm'. Perhaps not ;-)
Yrs Mrs Bloggs
ps my recollection from a time gone by is that capital receipts received by Local Authorities cannot be used for revenue (spending rather than investment!)
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# 101.
chrisrick13
I like the idea... if we're going to go for asset sales to pay for real investment in the future we might as well do it properly.
Perhaps we can arrange a forward sale Scotland for once the oil has run out, that would help to reduce costs to the rest of the country and surely the golf courses would help to fetch a decent price.
Of course there's then the question of what to do with the populations of any such "assets" sold on..
......
Ok so not a serious economic proposal, but it does raise the question, if we had the assets to generate sufficient capital, could it be invested in such a way as to provide us with a strong, diverse economic base for the future?
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armagediontimes (#107) ""Look at Enron - for a long time their hype to Wall Street was that they employed the smartest people in the world,"
Try to hold on to the two simple things I have told you.
a) Intelligence is a FACTOR
b) Personality is a FACTOR
Both, we now know, are largely genetic.
ENRON and LEHMAN etc are covered by NPD/APD recruitment and promotion encouraged by anarchists
Not everything you read in this blog is idle chatter.... ;-)
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#110 mrsbloggs13c2 I fear you are whistling in the wind. The corporate media along with elected politicians both take their orders from the same ruling kleptocracy.
The idea (as a well known Liverpudlian understood long ago) is to keep the masses doped with religion, sex, and TV and encourage them to think that they are so clever, so classless, and free. It is most definitely not inform them that they are newly minted debt slaves.
The forces ranged against you are more nefarious than you think.
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Sorry for the type in 87
Genetics of course! thanks # 104 armagediontimes.
To return to my substantive point.
Or why references to any argument in economics used by JJ is racist.
JJ uses genetics as a rational to reject all immigration. The is the pernicious lie in JJ's stupid perverted logic and this is an absolute definition of JJ's racism and why all of JJ's arguments are totally and absolutely WRONG.
Several months ago JJ and I were arguing about JJ's postulation that because the British population was reproducing below the replacement rate that this was inevitably an economic catastrophe. I made the repost that it is fortunate that the UK is such a popular immigration destination. JJ refused to accept that immigrants were just as able to make a positive contribution as the native born population. This is almost a text book example of racism.
Do not be deceived, whenever JJ uses the word genetic JJ means racist and white supremacist. JJ is therefore irredeemably wrong. JJ's contributions are therefore based on a false, and what is more pernicious, base and are therefore unable to be accepted into rational and logical discussion - whenever the argument is based on genetics.
Anyone who supports JJ is supping with the devil and that includes any academics that JJ cites as supporters and I call upon all of them (still living of course) to publicly refute racism. (I have directly requested JJ to do this on many occasions and all I get back is diversionary rubbish. - look back over the blogs and you will see what I mean.)
Unless and until JJ publicly refutes racism I will attack JJ un-mercilessly and unstintingly as I believe every civilised person should. It is my strong belief that no one can have a polite civilised discourse with an unreformed and unapologetic racist, such a JJ. I have I think been very fair and have given JJ many opportunities to deny being a racist, but to no avail.
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#112. JadedJean wrote:
"everything you read in this blog is idle chatter"
except you contributions which are evil minded pernicious rubbish....
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Hi Stephanie
Actually it is worse than you think. The FT has unearthed a proposal from out then Chancellor ( Gordon Brown) proposing some asset sales from back in 1998! I will leave it to everyones imagination what they were.
If he hasnt been able to sell them in a boom how will he sell them in a downturn? This smacks of the market awareness of a man who sells assets for a quarter of their current price. Gold is old hat and finished isn't it?
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John from Hendon, have you read any of JJs links
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#113
Dear Mr Times
Whistling, indeed.
Yrs
Mrs Bloggs
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#112 Jadedjean. You are really confusing me now. Am I to assume that you agree that the most unproductive groups are those of high intelligence with a particular type of personality?
Not much to disagree with in the video. Although they do not always show remorse when caught - sometimes they just shout at you and tell you that you are too stupid to understand.
Interesting that you are now citing Chomsky to support your arguments. I thought you considered him a worthless (or worse) anarchist.
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Am I the only one that thinks JadedJean provides the only cojent, coherent and logical explanation to all the BS we are fed everyday and have been fed for a long time in our western dimocracy?
She has NEVER succumbed to personal vilification and always argued her podsition. NO ONE elso has done that.
She doesn't just explain what's happening now, but what has happened for the last 80 years! Our Country's party games have been purely that...party games to delude the masses.
