Is the recession really Brown's fault?

JayScottGreenspan

What about voting Lib Dem?

First, the British authorities are required, in any event, to monitor the capital adequacy - the cash reserves - of the banking system under international (Basel) agreements.

These obligations could be turned into an active instrument of policy by quarantining cash held by mortgage lenders in periods of market overheating and relaxing requirements in periods of serious market turndown.

Samuel Brittain has endorsed this approach: requiring mortgage lenders to place variable special deposits with the Bank of England. A similar approach to intervention is already taken in respect of equity markets where the regulator (the FSA) has applied flexibility to the "resilience test" (of reserves) in the insurance sector in order to prevent unnecessary technical selling.

Second, the Financial Service Authority already has a role regulating individual mortgage lenders. Its remit should include systematically reining back the more reckless institutions (Northern Rock is an example) which are operating on dangerously high loan to asset ratios. Revised Basel requirements will in fact, set levels of prudent credit for industrial lenders, and these requirements could be anticipated.

There would need to be an analytical basis for making decisions on when to intervene; the Monetary Policy Committee or a separate asset valuation committee in the Bank of England (as recommended by John Calverly of Amex) would study trends in asset prices and seek to judge reasonable ranges beyond which warnings, and then intervention, would be called for.

Vince Cable, Jan 2003

Wookster

Generali wrote: »

S&P/Moodys should be disbanded. No credit rating agencies would be better than the current system.

I suspect credit rating agencies will be subject to the same sort of guidelines that accountants and auditors are.

Bit late though.

housesitter

JayScottGreenspan wrote: »

What about voting Lib Dem?

Kodos (a space alien): It’s true, we are aliens. But what are you going to do about it? It’s a two-party system; you have to vote for one of us.

Man: He’s right; this is a two-party system.

Homer: Well, I believe I’ll vote for a third-party candidate.

Kang (also a space alien): Go ahead! Throw your vote away!

Treehouse of Horror VII - The Simpsons

mower5

I think there is an arguement to say that the challenge of the City of London to take pre-eminence in the world financial system away from New York created a dog eat dog hyper-capitilism that demanded (and still does) the deregulation of financial products and the mad bonus system for the masters of the universe. This competition led to the crazy alchemmy of turning rubbish american debts into "valuable" assets. Just think about all those defunct demutualised ex-building society that went on mad expansion policies based on foreign magic debt/assets and selling mortgages to those with a pulse.

Brown encouraged the city because they paid for the later part of his chancellorship, he depended on them to see him into the PMship. The city whizkids are Browns babies because he designed the regulatory system that failed in 2002 by not controlling the banks.

Brown should resign for failing the country as chancellor and now as PM, allow Labour to elect a new leader then call a general election.

JayScottGreenspan

housesitter wrote: »

Kodos (a space alien): It’s true, we are aliens. But what are you going to do about it? It’s a two-party system; you have to vote for one of us.

Man: He’s right; this is a two-party system.

Homer: Well, I believe I’ll vote for a third-party candidate.

Kang (also a space alien): Go ahead! Throw your vote away!

Treehouse of Horror VII - The Simpsons

It's funny because it's true.

Actually, a couple of aliens in Cameron and Brown skinsuits would probably be an improvement.

Sir_Humphrey

JayScottGreenspan wrote: »

It's funny because it's true.

Actually, a couple of aliens in Cameron and Brown skinsuits would probably be an improvement.

I have just had visions of Margaret Thatcher bursting out of Tony Blair's chest.

EDIT: Actually, evil space aliens would probably be preferable to Ross Perot!

MrFonzerelli

matthewcb wrote: »

I'm no economist, but it seems to me boom and bust is the natural cycle of things. Greed overtakes fear, followed by the reversal of this in due course.
It's therefore incredibly arrogant surely to assume you've single handedly abolished this phenomenon surely?
Brown must certainly shoulder a large part of the responsibility then. Of course, he'll go to his grave denying it...

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.” Joseph Goebbels

This is the motto of political spin.

StevieJ

Snooze wrote: »

:rolleyes:



So you'll all be voting Labour in the upcoming election then, seeing as Brown is so innocent in all this according to you?

Rob :rolleyes:

Put it this way, I will not be having a bet on the Tories

tomstickland

Rochdale_Pioneers wrote: »

I will be voting Labour, yes.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/feb/10/hazel-blears-george-monbiot

Do you support ID cards?

Snooze

tomstickland wrote: »

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/feb/10/hazel-blears-george-monbiot

Do you support ID cards?

Amongst many other issues that Labour get me mad over, the ID card thing literally gets me spitting blood. :mad: Clearly Rochdale Pioneer would be happy to have CCTV installed in every room of his house. :rolleyes:

Rob