Despite the publicity for the anti cuts march, it's what people support.

[Squiggs 11]

AFAIK, no banker ever frog-marched a consumer into a credit card agrement/personal loan with eye-watering interest levels. Or held a gun to consumers head demanding that they trade up their accomodation/car/electronics/holidays abroad/etc. on a yearly basis or near enough.

 

Had consumers not wanted/grown to want everything-right-here-right-now without earning it first, the bankers wouldn't have been able to turn this profligate spending into a commodity of sorts.

 

These credit users and abusers share just as much of the blame as the bankers. And there's a hell of lot more of them than bankers (and still more than 'bankers-that-needed-rescuing').

 

Those who took out the lones dangled in front of them didn't get a government bonus to get them out of it though did they? No, they are still paying off extra £1000s in interest payments. Perhaps they made a mistake, but they are paying for the mistake.

 

The bankers made more than a mistake, they were negligent at absolute best (being charitable) but why are they not made to pay for their negligence?

[alrockman 10]

This is a good video describing how the banks caused the credit crunch, but ultimately the banks are regulated by governments and the regulations were lax, so it wasn’t just the fault of our government but Gordon was a key player in lax bank regulation. He also convinced many that he had eliminated boom and bust and that house prices could only go up.

 

http://vimeo.com/3261363

 

London - British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has conceded for the first time that lax regulation of financial markets in the 1990's was a contributory factor to the global banking crisis.

 

Former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said failures to regulate the banking system here played a major part in Ireland's current economic crisis.

 

Gordon Brown admits banks needed more regulation

PM says the government should have been tougher on the banks

[donkey 10]

You now admit that there is a financial crisis that the coalition government is having to clear up.

 

I never doubted it. When will you admit that it is a global crises which hasn't been caused by one government?

 

So are you pleased to know that the majority of people in the UK support the cuts that the government is having to make.

 

 

And yet they are now less popular than the labour party. http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/2775

Either the UK public are very confused, or statistics can be presented in a variety of ways to present different impressions. But keep it under your hat. We don't want the gullible people who believe the labour party are responsible for the global recession to find out.

Edited March 28, 2011 by donkey

[Guest sibon]

I can't see anything different in those figures.

You also need to remember that as we are seen get the deficit under control and avoid having the UKs credit rating downgraded people will be able to see how countries like Greece, Ireland and Portugal are requiring bail outs from the EU that will impose the same sorts of fiscal tightening as the UK suffered after it was bailed out in 1975.

 

Do you approve or disapprove of the government's record to date: Approve 33% Disapprove 52% Don't Know 14%

 

Do you think that the coalition government is managing the economy well, or badly: Well 37% Badly 53% Don't Know 10%

 

You'll need to check page 8 again yourself, but it is hardly a ringing endorsement of Government policy and it certainly doesn't back up the assertion in your title. As usual, the picture is much more complex.

 

All of which means very little though as following public opinion is a poor way to set policy.

[L00b 441]

Germany and Denmark then, and Norway. And that just leaves France Spain Portuagal Ireland Italy greece Sweden Austria - there's more, lots more - all in economic doo doo. Because of the last Labour government no doubt.

France is a bad example. Firstly, because they are in no more 'doo-doo' than the UK. Secondly, because they went through their own '14 years of Labour' from 1981 until 1995 which -fancy that!- left the country in pretty much the same state then, than the UK is in today.

 

Ireland is nearly as bad an example. Because which party was in power during the Celtic Tiger years (until earlier this year) didn't matter one jot. Exactly as in the UK, both the incumbent Gvt and the opposition were far too busy cosying up to the establishment and the same faults/cupidity had earlier consequences there, only because of the size of the country (small/everything happens in Dublin = accelerator/magnifying effect). Funnily enough, Ahern pulled the exact same trick on Cowen, that Blair had pulled on Brown: let the incomptent buffoon have his shot at glory and take the rap for my tab

 

The UK will get to where Ireland is now, mark my words. Same causes, same effects, and no amount of QE will stave them forever.

 

Those who took out the lones dangled in front of them didn't get a government bonus to get them out of it though did they? No, they are still paying off extra £1000s in interest payments. Perhaps they made a mistake, but they are paying for the mistake.

 

The bankers made more than a mistake, they were negligent at absolute best (being charitable) but why are they not made to pay for their negligence?

You're late to the party, Squiggs. You missed this earlier post:

Amen to that. Imagine the shrieks of dismay if the BoE out the base rate up to 2.5%

It fully explains the 'too big to fail' expression/moniker.

 

Only the banks that have needed bailing out were "negligent at absolute best (being charitable)". The others stayed afloat without any intervention, so you can't -objectively- cast any stone at them. And there were plenty enough of those banks staying afloat all by themselves, to let those that needed bailing out fail.