I'm no JJ sychophant, I just accept her arguments on logic and fact alone. No one else has offered any other plausible explanation.
C'mon you fools, wake up and smell the coffee!
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RE: 110. mrsbloggs13c2
"Which organ, for example, has published, in stark terms, the total size of the current debt and the annual interest payments. Why isn't this repeated?"
I agree with the whole of your note. I'd also like to add a statistic to the list. When the BBC reports changes in house prices it uses a bizarre graph of percentage change year-to-date which is difficult to interpret without careful thought. What we really need is a histogram showing the monthly average property price as an absolute number. That way, it is easy to tell, at a glance, how current prices compare to past prices and what the trend is.
Conspiracy theories about why the BBC favours an incomprehensible graph are left as an exercise for the reader.
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Stephanie
I would be interested to see a chart summarising the various pledges and commitments made on spending cuts and other fiscal correction measures; tax rises, mostly, announced by the three main political parties to date.
This could be done with a simple matrix, based on pledges made in the left column, with years across the page by row; to compare the different proposals from each party. The cumulative savings could be added each year, to give a total figure for 2014 or 2015; or the end of the next parliament.
Based upon your comments today, I have got to barely 20% of the £175bn of additional government debt quoted, which has arisen from the bale out. At some stage the assets in the banks bought out by the government, at the height of the financial crisis in 2008 will also be sold back to institutional shareholders in the private sector and maybe some individual taxpayers too, as shareholders.
As the FTSE reached its highest number for a year today, I suspect that the re-privatisation of state owned bank assets might arrive sooner than currently thought. Gordon Brown did not mention this other source of potential additional revenue in his announcement today.
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chrisrick13 (#101) I vote we give them Hendon as a sweetner! I reckon Mervyn King might second that! ;-)
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Asset sale: Deja vu?.....where have i heard that before etc etc.....
Well done Stephanie for once again revealing the quantum world of Gordon Browns mind, where asset cuts can exist in two differant places at the same time[at least].
Every great illusionist re lies on two assistants[preferably cheeky girls] that look the same.
No doubt his faking QE'rs will back stop the sale of our assets using their latest durAAA'sell powered electronic diddle doe fresh from their quantum world of finAAAnce, regardless of the scAAAtological reverberations to the pound on the spot markets .
Gordon is indeed the "0ptimist" in british pollytricks
Get ready for THE new new MProved Labour slugon that "white washes whiter than white", with their new improved hit jingle "Things can only get bet err II" to be followed by "Things can only get bet err free"
Gordon simplee [sighmoan] cannot believe that "Its not beterr"
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#118
Dear Mrs. Bloggs,
How do you know that I am a Mr. and not a Mrs. Miss or Ms. We seem to have enough trouble with postulated racism. Best to remain cognisant of the times in which we live and not open up a sexism front.
Yours androgenously
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John_from_hendon (#114) "Do not be deceived, whenever JJ uses the word genetic JJ means racist and white supremacist."
No - I think the white underclass is way too big too!!
PS. Jews are white and have a high group mean IQ ;-)
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
This repayment of 175 billion - and more.
Given that our currency is only backed by our governments ability to continue to raise taxes into the future, is speedy repayment really that much of an imperative?
Presumably there will always be a government (of some sort) and a population for it to tax. Although I am guessing that government would have to convince creditors that they were at least plausibly making a half-hearted attempt to do so?
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armagediontimes (#119) "You are really confusing me now. Am I to assume that you agree that the most unproductive groups are those of high intelligence with a particular type of personality?"
I am pointing out that there are two dimensions - IQ and Personality. You get bright criminals (white collar) with Axis II PDs. APD and criminality are closely related.
Unproductive in the biological sense is positively correlated with IQ. Unproductive in the work sense/GDP/SES is negatively correlated with IQ.
There is more to this than you understand, but it is not too hard to grasp if you follow my posts and links. Some of this is novel, but there are others who have been saying parts of it (Lynn, Herrnstein, Cattell, Rushton, Jensen, Murray to name just a few).
"Not much to disagree with in the video."
Good, Hare is the world expert on psychopathy/APD. You find these types in prison and the stock markets etc!
"Although they do not always show remorse when caught - sometimes they just shout at you and tell you that you are too stupid to understand."
Hmmm. Tell me about it ;-)
"Interesting that you are now citing Chomsky to support your arguments. I thought you considered him a worthless (or worse) anarchist."
