The good ship HMS UK - Parliament no longer at the helm?

lukekelly_2

beaujolais-nouveau wrote: »

And Obama has not given out this money in the same way that Bush did (with billions of "pork barrel" to sweeten the Republicans).

Have you glanced at any report on the US bailout bill? It's the most pork-stuffed bill yet written! This isn't surprising as he delegated most of the writing of the bill to congressmen, but is true nonetheless. If you are going to criticise Brown for his numerous failings you should at least hold others up to the same standards and by those standards Obama is extremely similar. There's a good argument that since the start of the new US administration they've done very badly with the banks. Its main policy announcement on the financial crisis was the Geithner press conference, where he essentially announced that the new administration had no better ideas than the Bush administration on how to fix the banks.

The American economy is vastly larger than that of the UK.

The US government expenditure on propping up its banking sector has been proportionally larger than that in the UK.

baileysbattlebus

beaujolais-nouveau wrote: »

The American economy is vastly larger than that of the UK. And Obama has not given out this money in the same way that Bush did (with billions of "pork barrel" to sweeten the Republicans).

It needs to be, the banks' debts are vastly larger too - the US government has so far pledged and spent $9.7 trillion

enough to give every man, woman and child in the world a cheque for $1430.

It's probably gone up since this article was written

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=washingtonstory&sid=aGq2B3XeGKok

Wookster

slipthru wrote: »

Don't you thing the tories would be just as far up the banker's @rses though?

I'm sure they would, but they will at least be more fiscally prudent and it will take sometime for them to become as arrogant and contemptuous as the current bunch are.

kabayiri

I think we can safely say that America is in the mire and so are we. It seems pointless discussing levels of 'mired-ness'.

Just for once, though, I wish one of our esteemed politico leaders would treat us with an ounce of respect, and tell us the truth. We deserve that at least.

The recent Lloyds support deal is equivalent to 1p on income tax for the next 12 years alone. When expressed like that, I think people will realise the depth of the problem, and appreciate it will take a long time to repay these debts.

lukekelly_2

If you want others to speak the truth then you should try to avoid giving such misleading financial figures. Your "1p on income tax" statement only holds if you make the highly dubious assumption that every single insured debt will fail, a statement as misleading as anything the government has come out with. In this kind of situation "truth" means comprehensive assessment of a reasonable range of plausible outcomes, not unqualified statements about worst-case scenarios.

kabayiri

Luke, I stand corrected. I grant you may see a return on these investments. But it is also a risk.

But, it is important to describe our financial commitment in terms people can understand, isnt it? It's the equivalent notion of the US tax dollar.

mewbie_2

beaujolais-nouveau wrote: »

until 2000 Zimbabwe was "the breadbasket" of Africa?

Now basket case.

macaque_2

agent_orange wrote: »

You've got yourself under the illusion that a vote every 4-5 years makes this
country democratic

And when it comes to the election, we can vote for leprosy or aids.

beaujolais-nouveau

lukekelly wrote: »

Have you glanced at any report on the US bailout bill? It's the most pork-stuffed bill yet written! This isn't surprising as he delegated most of the writing of the bill to congressmen, but is true nonetheless.

Would you like to give some examples, to make sure that we are both using the same definition of pork barrel. This is from Bush's (Paulson) pork barrel stuffed Wall Street bail-out:

A provision repealing a 39-cent excise tax on wooden arrows designed for children.

Hundreds of millions of dollars of tax incentives for companies that invest on Indian reservations, in the District of Columbia, and American Samoa.

A research tax credit worth about $8.3 billion a year for companies such as Microsoft Corp. and Harley-Davidson Inc., and subsidies for the overseas financial services earnings of U.S.-based multinational corporations such as General Electric Co. and Citigroup Inc.

Other breaks would subsidize renovations of restaurant franchises and cut import duties on wool and wood.

http://www.knx1070.com/List-of-some--Pork-Barrel--items-on-bailout-bill/3070196

Doesn't it seem odd to see Microsoft benefiting from a bank bailout?

lukekelly_2

5) Mystery Meat. It's hard to know just how much pork there is in the stimulus package for one simple reason: We still don't know how exactly a huge chunk of it will be spent. A whopping $144 billion from the bill is flowing directly to state and local governments. That means the true amount of pork will depend on the priorities of your governors, legislatures, and mayors. The best guesses for what this money will be spent on might be in a list of "ready-to-go" projects released by the U.S. Conference of Mayors in January, dubbed the "Main Street Economic Recovery." Some of the most outlandish of these projects -- such as an $886,000 36-hole disc golf course in Austin, Texas -- won't be allowed to receive stimulus dollars because the bill explicitly says that none of its funds can be used for "any casino or other gambling establishment, aquarium, zoo, golf course, or swimming pool."
But a prohibition on funding toward any "stadium, community park, museum, theater, art center, and highway beautification project" was dropped from the final version of the bill. That means that many other porky projects from the U.S. Conference of Mayors report are open to get money. That includes $150 million for parking improvements at a Little League facility in Cidra, Puerto Rico, and $6 million for a "snowmaking and maintenance facility" at Spirit Mountain ski area in Duluth, Minnesota.

US News.

I don't find it strange that a research tax credit benefits companies doing research. It would have been a worse bill, and even more prone to absurd pork-barrel spending, if it had subsided research at only a select list of companies. I'm not going to defend the quantity of pork-barrel spending in that bill either, it was of course awful. But even if you give Obama the benefit of the doubt and believe that he is prepared to use some of his political capital to oppose such spending you are still going to see little real change unless something fundamental is changed with Congress and the Senate. Whilst they receive votes for obtaining such spending they are going to continue to do so. The larger the bill, the more pork there is.