Lord Turner hints at Helicopter Drop

Graham_Devon

Fancy a £1,000 christmas bonus? Well your wish may well come true!

Ok, the £1,000 is simply a figure plucked out of the air, but the helicopter drop, it seems, could become reality.

Lord Turner, who is one of two leading candidates for Mervyn's position has suggested the UK could need "still more innovative and unconventional stimulus".

This is being read as a helicopter drop as Turner has talked about this several times privately before. Though not that privately.

Money would simply be sent to every household, or person in the country. This has led to suggestions that Turner would not be a cautious governor of the BOE....but maybe that's exactly what the powers that be want.

However, the sting in the tail could be that it needs to be seen as a temporary tax cut....thereby making us all pay it back at a later date through taxation...

Flanders blog on the subject here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19925013

A._Badger

There is no such thing as free money.

Loughton_Monkey

What a stupid idea! How much of this dosh would immediately go into Chinese, Korean, and Indian goods? 50%? 60%.

A._Badger

Loughton_Monkey wrote: »

What a stupid idea! How much of this dosh would immediately go into Chinese, Korean, and Indian goods? 50%? 60%.

Quite! Like Mandelson's insane cash for clunkers deal. Hyundai/Kia must have thought it was Christmas.

chewmylegoff

The Aussies have done this already. Not sure what it achieved, but there was a lot of moaning about people using the money to buy imported stuff.

ILW

Turner was also a great advocate of us joining the Euro.

ManAtHome

I reckon they'll save it up for £2,500 each around April 2015...

ILW

If they are going to do it, should be given as a tax rebate.

chewmylegoff

ILW wrote: »

If they are going to do it, should be given as a tax rebate.

Actually the point of giving people money is to get them to spend it thus "boosting the economy". If you give it to tax payers they will probably just save it or pay down debt, so the best way to achieve economic stimulus is to give it to the so called "f3ckless" who will just spend it (as they have no concept of the value of money as they don't have to work for what they have) thus achieving the desired effect.

PaulF81

If they pay down secured debt, that will give the banks direct capital to lend. It would also be a fair redistribution of wealth from the boomers who ate their own children by forcing house prices through the roof.

Could also offer to invest in national infrastructure, privatise it then offer shares in the investments to higher rate tax payers.

GeorgeHowell

PaulF81 wrote: »

If they pay down secured debt, that will give the banks direct capital to lend. It would also be a fair redistribution of wealth from the boomers who ate their own children by forcing house prices through the roof.

Could also offer to invest in national infrastructure, privatise it then offer shares in the investments to higher rate tax payers.

Exactly how did boomers force house prices through the roof ? By buying them presumably ? And that's what their childrens' generation largely want to do isn't it -- buy houses ? So why was it wrong for the boomers' generation to want to buy houses, but not apparently wrong for their childrens' generation to have the same aspiration ? Did the boomers know, by means of some gift of clairvoyancy, that we were going to be in the present situation now ? Did they relish the prospect that their own desire for home ownership would not be as easy a prospect for their own children ? Do not factors like :- the proliferation of individual households due to serial monogamy becoming the norm; overpopulation of an already crowded country; and pendulum-swing lending policies by the irresponsible, incompetent, and greedy financial services industry also have a lot to do with the present situation ?