I think he is over-rated. He didn't understand Skinner. he did a lot of damage by pretending he did. He didn't understand Quine either. Quine made short work of him. Chomsky is indeed an anarchist. A clever one. A destructive one. If you can find it, dig out Skinner's 'On Having A Poem'.
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From the point at which those saving part with their money into a pension pot it becomes a cty bonus and a figment of their immagination.
The monthly statement should read "We would like to confirm that you think that you have £x IN YOUR ACCOUNT
In reality banks take real money and legaly produce 30 times as much indistinguishable counterfeit money from it and pay a miniscule sum in interest for the privelage of debauching it.
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#122 fleche_dor
Great idea...but far too logical for the bbc...the land of the rhetoric!
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So Gordon wants to hold a Car-Boot sale of Government Assets which will go a small way into keeping Public Sector workers in Employment ( Thats if he doe's not sell their places of Employment ), in the run-up to the next General Election, whereby after the next Election it won't matter anyway, since the Tory's will drastically reduce Employment in BOTH the Public, & Private Sectors.
We hear, that some Public Sector Workers are already getting themselves ready for Strike action if not before the upcoming General Election, but most surely after the next Election when we will be seeing the return of Conservative Values as like under the Heath Administration in the 1970's, with the once 3 Day Week, althought this next time around under any Cameron Government we will most likely see a 2 Day Week, and further mass Unemployment again in both the Public, and Private Sectors of our U.K. Economy.
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#114 John_from_Hendon
You say, "Unless and until JJ publicly refutes racism I will attack JJ un-mercilessly and unstintingly as I believe every civilised person should. It is my strong belief that no one can have a polite civilised discourse with an unreformed and unapologetic racist, such a JJ. I have I think been very fair and have given JJ many opportunities to deny being a racist, but to no avail"
You are of course right that these views need to be robustly refuted - but in reality, this is only for the benefit of others who might not see JJ's comments for what they really are (although there can be little doubt if you read some of the links). As for JJ herself, I am afraid you are wasting your breath given her previously stated views on Stalin, Hitler, the Holocaust etc.
Many of JJ's links contain blatantly racist material, directed against the Black Community or Jews. When this is pointed out, JJ arrogantly tells us that we need to learn from her superior wisdom.
Ironically, one of the links she gave in a previous blog was to a video about 'Narcissistic Personality Disorder'. According to psychiatrist in that video, a common feature of this condition is that the person is regularly "crowing about themselves and always tooting their own horn". Also, according to the doctor, a person with 'Narcissistic Personality Disorder' not only constantly brags about themselves, but also feels a need to devalue everyone else. The irony is clearly lost on JJ.
As has been pointed out before, whatever the topic put forward by Stephanie, JJ keeps popping up with the same old rubbish and her favourite links.
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#125
Dear Times
I apologise for my presumption
Yrs
Bloggs
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Morning Stephanie,
good to see that you are still publishing your blog about interesting subjects that affect us all rather than just banking stories.
Much of what I feel about the proposed asset sales has already been said by previous contributors. I do remember this Government trying to sell the Tote some time ago and it was a failure (if I remember correctly). Perhaps a more knowledgeable blogger will fill in the details.
Would you care to comment, Stephanie, on why no Party (neither Labour nor Conservative) will address the cost to the nation of all of the appointed (by Government) Quangos?
Various figures have been bandied about but a figure of £64 Billion per year has been quoted. Can this really be true?
Regulators don't seem to regulate anything on behalf of the consumer so why have them at all?
Disband all Quangos I say and that will contribute 5 times the savings announced recently by Mr Osborne.
We have a huge energy crisis coming up, yet the ordinary public seem unconcerned. I wonder why since we all need energy to survive!
The recent ruling on Credit card debt evasion will hit a lot of people hard. Again no one seems interested.
The recent conference by the Conservatives didn't address what they propose to do about the 1400 new laws passed by this Government. I infer from their silence that they propose to do NOTHING. So the Conservatives are as complicit as Labour in trying to control the electorate with scores of petty rules.
Free the British people I say.
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No 109 "Which explains why I can relate to much of your rationale."
Thank you, kind sir !! :-)
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#121
Dear Mr GW
The BBC's reporting of house prices is even worse than you report.
They have regularly rushed out reports in response to the latest release say from Nationwide or Halifax. I have complained on more than one occasion.
The last time, just a few days ago, they reported the data from the Nationwide press release commenting that house prices were back to the same level as a year ago. Another release from the same organisation indicated that prices were -3% lower than a year ago but this got no mention.
