"Apologise ?, Get Real"- Quote from Brown at 30,000 feet.

Generali

Wookster wrote: »

Is there a single Labour government that hasn't ended in a nightmare?

UK Labour Govenments:

1924: Ramsey MacDonald became PM despite the Tories having the most seats and votes as he had the support of the Liberals. The Government was brought down by making a foolish decision about perhaps prosecuting and then later not prosecuting a communist.

1929-31: Minority Government. PM (MacDonald) resigned his Government but stayed on as PM. AIUI MacDonald was the class traitor without equal.

1945 - 51: Atlee was the first PM to win an election as Labor PM. He won in 1950 and was forced to go to the country again in 1951. He lost.

1964 - 70: Wilson won. Possibly the best (of a very bad bunch) of Labour leaders. Smoked a pipe.

1974-1979 Wilson won in the midst of an oil crisis and coal miners' strike. Resigned due to ill health at about the time the IMF was asked to bail out the UK Government. Was replaced by Jim Callaghan who could (?) have won a 1978 election but never called it. A union uprising did for Callaghan. Dead bodies couldn't be burried, rubbish went uncollected, the electricity went off all the time. It was horrible, truly horrible.

1997 - 20xx I think you can write this yourself. The horrific ending is likely to be worse than ever before though

bendix

jay3 wrote: »

Also, don't discount the huge dampening effect of:

a) the slanted electoral system we "enjoy" in the UK - i.e. unless you happen to live in a marginal seat, it isn't worth voting
b) the lack of a credible alternative that is visibly different from the current govt. You still can't get a water biscuit between most of the policies of GBrown and "call me Dave".

We live in a global economy. In that regard the political make-up of our government is irrelevant as regards economic management. Governments can shape social policy etc, but when it comes to the economy they are at the whims of global economic forces, largely itself fuelled by the ever-changing vagaries of consumer behavious.

Brown has no need to apologise. Similarly, he had no right to claim credit when things were better. Neither had anything to do with him or his policies. Frankly, you could have put a monkey in the role and the end result would have been the same.

chewmylegoff

bendix wrote: »

We live in a global economy. In that regard the political make-up of our government is irrelevant as regards economic management. Governments can shape social policy etc, but when it comes to the economy they are at the whims of global economic forces, largely itself fuelled by the ever-changing vagaries of consumer behavious.

Brown has no need to apologise. Similarly, he had no right to claim credit when things were better. Neither had anything to do with him or his policies. Frankly, you could have put a monkey in the role and the end result would have been the same.

i dunno, the govt certain can completely screw things up regardless of the "global economy". For instance, when house prices get out of control, and are obviously too high, you start cutting interest rates just to make sure they really go nuts.

bendix

But that's a classic example of what I mean. The government no longer is able to make these economic decisions (cutting interest rates) autonomously because we a part of a global economy. The decisions to cut interest rates in the UK - irrespective of the impact they have domestically - were largely driven as a result of global economic trends. As part of the global economy, those trends can't be ignored. They had no choice; the forces unleashed by tens of millions of Chinese factory workers producing cheap crap, unleashed by tens of millions of yanks and brits wanting cheap crap etc etc, are far too powerful to allow a UK chancellor or central banker to have any power.

Jennifer_Jane

Which specific countries constitute this global economy, bendix? I ask because I have posted ad nauseum the effect of the US/UK exporting recession to the developing countries. The lack of regulation (or rather the allowance of greed and gambling within the US/UK banking sector) have led to a global recession. But, make no mistake, it did not start anywhere except US/UK.

Jen
x

bendix

All of them Jennifer. By definition, it's a composite of every country.

Your argument that the lack of regulation in the UK/US banking sector led to a global recession is a bit simplistic. It is PART of the picture, but all historical events can causally be traced back to the beginning of time - if that didnt happen, this wouldnt have happened, which means that would be different etc etc.

It's no doubt banking lapses have played a part, but which comes first - bankers lending too much money in bad debts, or too many bad debters asking to borrow too much money they can't afford? And why did they want to borrow? To buy cheaper goods produced in Asia which were able to be imported because of lower duties, and which in turn created a new middle class in China and India desperate to share the world's wealth, thus feeding the consumerism bubble etc etc . . . None of these things happen INDEPENDENTLY of each other . . they are all part of the inexorable march of history.

Even if banks were tighter with money, consumers would have found ways to finance their extravagance. Once the world's consumers can see what lives they can have, even if they can't afford it, there is no damning that demand.