 

I was always for that option rather than a bail out, so you won't get an argument from me on that front. So far as I'm concerned, NuLab didn't let them fail, so the blame lies with NuLab.

Edited March 28, 2011 by L00b

[Uptowngirl 10]

Only the banks that have needed bailing out were "negligent at absolute best (being charitable)". The others stayed afloat without any intervention, so you can't -objectively- cast any stone at them. And there were plenty enough of those banks staying afloat all by themselves, to let those that needed bailing out fail.

 

I was always for that option rather than a bail out, so you won't get an argument from me on that front. So far as I'm concerned, NuLab didn't let them fail, so the blame lies with NuLab.

 

I fully agree. I watched in horror as the loonies trashed a branch of Santander Bank. Santander is a Spanish bank that invested heavily in the UK banking sector and took no handouts whatsoever.

 

But what marks out Santander is the fact that they are currently looking at establishing a British based division to look after all the UK assetts. That bank would be listed on the UK stock exchange and pay taxes to the UK government, rather than its shareholders paying witholding tax to Spain. I'm sure that having its branches targeted by the mob will not be lost on those who makethe decisions. From my understanding the move, if it happens, would contribute around £2 billion a year to the UK coffers.

[mj.scuba 10]

Only the banks that have needed bailing out were "negligent at absolute best (being charitable)". The others stayed afloat without any intervention, so you can't -objectively- cast any stone at them. And there were plenty enough of those banks staying afloat all by themselves, to let those that needed bailing out fail.

 

I'm going to slightly disagree with you again L00b.

 

That has generally been my view until lately, that the blame lies only with the banks that needed bailing out.

 

However I now think that the crisis as a whole that eventually led to recession was caused by banking practices that went on across the sector, not just in those banks that failed but also in those that didn't fail. They were still party to the practices that caused the mess, the fact that they didn't fail is beside the point, either they were lucky, because they had a lower exposure (but by no means nil exposure) to things like bad debt or they had balance sheets big enough to sustain the losses.

[L00b 441]

I'm going to slightly disagree with you again L00b.

Fair enough, that's what discussions are for

However I now think that the crisis as a whole that eventually led to recession was caused by banking practices that went on across the sector, not just in those banks that failed but also in those that didn't fail.

From my posts, hopefully you will see that I agree with that in part (50%, to be precise )

They were still party to the practices that caused the mess, the fact that they didn't fail is beside the point, either they were lucky, because they had a lower exposure (but by no means nil exposure) to things like bad debt or they had balance sheets big enough to sustain the losses.

That is the bit where we remain at odds.

 

To me, it is absolutely not beside the point: it proves banks which didn't need rescuing, were those which managed their assets/exposure/risk factor well. No different, in real terms, to backing one of the wrong horses (to the exact same extent as e.g. investing in the wrong start-up, extending a credit line to a business at the wrong time, etc.), rather than to put most of it on '8 Red'

[alchresearch 215]

I work within purchasing in the public sector......and anyone would get shot if that happened.

 

The "public sector" is a broad scope. Just because its not that way for you doesn't mean its the same across the entire sector.

 

I know of Schools tied into BSF who's network managers have no say in what can be bought, and the completely overspecced equipment put in place that they can't even manage themselves.

 

So we're paying twice - once for the existing technical staff who've just become little more than fault relayers and mouse changers, and again for the third party private company.

[rickiethecat 10]

Good government is about doing what's right, not what's popular.

 

It's all a question of how a policy is worded though. Somehow the likes of the Guardian and the BBC have managed to work the phrase "savage cuts" into every report about the economy, to make the government's policies sound far harsher than they are.

 

If we were talking about "savings" or "efficiencies" instead of "cuts", it would paint a far truer picture of the situation.

 

For all the left-wing hyperbole, the Labour party has still yet to come up with an alternative policy. What would they do if they were still in power?

[mj.scuba 10]

Good government is about doing what's right, not what's popular.

 

It's all a question of how a policy is worded though. Somehow the likes of the Guardian and the BBC have managed to work the phrase "savage cuts" into every report about the economy, to make the government's policies sound far harsher than they are.

 

If we were talking about "savings" or "efficiencies" instead of "cuts", it would paint a far truer picture of the situation.

 

For all the left-wing hyperbole, the Labour party has still yet to come up with an alternative policy. What would they do if they were still in power?

 

All Labour are saying is they wouldn't cut as fast, very thin and sketchy on detail, not actually saying where their cuts (and they would cut) would fall.

[alrockman 10]

Cuts? What cuts? Spending is rising

 

This makes for interesting reading it appears that government spending as gone up not down.

 

The government spend £3000, 000,000 a week more than their income, that’s 3 million public sector workers on £300 a week that we can’t afford, or a million public sector managers on £3000 a week that we can’t afford.