Eventually a more rounded piece came out buried in the bowels of the web-site but the reporting consistently fails to mention
a) that the data from the two lending institutions is based on approved mortgages not final sales
b) the number of mortgages actually agreed, the spread of values, the LTV data
c) that it doesn't cover cash purchases
I have also complained previously that data from the Land Registry which might be slightly 'out of date' (consistently) but at least covers all sales is buried.
In fact the range of house price movements in recently issued reports were 0%, -3%, -9%, -10%.
So in fact, the reporting should probably say somthing like 'The data released in the last 10 days about house price movements is inconsistent. This is likely to reflect the size and nature of the samples. The data from the Land Registry which covers all final sales indicates that house prices are still x% down on the same period last year. Local conditions may be different as these are national averages. Furthermore, although the number of mortgages three months or more in arrears has increased, it remains below 2% and x% by value. The number of sales remains at about 40% of the peak.'
But that wouldn't be headline grabbing or encouraging enough, would it?
Cheers
Mrs Bloggs
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No 110 "Whilst I am sure that there are many people who don't give a damn nor want to, many more minds might be better concentrated if 'the meedja' presented facts and data in a more open, consistent and transparent and understandable way."
What ?? The meedja presenting facts and data in a more open, consistent and transparent and understandable way ?? Why, Hell will freeze over !!
"If this doesn't happen, how are most to know they are debt and tax peons? How are they to understand that the state has to diminish if this this is to be addressed in any meaningful way? How can a sense of entitlement be reduced?"
It's all "bread and circuses" for the unwashed masses to justify the license fees since they are revolting !!
"ps my recollection from a time gone by is that capital receipts received by Local Authorities cannot be used for revenue (spending rather than investment!)"
Ah !! But they didn't have cookie-jar accounting in those long gone days !! The set of annual (or whatever period) accounts were actually an honest (true and fair view) of the company's financial health and well-being !! I had contributed to the signing-off of quite a few of these, now mythical, things !!
These days, there PPI, PFI, off-balance sheet items and a host of other grand inventions that make a set of accounts not worth the paper it's printed on !! To get to the company's real worth, an investigative bean-counter has to dig deep to make sense of any of the figures published !! Therefore, it is not expected that a mere mortal on the Clapham omnibus can understand such complex wizardry !!
BTW, according to cookie-jar accounting, when an entity borrows money to spend, it can be "capitalised" as loan capital. When assets (capital items) are sold, it can than be off-set against the loan "capital" and, thus, freeing the cash-in-hand for spending elsewhere.
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No 116 "Gold is old hat and finished isn't it?"
Of course, it is !! It's a mere $1,000 or so an ounce now !! A mere piffle !!
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No 121 "Conspiracy theories about why the BBC favours an incomprehensible graph are left as an exercise for the reader."
I tried getting my exercise by jumping to conclusions but I'm afraid I was not very diligent at that !! :-)
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No 122 "I would be interested to see a chart summarising the various pledges and commitments made on spending cuts and other fiscal correction measures; tax rises, mostly, announced by the three main political parties to date."
Oh, WOW !! Chaos theory, here we come !! Anybody's got a spare supermainframe or two to lend us for a few weeks to work out what was being said, promised, pledged and/or committed against what had actually materialised and are like to materialise ??
A good dose of fuzzy logic might also come in handy since the logic behind all these statements, promises, pledges and/or commitments are very fuzzy indeed !!
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No 122 "I suspect that the re-privatisation of state owned bank assets might arrive sooner than currently thought."
Try looking at this from a cookie-jar accounting perspective !! The share prices of these banks are high because all the toxic assets had been shuffled off the books and on to the poor taxpayers' account via the GAPS !! Should a re-privatisation occur, these toxic assets and government loans will suddenly re-appear like the Ghost of Christmas Past and seriously traumatise any potential shareholder.
Hence the deafening silence from Our Glorious Leader and his much-beloved government on this issue !!
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No 128 "Given that our currency is only backed by our governments ability to continue to raise taxes into the future, is speedy repayment really that much of an imperative?
Presumably there will always be a government (of some sort) and a population for it to tax. Although I am guessing that government would have to convince creditors that they were at least plausibly making a half-hearted attempt to do so?"
It's not the capital sum per se as the interest that accrue over time that will kill us !! Furthermore, as term loans (i.e. not indefinite loans), redemption date will creep up on us sooner or later and the loans will have to be repaid or rolled-over.
Do we want to repay the loan(s) as soon as possible or do we stretch out the repayment until we become a sub-prime Third-World country ??
Either way, this announced-again(??) sale of assets will not go very far in the repayment of the national debts and is just s flash-bang to distract us from the more lethal questions about when, where and how deep the cuts needed in order to regain international trust !!