Blame many things. Individual's greed and irresponsibility. Mass media. Neo-Thatcherite attempts to enrichen the working class. The Chinese revolution. The rise of technology. All of those things have played a part. The banks are a cog in a much bigger machine.

bendix

Just to add a point. I have worked for the last five years in Thailand, and travelled to Indonesia, Philippines, Japan etc etc for all that time. All, now, are facing recession. Some are importing recession, but only because they originally imported economic growth through being manufacturing bases for western companies - what they benefited from, they now suffer from too. Thailand has grown enormously in recent years, based on tourism and being seen as the Detroit of Asia and a hub for car manufacturing. Both have imported prosperity from the West, so they will too import recession.

But the impact will be less than in the west because the things that havent been affected by importing economic conditions similarly hasnt affected their culture - a buddhist sense of self-reliance, backed up by a strong sense of community.

In bad times, all the millions of migrant workers who swarm into the cities in good times, simply go home and live off the land and their families.

Unfortunately, that aspect has been broken in the west. We rely too much on our creature comforts which we believe are our right.

Jennifer_Jane

Bendix - your foreign perspective is Asian, mine is African (and I have an interest in Africa, as I get a pension from there): here is (and I agree it is simple, and possibly simplistic, but it is a local African perspective) an extract from the South African budget speech (and apologies as this is the 3rd time I've posted this).

A global economic crisis
The global economy is experiencing a sharp downturn, spreading from developed to
developing countries. Its origins lie in macroeconomic imbalances of an unprecedented
scale. An accumulation of debt by firms and households in some countries has been
matched by an extraordinary rise in export earnings and savings in other regions.
Behind these flows are millions of savers and lenders, linked through a financial
architecture of such complexity that neither accounting standards nor regulatory
oversight have served their intended purposes: prudential banking rules have been
overwhelmed by folly and fraud, masquerading as financial innovation.
This is a cycle that has played itself out periodically – economic historian Karl Polanyi,
sixty-five years ago, provided a classic account of how a utopian faith in self-regulation
has led repeatedly to exuberances of this kind in the rise and fall of market economies.
The consequences are felt everywhere. If the balance sheet of a bank shrinks, its
capacity to lend is eroded. If its lending is curtailed, businesses and households have
to reduce their spending. If demand falls in Birmingham, factories close in Beijing. If
production lines in China slow, demand for commodities from Africa dries up. The
vegetable shop next to the mine closes, and the drivers of the delivery vehicles are
asked to work short time, on half pay, and if the driver cannot pay his mortgage, the
bank forecloses on his bond, and the bank writes down its balance sheet again...
When a global motor company cuts back on making cars, it cancels its orders for
catalytic converters. Madam Speaker, this firm making catalytic converters is not in
Detroit or in Shanghai, it is here in the Eastern Cape. The mine producing the platinum
that goes into that converter is near Rustenburg. The worker in the factory in Uitenhage
and the mineworker in Rustenburg are now without work. And the woman who runs the
little stall selling vegetables outside the mine is making less money each passing week.
And their families, all of them, face a future made more precarious by the vagaries of
global finance.

This describes the exporting of recession to developing countries and the impact. You may say that it's all fine because they imported the good times and have rural homes to go to. I think that that is highly simplistic, and is not actually correct - in the good times poor people struggled a bit less, and have not built up the resources to be able to easily ride the bad times.

I agree that we rely on our creature comforts which we believe are our right - yes they are, and that's how we maintain our standards and our democracies.

jay3_2

Jen, I like this line particularly - it sums up very succinctly what I think is at the heart of the doctrine that has led us (and as you say, most of the world by association/consequence) to disaster:

"a utopian faith in self-regulation
has led repeatedly to exuberances of this kind in the rise and fall of market economies."

Whichever government takes over here and in the US must learn this lesson. But would I bet on it staying learnt?...nope

Generali

jay3 wrote: »

Jen, I like this line particularly - it sums up very succinctly what I think is at the heart of the doctrine that has led us (and as you say, most of the world by association/consequence) to disaster:

"a utopian faith in self-regulation
has led repeatedly to exuberances of this kind in the rise and fall of market economies."

Whichever government takes over here and in the US must learn this lesson. But would I bet on it staying learnt?...nope

Who's been self regulating? The banking sector is one of the most highly regulated sectors of the economy.