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The overtaxed middle starting to get seriously narked...
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The gold was sold at the market value of the time.
Sure, so it wasn't a good time to sell.No-one would remember the Good Samaritan if he'd only had good intentions. He had money as well.
The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money.
Margaret Thatcher0 -
Ah............. excuse me I seem to remember the Tories voted with him re. the Iraq war! The opposition came from the Lib Dems and Labour left!
Blair is tainted by Iraq but take that away and his record was very good....relatively!
A great many people thought it was the right thing to do because they were presented with untruths by Blair, Campbell etc about the nature and extent of the threat presented by Saddam.
A great many gullible people can be easily conned by a smart-talking conman with an engaging toothy grin -- even to the point of still believing that his record was good.No-one would remember the Good Samaritan if he'd only had good intentions. He had money as well.
The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money.
Margaret Thatcher0 -
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hindsight is a wonderful thing
All organisations have to make sensible predictions, projections, and forecasts. Getting them horribly wrong does not excuse that incompetence on ground of "with the benefit of hindsight".
They sold the gold because their profligate and damaging social engineering plans were already in the cart financially before they even got them off the ground, so they took the quick and easy way out to raise some cash.No-one would remember the Good Samaritan if he'd only had good intentions. He had money as well.
The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money.
Margaret Thatcher0 -
As well as being a deeply unpleasant control-freak he was a moron. He simply surrounded himself with people too scared to point that out.
THis is where your prejudice lets you down.
Being deeply unpleasant or a control freak is a matter of opinion to which you are entitled based on your knowledge of the man (probably translated by Daily Mail journalists).
But calling him a moron when he was one of the most intellectually gifted people of his generation is factually incorrect.Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are incapable of forming such opinions.0 -
GeorgeHowell wrote: »All organisations have to make sensible predictions, projections, and forecasts. Getting them horribly wrong does not excuse that incompetence on ground of "with the benefit of hindsight".
They sold the gold because their profligate and damaging social engineering plans were already in the cart financially before they even got them off the ground, so they took the quick and easy way out to raise some cash.
Organisations have to make decisions based on sensible predictions, I agree. Brown made this decision based on the belief that more would be gained either by spending the proceeeds or putting them into interest bearing securities and did a combination of both.
If gold was the place to have money why were other nations also selling gold? Why were people not selling interest bearing securities and buying gold? If five years later when gold was higher would we have sold it then? When would we have sold it?
I seem to recall the Thatcher/Major government was also accused of selling off the family silver on the cheap when they sold off all sorts of public assets at knock down prices to the firms that would subsequently provide so many of them with highly paid directorships after they left office? Whatever did they spend the proceeds on?
If you are right that Brown was just subsidising his social engineering plans (which I assume is a euphemism for putting roofs on delapidated schools and building new hospitals), is this not better than accumulating gold in vaults? Who exactly was opposed to the plans at the time?
With hindsight you can indeed argue that gold was bound to go up over whatever period you choose to criticise his decision. I could argue that had we not privatised gas and electricity there would have been more investment in alternative energy strategies. And had we not privatised water we would have had a better investment plan for the crumbling infrastructure.Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are incapable of forming such opinions.0 -
GeorgeHowell wrote: »A great many gullible people can be easily conned by a smart-talking conman with an engaging grin --
My mum always trusts men in suits for some reason, they look so smart.:(
We still have smart talking conmen with engaging grins trying to con us now on both sides."If you act like an illiterate man, your learning will never stop... Being uneducated, you have no fear of the future.".....
"big business is parasitic, like a mosquito, whereas I prefer the lighter touch, like that of a butterfly. "A butterfly can suck honey from the flower without damaging it," "Arunachalam Muruganantham0 -
Good god. This man is an utter !!!!!!!0
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