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No 135 "Free the British people I say."
Fear not !! It shall soon come to pass !!
"Free British person with every packet of corn flakes !!"
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123. At 11:22pm on 12 Oct 2009, JadedJean wrote:
chrisrick13 (#101) I vote we give them Hendon as a sweetner! I reckon Mervyn King might second that! ;-)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
The hendonists would end up whaling at the Great whall of China in search for a circumnavigatable moby dick for their return passage
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Ahh I see ishkandar has decided that in the face of hopelessness we might as well have a few laughs, a touch of gallows humour?
I think in many ways any mention of "cuts" is quite a polarising subject. Obviously it is quite emotive for some, especially those who consider jobs to be a right.
A lot seems to come down to how you manage a service; is it what you spend on it, or what you get from it?
Effectiveness to me, as you will no doubt guess, is getting as much as you can for as little as you can.
btw: ishkander, do you have to feed these free British people? If so the cornflakes won't last long.
And as they say the nations greatest asset is its people, won't they try selling them first?
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Stephanie - please!
Asset sales do not "cut the deficit". They may help to finance the deficit but that is not the same thing at all.
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I note that the BBC Business section is now reporting that there is a 'fear' that the UK isn't out of recession after all in Q3. What price pound-euro parity by the end of November?
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They say that MPerror Near0 [in a previous lie]kick started his economy with a chariot scrappage scheme[2000 denari] because the honda factory in ancient Rome was suffering due to a glut of new charriots, later progressing to the main fiddle during his Roman house warming fundraising party afterwhich he congradulated himself for saving the world banking/credit system such as it then was from colapse
Remember history history history repeats itself .Bankers need schemes to destroy wealth since it gets in the way of their exponential credit multiplier meal tricket for life..
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Was the purrpose of Gordons asset sales to A] cut the deficit
b]finance the deficit c]i dont know and neither does Gordon
d]to get the "front line workers"[Gordons terrorcottage army] over the top and duped into voting/fighting for generrall Gordon of cartomb ,AAAlias the great leader
All answers on a postcard please and sent to labour GHQE'rs the first correct answer pulled out of the postbag will get the sender a lifetime pass to the nearest Labour camp
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#143.....3rd World Country...
I agree, but it's not maybe what you or I want, but what would happen.
So how about being forced to the IMF, make the nominal repayments in massively debased sterling whilst being forced into the Euro?
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So it was Gordon I saw nipping into Cash Converters last night.
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DistantTraveller (#133) "The irony is clearly lost on JJ."
Really? The irony is that neither you, John_from_Hendon, foredeckdave, stanilic etc have ever provided any evidence for your views, just nefarious argument, invective and abuse. You have all shown you are technically ignorant of the matters I have covered too.
I remain undecided as to whether all of my critics are genuinely ill-informed (aka useful idiots as Lenin termed them), or merely disingenously/perniciously politically motivated, as all of the above people are in fact empirically wrong. If I was sure that it wasn't merely well-intentioned ignorance, I would have been far more critical, as I seriously think that it's people such as yourselves who have collectively brought about the economic crisis which we are all now paying for, and will pay for for years to come.
It should concern everyone that empirical evidence, and how it hangs together, means absolutely nothing to people such as yourselves. It seems that if you don't like something (ironically, largely conditioned in the first place by late/post WWII Black propaganda), that suffices to persuade you to argue that it is 'wrong'.
However, sadly for you, what I have posted is factually correct as anyone following the links, and looking up independent data for themselves, will have found out. The question is, why have you not discovered this and changed what you post?
What you appear to be doing is the reverse of product endorsement, which also uses the ad hominem. You smear, and abuse and then have the audacity to say that I am doing that.
Masses are people have been, and continue to be, misled by people such as yourselves. They need to see it for what it is.
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THE GREAT BRITISH MUSHROOMS
ishakandar (#141) "A good dose of fuzzy logic might also come in handy since the logic behind all these statements, promises, pledges and/or commitments are very fuzzy indeed !!"
As they're nearly all heavily intensionally loaded, logic would be useless to make sense of the deluge of statements. However one looks at it, all of their talk to the public has, ipso facto, been spin, which means that the public really can not know what has been going on, if anything indeed has. All we can see is assets changing hands - a redistribution of wealth/power :-(
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mrsbloggs13c2 (#137) Nice post, although it would help if you provided links when reinforcing reports in the media.
