IMF says Britain must relax austerity if eurozone crisis escalates

FTBFun

ILW wrote: »

The austerity cuts are a result of gross overspending, which was made possible (but not obligatory) by being in the Euro. Countries like Greece really only have themselves to blame.

Plus - in Greece's case - endemic tax evasion.

Conrad

The_J wrote: »

As it is we will disappear into the abyss.

I'm Tory, but I have to say your'e glass is looking a little halve full.

We will pull through this, the tanker is already turning and the economy rebalancing.
Don't loose sight fo the fact we still proportionally create more inovations and new technologies than anywhere else.

Rebalancing is a bit painfull, but we will do it.

There is vast private wealth in the country, often not readily apparant in official statistics.

Try booking a decent villa holliday in the summer holls. Everything decent is largely booked - millions of villas all booked, all very costly. I realise there is oversupply in parts of Spain though.

So many of our neighbours have more than one property - just a typcial Southern neighbourhood, not out the ordinary. Many have masses of rent rolling in as the mortgages are often on silly 1% rates.

Even the local small pet store owner just bought a £700k house, and he owns others, just a completely normal typcial bloke, nowhere near as well off as many.

We were in Chepstow and Monmouth recently - even out there loads and loads of £1m homes, just fairly ordinary Britain.

The_J

I mean on a world stage, we've still got our nukes fortunately but the days of Rule Britannia, when technologically we were like something from Star Trek compared to the rest of the world, are over.

It's not that bad I agree but this was our opportunity to align ourselves politically for the 21st century, of which this will be the defining event. But our population is just a bunch of inbred, simpleton, benefit scrounging layabouts for whom death is a sweet release from it all. That's the problem with democracy, why is there such outrage about prisoners voting when these people are below prisoners? They are scum.

I have no intention of holidaying in the Eurozone. I'm going to Barbados in the summer, booked two weeks over the Olympics so hopefully I'll miss it all.

paulmapp8306

pqrdef wrote: »

To reduce debt, you have to achieve a budget surplus. This is hardly ever done, and then only for odd years. A sustained budget surplus may as well be viewed as impossible, so the debt isn't going anywhere.

Doesn't matter, because a more sensible target is debt as a fraction of GDP. The debt/GDP ratio peaked at 250% after the war and fell steadily to 50% over the next 2 or 3 decades. This was done not by reducing debt but by increasing GDP.

So economic growth is actually the key to managing debt.

yes - and no.

Ultimately its fairly simple - you should never spend more than you earn. Yes - to earn more we need economic growth BUT it should not be at the expense of further debt.

Cuts are needed. There is FAR too much waste in our public systems (god knows - I work in it) from jobs for jobs sakes, micro managing, poor resource managing, poor purchasing etc etc etc.

If the cuts are made in the right way - there gong to be a good thing as the cost goes down but the service doesnt - or even gets better. Once the debt is cut - and we pay less in interest charges, we will have more to spend on economic growth.

The problems i see are:

1. People are not prepared to wait for the cuts to free up money to grow - as most in this lifestyle they want things NOW.

2. the general population see as most things as "rights" and dont see why they should do with less. thats true of their personal lfe - hece personal debt - as well as services and the countries debt.

3. the cuts are VERY rarely made in the right way. Rather than seek where the waste is ans streamlining - with the possible loss of a few jobs in areas like management, its far easier to cuts many more jobs in the lower levels of the workers. Its quicker and easier to achieve, and gives evidence of savings earlier.

sort out he attitudes/expectations of the population, and implement cuts in the right way - and a few years down the line we will be in a much better position, and able to grow quicker at that point.

grizzly1911

The_J wrote: »

You may be proud to see your country go down the toilet, I'm not. Thanks for voting Labour, I hold you personally responsible and anything you whine about on this forum in the future I will remind you that it is your fault.

You are a bigot.

Germany has a strong manufacturing base for decades whilst this country just allowed it wither. throwing itself t behind the easy money instead.

I am not proud to see this country in the pan but there is little Jo(e) Bloggs could do about it.

You are very free with your remarks and personal attacks and make a big !!!umption that I voted Labour.

grizzly1911

paulmapp8306 wrote: »

Cuts are needed. There is FAR too much waste in our public systems (god knows - I work in it) from jobs for jobs sakes, micro managing, poor resource managing, poor purchasing etc etc etc.

If the cuts are made in the right way - there gong to be a good thing as the cost goes down but the service doesnt - or even gets better. Once the debt is cut - and we pay less in interest charges, we will have more to spend on economic growth.

The problems i see are:

1. People are not prepared to wait for the cuts to free up money to grow - as most in this lifestyle they want things NOW.

These are all valid points.

There is undoubtedley areas in the public sector that are in need of streamlining, there always will be but applying random cuts across the board even for efficient areas is counter productive. As you say there is more room for management reorganisation/consolidation and removal of waste.

Why do we need 42? police forces?

I guess the reason people are not prepared to wait is a lack of trust in the system. Pensions for instance, even if correctly sold, which have been sabotaged and pillaged in the private sector for instance and poor investment returns at maturity.

de1amo

İ have no political leanings and havent read this thread but i cant believe and rational thinking Government would take the advice of someone like LeGrande who has steered the EU into the calamity it now finds itself--i dont like what DM stands for but i hope carries on doing what he is doing because its a direction whereas what Le Grande suggest is joing in the EU fiasco!

Joe_Bloggs

As posted by grizzly1911

Why do we need 42? police forces?

The MET spends 50 million a year on suing/defending itself.

J_B.

pqrdef

paulmapp8306 wrote: »

Once the debt is cut - and we pay less in interest charges, we will have more to spend on economic growth.

Not going to happen. The national debt isn't going to be cut at any time in the foreseeable future. Certainly not by enough to make a difference.

The_J

grizzly1911 wrote: »

You are a bigot.

Germany has a strong manufacturing base for decades whilst this country just allowed it wither. throwing itself t behind the easy money instead.

I am not proud to see this country in the pan but there is little Jo(e) Bloggs could do about it.

You are very free with your remarks and personal attacks and make a big !!!umption that I voted Labour.

No, your mates in the unions killed manufacturing in this country. The world was changing but the champagne socialists couldn't see it.

That's the difference between us and Germany, the unions in Germany accepted change.

It's clear you voted Labour, if there was an option more left of that you probably would have chosen it. Interesting that you call me a bigot though, didn't your man Gordon "worst PM of all time" Brown get in trouble for similar vocabulary?

If I am a bigot for despising people who sit on their !!! all day claiming benefits then I will wear that moniker with pride.