Reith Lecture: It is Society that is broken - not just the economy

CLAPTON

he is sadly typical of the booking keep/accounting school of thought; that what is good for an individual compnay or family is good for the whole nation


-nowhere does he recognise the fact that debts = savings
-nowhere does he seem to recognise that people (yes even baby boomers) will die and pass on their worldly good to the next generation
-nowhere does he recognise the value of assetts built up by the currrent working people that are passed on to the next generation


but he's probably got a book to sell soon and a paid lecture circuit to fill

FTBFun

Wookster wrote: »

Lets be honest as well, if you've only just graduated, that's probably your only real achievement.

Real life begins when you pay your way in the world and compete for your slice of the pie.

I assume you're excluding my friend who has recently graduated, but prior to this served 8 years in the Army?

Wookster

FTBFun wrote: »

I assume you're excluding my friend who has recently graduated, but prior to this served 8 years in the Army?

I assume that you're missing the word

probably

in my post.

Nice to see claptop totally missing Ferguson's point as well.

John_Pierpoint

CLAPTON wrote: »

he is sadly typical of the booking keep/accounting school of thought; that what is good for an individual company or family is good for the whole nation


-nowhere does he recognise the fact that debts = savings
-nowhere does he seem to recognise that people (yes even baby boomers) will die and pass on their worldly good to the next generation
-nowhere does he recognise the value of assets built up by the current working people that are passed on to the next generation

but he's probably got a book to sell soon and a paid lecture circuit to fill

-nowhere does he recognise the fact that debts = Chinese savings?
-nowhere does he recognise the value of paper assets built up by the current working people are just that paper?
Turning to real assets the average estate is mainly property - that is a £1,000,000 house that was 50,000 profit to the developer, 250,000 of bricks and mortar and fashion statements - like a granite kitchen - and 700,000 of dead money invested in some square meters of plot.
Not a lot different from investing in pyramids to join the Gods in the after life ?

Mostly bubble?

Joe_Bloggs

It would not be proper accounting to consider UK debt without the assets for which the debt was traded for.
J_B.

CLAPTON

John_Pierpoint wrote: »

-nowhere does he recognise the fact that debts = Chinese savings?
-nowhere does he recognise the value of paper assets built up by the current working people are just that paper?
Turning to real assets the average estate is mainly property - that is a £1,000,000 house that was 50,000 profit to the developer, 250,000 of bricks and mortar and fashion statements - like a granite kitchen - and 700,000 of dead money invested in some square meters of plot.
Not a lot different from investing in pyramids to join the Gods in the after life ?

Mostly bubble?

I understand your point but I think you are missing the real picture for the sake of rhetorical points
but
-actually quite a lot of UK government debt is owed to the british (transfers wealth within the country)
-the UK has large investments overseas
-I think that the investment in roads, rail, gas, electricity, airports, water, sewerage, education, justice system etc are non paper assetts well worth a mention
-even your example of property prices; well those foreigners are willing to pay London prices with 'real' foreign currency.
-and forget about the accountancy of house prices but consider the economic; the money mainly circulates amoungst the UK population; truely a redistribution of wealth but why is that bad for the economy?
-many businesses are started on the basis of mortgaging residentiial property and then grow to be successful large companies
-I'm always a little confused why building a car which polutes and poisons our children, kills people on the roads, increase CO2 and promotes global warming and rots in about 10 years is considered 'good and wholesome' whilst building a house and home for a family that lasts 200 years is considered 'evil'.

I do think that Ferguson is very clever, witty, funny even but a balanced view of the economy? no.

CLAPTON

And forgot to say, that I am strongly of the view that the growing gulf between the very rich and the ordinary people has grave economic consequences lin that the economy has a lack of total demand.
So building pyramids may conceptually be part of the (Keynesian) answer.

John_Pierpoint

If you had just inherited (let us say) a spare 250K, how would you invest it?

grizzly1911

John_Pierpoint wrote: »

If you had just inherited (let us say) a spare 250K, how would you invest it?

The answer you want is property.

That would still bump £250K along the chain and out the other end somewhere with possibly £7500 going straight to HMRC.

John_Pierpoint

The answer I don't want is property, as that would turn me into a BTL landlord and do nothing to help get our economy moving.
HOWEVER it would be an investment in something real that might generate an income of more than (say) 3% and an asset that the "funny money" politicians cannot print (in a desperate attempt to devalue debt and keep down interest rates thus avoid repossessing negative equity mortgaged homes.) .