For years we have created a culture which is biased towards positive spin and confidence boosting detached from empirical reality. That's celebritism and narcissism at work. It's the pernicious cognitive psychology of Hollywood, Madison Avenue and the Jewish media/PR industry in general. These are predators, and yet most people don't see their methods as the poison which it is. It is poison none the less, and largely because most people don't see it for what it is - essentially because they like it. :-(
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DistantTraveller
"you are of course right that these views need to be robustly refuted "
Can you explain why?
Can you define "racist"?
"Discrimination", the ability to categorise and group, is essential for scientific understanding. If you were a policy maker, a leader in this country, and you were told that the rate of HIV was increasing and all evidence showed that HIV increase was largely down to homosexual behaviour and African immigration (the case in the 80s during the rise of the HIV epidemic in the UK), what would you do?
Would you accept such evidence rather than dismiss it on racist grounds? Would you install screening measures at the borders? Would you target adverts at homosexuals?
No, of course you wouldn't. And neither did the government at the time. The result, as you now know, is wholesale death and misery all around the UK and a fortune wasted on expensive drugs.
Policies need to be based on a scientific understanding of society, which means analysis, grouping. The racism you have in mind is *lack of* scientific process - it is the poor monitoring of bias or *lack of it*.
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No 146 "Ahh I see ishkandar has decided that in the face of hopelessness we might as well have a few laughs, a touch of gallows humour?"
C'est moi !! C'est moi !! :-)
If we can't have a laugh, we'd be weeping and gnashing our teeth !!
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Addendum to 158 - "btw: ishkander, do you have to feed these free British people? If so the cornflakes won't last long."
Well, that rather depends on whether they've eaten the whole packet of cornflakes whilst they were in them !!
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Speaking of international confidence and trust -
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8304084.stm
The Chinese have confidence that the Russians will deliver to them all the gas and other products they want and the Russians have confidence that the Chinese Banks can lend them the money they need !!
This will boost the Russian economy and allow the Chinese to spend some of their reserves, probably from their stockpile of US$ assets and, thereby, reducing their dependence on the USD !!
If there's *REAL* international confidence that a country *CAN* produce the goods, then there is not need for any CUTS !! It is when there is no confidence that a country can produce anything tangible or intangible that is of any worth or value that will force that country to make deep cuts to reduce expenditure !!
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#133 DistantTraveller. Why don´t you take your own advice and actually refute, on a logical and reasoned basis, the writings of JJ. Sadly JJ is right in at least one respect - that respect being that the most vociferous critics respond with mere smears and insults.
You, and others, appear to be be behaving as though you believe Catch 22 to be a true story - your position being ominously reminiscent of Captain Black and his Great Loyalty Oath Crusade.
You mention Stalin and imply that anyone that sees anything positive in Stalin must be beyond the pale. Do you know that Stalin is either first or second in terms of "Great Russians" (even though he was not Russian) as nominated by the Russian population. Am I to conclude that you display naked racism toward Russians?
If you live in the UK then your government has made a full contribution to the "excess deaths" of over 1 million Iraqis. Why does that not elicit the same impassioned reaction from you?
Or could it be that what happens in far away lands to people of whom you know little is of no concern to you. Is that racism? or is it something worse? Whatever it is it is not edifying.
Do you hate women? If not, then why do you tolerate your democratically elected government welcoming the King of Saudi Arabia to the UK with the words that "our two cultures share many interests and values" This in the full knowledge that the KSA routinely imprisons female rape victims and throws women into burning buildings and to their deaths simply because they are not wearing appropriate headdress.
Whether you like it or not the thing about democracy is those words were uttered on your behalf.
Despite the best efforts of both racists and politically correct anti racists not everything is black and white.
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BankSlickerminustheR (#120) "I'm no JJ sycophant, I just accept her arguments on logic and fact alone. No one else has offered any other plausible explanation.
C'mon you fools, wake up and smell the coffee!"
That's not the way they operate - they will denigrate you or just ignore you if you highlight their behaviour for what it is. Most people won't wake up as they sense that if they do, it'll be to something unpleasant. People don't like to think they have been suckered.
Remember the OJ Simpson case, who defended him? Rational analysis and evidence doesn't work here. These people ignore or spin that, even if clear evidence is put in front of their faces. Their strategy is to use nefarious rhetoric to persuade/bully the unwary. Truth plays a very small part in their game, just as it does in the advertising and entertainment industry. It's nearly all attention-seeking theatre. They have to look good, they are after popular support, the less discriminating the better, hence all the extreme egalitarianism which is clearly at odds with the facts. It appeals, like the movie business, to child-like magical thinkers. Narcissistic preoccupied with appearance/image. Sadly, many of the foot-soldiers don't have any conception of their role in all this, any more than worker bees or ants do.
