This man thinks he can be a Prime Minister

directdebiter

Ed will be the next PM. Everyone will hate the Conservative cuts and plus their vote will split with UKIP. Shame but true.

angrypirate

grizzly1911 wrote: »

I thought free markets sorted themselves out and were good. We can trust private institutions to do what is right for their customers can't we?

And the person driving the banks were their CEOs and board of directors were they not goaded on by their institutional shareholders.

Many Ferrari drivers would drive responsibly and not wish damaging their pride and joy taking unnecessary risks.

Free markets do sort themselves out. Problem is, thanks to Labour we HAVENT HAD free markets. In the interests of creating a state owned bank, failing institutions were bailed out by Gordon the Moron. As a result, failing toxic banks didnt fail but were allowed to limp on. The realism of failure in a free market capitalist society is important as it means risk taking automatically becomes more controlled when things take a turn for the worse.

If there is always the safety net (ie the government) willing to bail you out when you mess up, then you may as well go hell for leather, be as risky as possible and try and make as much money as possible.

grizzly1911

angrypirate wrote: »

Free markets do sort themselves out. Problem is, thanks to Labour we HAVENT HAD free markets. In the interests of creating a state owned bank, failing institutions were bailed out by Gordon the Moron. As a result, failing toxic banks didnt fail but were allowed to limp on. The realism of failure in a free market capitalist society is important as it means risk taking automatically becomes more controlled when things take a turn for the worse.

If there is always the safety net (ie the government) willing to bail you out when you mess up, then you may as well go hell for leather, be as risky as possible and try and make as much money as possible.

So did the government bail out the banks and put in place hard guarantees before the banks screwed up or after?

Did we create lots of new funny money and say gamble it away before they went off the rails?

Do you really think the Conservatives wouldn't have propped up the banks?

Who would have suffered the most if the banks had been left to collapse?

OffGridLiving

It's a shame John Smith passed away. You have to wonder what the UK would be like now had he lived and prevented the Blair/Brown Presidency.

angrypirate

grizzly1911 wrote: »

So did the government bail out the banks and put in place hard guarantees before the banks screwed up or after?

Did we create lots of new funny money and say gamble it away before they went off the rails?

Do you really think the Conservatives wouldn't have propped up the banks?

Who would have suffered the most if the banks had been left to collapse?

1. Before but was extended further afterwards.
2. Yes. Look up fractional reserve banking
3. Yes
4. Not sure. I dont intrinsically know how the fallout affected everyone and Im certain Gordon didnt know. I do think we as a country are worse off for not letting the failures fail.

I do know that you cant say we live in a free market when there is so much intervention from the Government and you especially cant say Capitalism isnt working in these conditions.

grizzly1911

angrypirate wrote: »

1. Before but was extended further afterwards.
2. Yes. Look up fractional reserve banking
3. Yes
4. Not sure. I dont intrinsically know how the fallout affected everyone and Im certain Gordon didnt know. I do think we as a country are worse off for not letting the failures fail.

I do know that you cant say we live in a free market when there is so much intervention from the Government and you especially cant say Capitalism isnt working in these conditions.

1.) I'm not convinced we did bail them out before they screwed up or did offer them a firm guarantee.

2.) Yep know about fractional reserve banking it has gone on for your eons without issue..

3.) You think the Conservatives would have let the banks fail and crashed the UK?

4.)One thing is for sure those with cash savings would have suffered more than those without. Businesses would have failed, individuals wouldn't have been able to get at their pay to service their debts and put food on the table.

I know we don't live in a free market especially where the fundamentals of life are concerned such as commodities we can't do without. Capitalism doesn't work, in all, conditions because it can't be trusted to. It has it's place a bit like a bit like a shark on the end of a line and a pole hook in the other hand.

Thrugelmir

grizzly1911 wrote: »

Do you really think the Conservatives wouldn't have propped up the banks?

Who took away the powers from the BOE and gave it to a self regulating body of ex bankers?

Almost the first decision that was made in 1997.

If this decision hadn't of been made then the situation may well not have been as bad as it ended up in October 2008.

TruckerT

angrypirate wrote: »

If there is always the safety net (ie the government) willing to bail you out when you mess up, then you may as well go hell for leather, be as risky as possible and try and make as much money as possible.

I don't believe that the banks included the certainty of a government bailout in their calculations. I think they genuinely believed that the property market would just keep on inflating.

Lots of ordinary people were shouting out loud that property prices were out of control, but neither the banks nor the politicians (of all persuasions) wanted to listen.

The incompetence of the banks was, literally, incredible. Neither the people nor the politicians were able to believe such incompetence was possible. We all trusted them to know what they were doing.

TruckerT

Thrugelmir

Kennyboy66 wrote: »

Michael Foot had pretty resolute beliefs and was a great public speaker.

My comment was in the context that he was 67 when he became opposition leader. With all due respect to him personally he came from a different era. To the one the world was entering.

antrobus

TruckerT wrote: »

I don't believe that the banks included the certainty of a government bailout in their calculations. I think they genuinely believed that the property market would just keep on inflating.

Lots of ordinary people were shouting out loud that property prices were out of control, but neither the banks nor the politicians (of all persuasions) wanted to listen.

There is a reasonably long list of suitably august and respectable people who were making pronouncments even in 2007 that the trajectory of the British housing market would proceed ever upwards and that there was nothing to worry about.

My favourite is Oxford Economics who confidently predicted in August 2007 that the "average English house price will top £300,000 in five years".

TruckerT wrote: »

...The incompetence of the banks was, literally, incredible. Neither the people nor the politicians were able to believe such incompetence was possible. We all trusted them to know what they were doing.....

Although presumably those people who thought "that property prices were out of control" had some idea?

Banks will do what banks always do, which is lend people money. Left to their own devices they will always lend too much money. Sensible people therefore construct financial systems that limit the availability of credit. Politicians are, however, always tempted by the lure of cheap and easy money, and are inclined to remove such limits. The trouble is that voters are just as tempted as well and are inclined to vote in favour of today's jam.