Is Gordon Brown an economic illiterate?

grubby23

Hi,

I am not a economist, however, I think GB is even in his field of expertise - which is apparently the economy - quite clueless. He was saying in the last TV debate that he wants to keep inflation low with low interest rates. How on earth should that work? Hasn't he noticed the inflated property and stock market prices over the last decade thanks to the low interest rate.

This guy is a liability for UK Ltd and I am still surprised that 1/3 of the population consider voting for such a clueless man.

Malcolm.

grubby23 wrote: »

This guy is a liability for UK Ltd and I am still surprised that 1/3 of the population consider voting for such a clueless man.

Nothing surprises me... I'm a scientist. (slight alteration of an Indiana Jones quote)

StevieJ

grubby23 wrote: »

Hi,

I am not a economist, however, I think GB is even in his field of expertise - which is apparently the economy - quite clueless. He was saying in the last TV debate that he wants to keep inflation low with low interest rates. How on earth should that work? Hasn't he noticed the inflated property and stock market prices over the last decade thanks to the low interest rate.

This guy is a liability for UK Ltd and I am still surprised that 1/3 of the population consider voting for such a clueless man.

Maybe not but I bet he has noticed the modest annual RPI increases over the past decade compared to the not so distant past

Sapphire

grubby23 wrote: »

Hi,

I am not a economist, however, I think GB is even in his field of expertise - which is apparently the economy - quite clueless. He was saying in the last TV debate that he wants to keep inflation low with low interest rates. How on earth should that work? Hasn't he noticed the inflated property and stock market prices over the last decade thanks to the low interest rate.

This guy is a liability for UK Ltd and I am still surprised that 1/3 of the population consider voting for such a clueless man.

Totally agree. I think the man is self-delusional – he may even believe in his own propaganda, which is frightening. He will say anything to say in power (which is also scary).

As for the British public – well, they will get what they deserve.

In a way I hope labour do stay in power. They've created a horrendous mess in this once-great country and they should clear it up themselves, rather than leaving it for other parties to take the blame when the whole artificially propped up pack of cards comes crashing down.

wymondham

Not sure .... his problem though is he can't seem to entertain the idea that he might not be right all the time ....

chucky

Sapphire wrote: »

Totally agree. I think the man is self-delusional – he may even believe in his own propaganda, which is frightening. He will say anything to say in power (which is also scary).

As for the British public – well, they will get what they deserve.

In a way I hope labour do stay in power. They've created a horrendous mess in this once-great country and they should clear it up themselves, rather than leaving it for other parties to take the blame when the whole artificially propped up pack of cards comes crashing down.

don't worry we've big David Cameron to stroll in and sort the country out.
Osborne and him know what they're doing

grubby23

The problem is that the RPI and CPI inflation indices are obviously fixed to hide the real
inflation figures. But in some way you need to pay respect to GB for b*llsh*ting a whole nation with wrong unemployment and inflation numbers, he seems to have the right skills for individual success

grubby23

chucky wrote: »

don't worry we've big David Cameron to stroll in and sort the country out.
Osborne and him know what they're doing

they can't be worse than Brown and Darling, can they?

amcluesent

>In a way I hope labour do stay in power.<

This is Dave's tragedy. He'll 'win' but on the terms set by Clown, immediately inheriting Labour's scorched earth, deliberately created to ensnare a one-term Tory administration (as in 1979).

Just wait for the remaining Labour MPs to, as one, start weeping and wailing about the poor and disadvantaged in society, and how it's all too, too wicked.

Unless Dave get's his own Falklands Factor voters will only remember the austerity measures and we'll be run by a Fabian/EU nomenklatura from 2014 until...well forever!

hugheskevi

Is Gordon Brown an economic illiterate?

Most of the things he says/does have some merit, depending on your economic beliefs. In economics, there is rarely a right or wrong.

My biggest problem with his brand of economics is that he seems incapable of seeing a long-term picture. Brown reminds me of a very naive investor, who doesn't know very much and so makes a series of very poor decisions chasing the market, selling low and buying high for no particular purpose.

At no point did that investor make a coherent plan, but when someone points that out to them they will not accept it, saying they did exactly what everyone else had done, and how could they have known what would happen?

Brown is just the same, albeit on a much bigger scale. My biggest fear is that one of the key things that everybody knows is that our society is ageing rapidly. In the future there will be many more older folk to support. That is the big picture, which would determine that your overall strategy should be to save, ideally building up a war chest so we can manage the dramatic effects of the ageing population over the next 30 years. But no, we do the exact opposite as we lurch from short term reacton to short term reaction and take our eye off the bigger goal.

The same applies to our energy industry and future power generation, and just about anything else that requires thought about the long-term.

amcluesent

Clown is like every other socialist, eventually running out of other people's money.

His one economic trick was to encourage HPI in the South East so peeps was deluded they were 'rich' while Clown frittered away £££ BILIONS on the idle underclass, public sector and foreigners. Not 1p was put aside to fix the roof while the sun shone!