That's group politics alas. :-(
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#160 Ish
More interesting for me is : are those mainly gas for loan deals? if yes, are the loans issued in dollars, and are the loans repayable in dollars only or some other currency? If so which?
Given the numbers, what implications in the deal are there for the China/Russia's opinion of long-term prognosis for USD?
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Can we leave Jaded Jean's theories aside? I've accepted that he/she is of supreme intelligence and I'll never understand him/her. I look forward to the return of colonial rule over the fuzzy wuzzies, the removal of universal suffrage and the lumpen prolateriat when he or she becomes our supreme ruler.
* Removes tongue from cheek *
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Jaded Jean and Ishkandhar have raised questions about spin, fuzzy logic and even hopelessness in connection with summarising the political pledges to correct the current budget imbalance.
They do have a valid point about separating the New Labour Spin from PR Dave's press soundbites. Have the Lib Dems offered up any savings from their policy prescription?
Robert Chote and colleagues at the Institute of Fiscal Studies are normally very good at pulling together these numbers from the political pledges; separating the wheat from the chaff, the sheep from the goats; and the spin from the substance.
Ray Barrell from NIESR has also suggested a workman like way forward to bring the fiscal position back into line over the next few years. A comparison of his analysis against the various political pledges should shed some further light on the subject. It will be useful to know the level of economic reality attached to the political rhetoric, spin and soundbite.
Former US President Bill Clinton's political mantra, "Its the Economy Stupid" has never had greater resonance in the context of a UK General Election in recent living memory.
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GeoffK1874 (#164) "I look forward to the return of colonial rule over the fuzzy wuzzies, the removal of universal suffrage and the lumpen prolateriat when he or she becomes our supreme ruler."
How's your Mandarin/Cantonese?
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#166
Ying tong ying tong ying tong ying tong Ying tong iddle I po
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#166 - No matter how good it is, it would never be as good as yours...
Actually, you have to hand it to the Chinese. All those years of being humiliated by the British and the Japanese, and now they are having the last laugh.
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NEGATIVE REINFORCEMNET: PERHAPS NOT WHAT YOU THINK IT IS?
GeoffK1874 (#164) "Can we leave Jaded Jean's theories aside?"
1) They are not theories, they are empirical facts.
2) What else would you have others (like yourself) 'leave aside'? Hmmmm?
Your leaving_aside_ism might just be a good part of the problem (cynical, ill-informed, denial) which led to the Credit Crunch and much else besides. Have you ever thought about that?
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No 163 "More interesting for me is : are those mainly gas for loan deals? if yes, are the loans issued in dollars, and are the loans repayable in dollars only or some other currency? If so which?"
See the last part of the article. It said something about dealing in their own currency !!
"The countries are seeking to expand the amount of business they do in their own currencies, rather than the US dollar. However, currently only about 1% of their dealings involve roubles or yuan."
Very probably, the Russians will take the US$ from the Chinese and promptly trade them for some other currency, like the Euro, for instance.
It is no secret that many in Russia and China think that it is time for another, less national, currency to be made an international reserve currency. Currently, they think it should be the SDRs !! Treasury Secretary Geitner is fighting desperate rear-guard actions to try and keep the $ as an international currency. If many more countries start reducing their holdings of US$ debts, then the Americans have only tow possible avenues open to them.
(1) Insist that other countries take USD or not trade. This may result in the "not trade" option, in which case, the US economy will collapse.
(2) Redeem as much of their debt as possible. This will result in the US$ devaluing !!
The first avenue may be forced if the Gulf states form their own currency union, as had been reported elsewhere. They will then use their own currency which they can back with oil !! The East Asians have already accreted into a bloc known ASEAN+3 and a common currency deal is not that far fetched. After all, the Europeans had accreted some years ago and have a common currency - the Euro !! That leaves those tiny European Outer Islands still clinging to the quid that moves ever closer, day by day, to parity with the Euro !!
So, in the words of a Dylan song - The times, they are a-changing !!
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No 168 "All those years of being humiliated by the British and the Japanese, and now they are having the last laugh."
They also had some fun and games with the Mongols in the 14th century and again with the Manchus in the 17th to 20th centuries. In between, there were a few others like the Tibetans, Naimans, Jurchens, etc. That's what comes of being the richest country around !! Everyone wants a slice of that action !!
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#170 Ishkandar - You have forgotten the third option - WAR!!
