IMF says Britain must relax austerity if eurozone crisis escalates

nickj_2

what ever happens , it's clear that no govt has got a scooby doo of how to get out of the mire other than throwing more money that they haven't got , can afford and seems to have absolutely no effect

The_J

grizzly1911 wrote: »

Agreed but most small businesses fail don't they?

The problem is, when you take an analogy literally, you end up looking like a retard.

Please try to avoid that in the future.

Imagine if I responded with, "Agreed, but what if the person who owned the business won the lottery. Then put all their winnings on black and won again. Then put all those winnings on trap 3 at the greyhounds and won again. Then the debt would be paid off"

StevieJ

Apparently Lagarde shivers at the thought of where our finances would be without the deficit reduction I thought we hadn't cut anything yet, according to some on here anyway

Joe_Bloggs

Posturing with steadfast tones is what is Expected from Merv an George.
The UK can't afford Plan B as it would clash with with the musician /actor/director Plan B. He would easily win in court.

I think we should have some X-factor style economic programme show.
Plan X is my suggestion.
J_B.

oldvicar

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Could we have negative rates?

A rate cut would be down to 0%, no point in doing 0.25%. So could we go further and go negative?

In a world first Sweden's Riksbank offered negative overnight deposit rates for a while in 2009/10.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/5d3f0692-9334-11de-b146-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1vf1jxVQd

http://www.riksbank.se/en/Interest-and-exchange-rates/Repo-rate-table/

In 1992 Sweden's (mortgage?) rates also briefly hit 500%.

http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-1025624.html

Those crazy Swedes really know how to pull those interest rate levers! Not sure what good it does them, but they do have a decent standard of living.

Before anyone starts arguing that "The Swedish Model" (high taxation and high public spending) is the answer, remember how when their Prime Minister was assassinated they were completely shocked and incredulous that such a thing could happen in this Nirvana they had created.

Fella

What austerity?

homelessskilledworker

N1AK wrote: »

What people who parrot this incessantly seem to ignore is that simply avoiding recession isn't the only consideration.

If you borrow £50,000 and re-mortgage you can spend widely for a couple of years (avoiding recession) but you've just dug yourself a bigger hole to climb out of in the end.

Nicely summed up labour policy in good and bad times, which is borrow today and worry about it tomorrow. I can fully understand why Cameron and Osborne annoy so many people, but their austerity cuts are not as nearly as bad as they could have been.
For those that are agreeing with that ambitious power hungry !!!!!! Ed Balls want to take a visit to Greece, Spain, Ireland or Italy to name just a few, that is what I call real painful austerity cuts as opposed to our own gentle cuts.

RenovationMan

N1AK wrote: »

What people who parrot this incessantly seem to ignore is that simply avoiding recession isn't the only consideration.

If you borrow £50,000 and re-mortgage you can spend widely for a couple of years (avoiding recession) but you've just dug yourself a bigger hole to climb out of in the end.

What people who parrot this incessantly seem to ignore is that if you borrow £50,000 and re-mortgage you can invest wisely for a couple of years and end up with a profit on the borrowing.

crash123

RenovationMan wrote: »

What people who parrot this incessantly seem to ignore is that if you borrow £50,000 and re-mortgage you can invest wisely for a couple of years and end up with a profit on the borrowing.

you have to know how to invest wisely the majority don`t.

michaels

So let's suppose we do end up needing a fiscal boost, what is the best leaver to use? Vat does it help the poorest most and boost spending the most and is the sort of consumption spending the most beneficial for the economy? How about another stamp duty holiday or infrastructure investment or is the lead time on this too long?