Economy at 60-year low, says Darling. And it will get worse

Mac_Sami

Generali wrote: »

Is Alistair Darling really saying that the economy is in a worse state than in the time of Cripps and austerity?

1948 was a time of rationning of food, clothing and coal. Competitors had to take their own towels to the Olympics in London as the organisers couldn't afford to provide them! Unemployment more than quadrupled in a couple of years.

If times ahead are going to be worse than 1948 then we'll have bread riots.

I have my doubts quite frankly. I think he's trying to soften people up by saying things are going to be absolutely terrible and then hoping that they'll be grateful that things are only very bad.

A much better comment than my off the cuff remarks I just posted!

I seriously hope we don't have a repeat of that, though (or today's equivalent). Clearly times ahead are going to be difficult.

Mac_Sami

tomstickland wrote: »

Oops, I just started another thread on this.

I'd assumed that the miracle economy had waved goodbye to boom and bust. Sadly, it turns out that it was just a much longer boom that will lead to a bigger bust.

Spot on - and how many people have I heard say over the last decade or so that boom or bust hadn't gone... and we thought they were crazy saying that:rotfl: - well now we know why!

BettiePage

Wasn't the uk on the verge of bankruptcy after the war 60 years ago?

fc123

ultra10 wrote: »

At last a bit of honesty !!! bt many of us on these boards have been saying this for many many months !!.... This will not be a recession more a depression !!! .... The great property crash of 2008 is well under way !!

Although there is a lot of realism on this board, I still get the feeling that some believe that it is ONLY property prices that will crash.....but a lot of other stuff is beginning to crumble too....the effects won't show up for a while.

I'm really grateful that we started our personal recession 3 and half yrs back......as I am seeing a lot of people in Real life Land only just waking up to what is ahead. Some still believe it is only a blip, some are picking up a bit of debt after many debt free years 'until things get back to normal'.

The biggest failure of this govt is the fact that a sizeable chunk of the population don't do anything as it's better for some to be on benefits than take low paid work.....which could develop into higher paid work at some point. This isn't a dig at any claimants on here as everyone has different circumstances........just an observation from personal experience of some that I have known.

The fall out in my sector is going to be big and it's not just the rubbish businesses that will fail, good ones will get dragged down too.

Thank goodness for Internet Land....my e-tail thingy looks like it will keep us above water for a time.

tonyE1

My guess is that he is trying to put pressure on the MPC for a rate cut ( next decision is this week ), as the MPC member was arguing for too, earlier in the week. If they don't and things get really bad he will lay the blame at their door. He's probably hoping that by taking action now the bottom will be sooner and less severe. No doubt he will tell the BoE they are interpretting their remit incorrectly as an aside.

dopester

BettiePage wrote: »

Wasn't the uk on the verge of bankruptcy after the war 60 years ago?

Before lend-lease came in, the Americans wisely relieved us of much of our gold. (G Brown has gotten rid of quite a lot of what we restocked with a few years back.) The US ships came in to ports around the world where we had gold in vaults and whisked it away, which the Germans didn't fail to capitalise on our increasing financial weakness in their propaganda.

A memory-malfunction makes me forget the name of the aid package the US gave us (and Europe) financially after the war. We've only just finished paying the loan we took out back to the US, but to be honest, we got a great deal, as it was such low interest, that the US practically gave us the money.

Generali

BettiePage wrote: »

Wasn't the uk on the verge of bankruptcy after the war 60 years ago?

Yup. The Uk got a £1,000,000,000 loan from the US Government to consolidate war debts, loan lease etc as a part of a wider aid package to Europe called the Marshall Plan, the idea of which was that successful European economies wouldn't turn to communism and would be handy export markets for US goods. IMO the Marshall Plan is the single most successful interventionist economic policy followed by any government at any time.

The Atlee Government then started a disastrous program of nationalisation (about 20% of the UK economy was brought into Government ownership and it was usually illegal to compete with nationalised firms). By 1948 the country was on its knees again - rationning was made stricter on many things such as food, clothing and coal than it had been in the war. I think beer was rationned for the first time too (not sure about that last one).

When the Labour Government was finally got rid of in 1951, they would be in the wilderness for 13 years. When they finally got back in they were then responsible for the economic disaster that was the late 60s and 1970s.

mystic_trev

So what he's saying is the Economy is [EMAIL="f@cked............or"]f@cked............or[/EMAIL] completety f@cked!

StevieJ

Oh no, were not on this one now, paint it Jet Black and when the Economy naturally picks up around shall we say 2010, take all the credit, Shameless.

neverdespairgirl

Generali wrote: »

I remember reading the local paper in Lewisham a few years back and some woman had written a letter saying how appalling it was that there were some nettles where her son kicked a ball about and how the council should do something about it because she was a single mum (I have no idea what her marital status had to do with her ability to deal with stinging nettles).

I managed to cut down some nettles last weekend - but then, maybe having an OH (who had taken Isaac swimming, so wasn't actually there) makes all the difference?