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No 172 "You have forgotten the third option - WAR!!"
Since MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction), war is not an option !! It is suicide since that are more people against the US than for the US. The Americans had spent the last few decades losing friends and influencing people and, now, they will reap what they sowed !!
Despite their self-proclaimed "Monroe Doctrine", most of Central and South America have moved away from the American influence. The US has very little influence in Africa. Large parts of Asia detest the American bully-boy tactics !! The Europeans are busy building their own power base(s) !!
There is an old military adage - you can bomb the hell out of a piece of real estate but unless you can put an 18 year old with a rifle there *AND* keep him alive there, you don't own it !!
So how will war profit them ??
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8304028.stm
8 months ago, it was predicted that the quid will probably reach parity with the Euro by Christmas. It looks like things are well on the way there !! With a rising deficit and massive but largely unknown liabilities, foreign trust in the UK economy is evaporating like a snowflake in Hell !!
The most likely scenario is that, like the "pass the parcel" party game, nobody wants to be caught holding quids when the crunch comes. So they are liquidating their holdings ASAP !! Hence the fall in the value of the quid !!
Therefore, the urgency to not merely announce cuts but to announce them in a logical and practical manner that all can see they will work !! Otherwise, the quid will keep on sliding and may fall *below* the Euro by Christmas !! For the short term, it might be a good thing for Europeans to come to Britain for their Christmas shopping but, in the longer term, re-stocking after Christmas will be a nightmare !! Watch out for more bankruptcies around March or April !!
And if the jingoists have their way and keep banging the drum about reneging on loans, this might happen even faster !!
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Addendum to 174 - How to lose friends and influence people -
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8303517.stm
Russia has refused to join America in bullying Iran into submission !! Perhaps if America spent more time having dialogues and less time issuing dictats, they might actually win some more friends and have a positive influence on the USD !!
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ishkandar (#175) Agreed. What I suspect has happened in post war years is that White gentile Europeans (modelled on the denazification programme against the Germans after WWII) have been terrorised (modelled on the denazification programme against the Germans after WWII - it began with The Morgenthau Plan) by a Jewish intellectual elite, in pursuit of political/economic hegemony (Wall Street, Hollywood, The City of London). European Whites are this group's main rival given the size of this ethnic group and its mean IQ.
Black, Hispanic, S. Asian Americans/Europeans are not a threat to them because of these groups' lower mean IQs and smaller numbers in the population. In recent times, however, Muslims have been turned into perceived 'terrorists', in the eyes of gentile Europeans, as they are a threat to Jewish hegemony economically because of Islam's anti-usury, which is non coincidental given the past Soviet and Russian historical support for Arab states and Central Asian republics.
What they did not factor in was the inscrutable PRC? ;-)
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#173 Ishkandar. War is a very profitable business for the elites. There already is war, and there will be more of it. As the economy deteriorates they may even think Iran is too small for their purposes and jump straight to Pakistan. You have been warned.
#176 Jadedjean. What on earth are you on about now. No-one has ever terrorized me, nor have they terrorized anyone that I know. I agree that pretty much everyone has been beaten over the head by the financial oligarchs - but that is a long way from being terrorized.
I guess it is a state of mind. Maybe you should free your mind - works for me.
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armagediontimes (#177) "I guess it is a state of mind. Maybe you should free your mind - works for me."
You delude yourself, but then, most of us do that to some extent or another ;-)
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No 177 "War is a very profitable business for the elites. There already is war, and there will be more of it. As the economy deteriorates they may even think Iran is too small for their purposes and jump straight to Pakistan. You have been warned."
Well, yes, until the whole edifice crumbles around their ears !! Ask Albert Speer !!
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8306013.stm
CUTS !! SALE OF ASSETS !! Why not combine the two and sell off all those education quangos ?? At least the teachers can have a better chance of doing what they are supposed to do - teach !!
This trend had been noticed when many children and adults cannot do simple arithmetic without resorting to a calculator or taking off their socks and shoes !!
To think we were taught base 12 and base 16 arithmetic in my day !!
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Its not £16bn for reducing debt - the actual amount for that is just £3bn because local authorities will be able to keep the money
As ever with Brown the devil is in the detail !
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Sounds to me like a government in trouble during a recession being tempted in to selling off the silverware while it is undervalued. Who will buy it and make a mint out of it when the economy recovers, the very banks that are at least partially responsible for landing us in this mess in the first place. Hold on to our state controlled assetts and if required sell them off when they reflect true value when the economy recovers. Dont make the mistake again that was made when the government flogged off our gold reserves on the cheap.
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