Leslie

After a world recession Clarke got the economy into a very strong position just before NL were elected and Brown has thrown it all away by living on borrowed money in order to fool everyone that the economy was booming so the NL would get re-elected. The chickens are coming home to roost and those who borrowed on the strength of low interest rates will catch a nasty cold. The bureaucracy now is dragging us all down into the weeds!

Les

Petem95

Interest rates are set depending on inflation. If inflation is high you need higher interest rates so things keep pace.

What Labour have done is 'massaged' the way inflation is calculated. The inflation figure is affected by things like price of goods increasing, clothes, fuel and one of the main factors is wage inflation.

So what do NL do? Remove wage inflation from the calculation - oh look, now inflation doesnt look so high, so hey interest rates can stay [artificially] low!

Result? Booming house prices as money is so cheap to borrow (ie low interest), leading to consumer spending boom = great news for the economy.... in the short term...

johnfelstead

read the oficial bank of england report for the last quarter. http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/publi...rt/ir05aug.pdf

it's looking grim if you read between the lines, all the spin (by that i mean the decisions they can take about trends) is on the positive end of the scale when they calculate what to give out in the broader media reports and use as the basis for their interest rate etc. calcs, for me the reality is the negative is what is panning out.

From this i personally see the bank of england reports are doing their sums on the best case scenario basis, which if they are wrong, which i think they are if they would be honest with the trends being seen, is going to see the **** hit the fan next year. The only growth i see in the economy is via government spending, every other trend is downward, which means that the government spending is currently propping up a very sickly real economy.

unfortunately the government inflation figures dont represent reality that we see in our pockets, you have RPI and CPI values, which are artificial values used to calculate the public inflation figures, CPI is currently the highest it has been since it's inauguration in 1997, with a trend upwards greater than anticipated.

What is currently keeping inflation figures artificially low is the cheap imports from China, once we get used to having those goods as part of our normal economy, we wont have that big drop in goods prices to offset the real inflationary influences the rest of the economy is seeing, and inflation is going to increase rapidly as a consequence. This is when the **** will hit the fan a second time.

So basically, we are living in cload cuckoo land regarding real inflation, when the China effect and the government spending effect die, which they will next year IMHO, we will see the real inflationary values affecting interest rates, which will see a rapid rise in borrowing costs, which will tip us over the edge and return us to boom and bust again.

Vegescoob

Night follows day.
Bust follows boom, or perhaps I should say bubble.
Or, is it different this time?

unclebuck

Mate, I'm in Southern California working on a way to exit the craphole New Labour 'run' UK before it all finally goes down the ****ter.

Won't be long now...

fatherpierre

No, spot on.

History doesn't have to be bad - it's the future in trends. Rocket science, it ain't.

Brit_in_Japan

The point is that the cheap and plentiful supply of oil will come to an end. There will always be some reserves which can be extracted, but they will increasingly be the smaller and more marginal fields where the cost of extracting the oil is significantly higher. I am sure there are oil fileds currently known about which won't be worth developing until oil reaches $100 or $200/barrel.

Peak oil production will be sometime in the next 10 years, after which oil production will slowly decline. Given the huge demand for oil (still increasing, especially in countries like China and India) and the limited supply, oil prices are going to increase sharply in the next few decades.

Do a search for "peak oil" on google.

Brit_in_Japan

I am no New Labour apologist, but for the sake of balance perhaps all those criticizing the curent state of the economy should consider the following:-

1. The spending targets of New Labour when they first came to power were exactly the same as the previous govt's plan. So the the first few years there would have been no difference if Labour or Conservatives had been in power.

2. We have outperformed our nearest neighbours in Europe handsomely during the time the current government have been in power. We live in a global economy and European countries like France and Germany, with whom we have a large amount of trade, have been in (or on the edge of) recession for a few years and have far higher rates of unemployment.

3. Giving the Bank of England Monetary Committee independence to set interest rates is intended to avoid the boom & bust economic cycles typical of the past few decades, irrespective of who is in power. There is no inevitability that the UK will go into recession as the doom merchants on here predict (not that we should be complacent about it).

4. There are more people in work now than at any time in our history.

5. Big expenditure was required for education, NHS, police, transport etc to make up for the woeful under investment of previous Conservative governments.

As I wrote above, I am no New Labour apologist and I am not saying everything is rosy in the garden. There are big problems waiting because Gordon Brown based future expenditure plans on tax revenues from unrealistic growth predictions. The increasing bureacracy for business is an unnecessary overhead. The huge numbers on incapacity benefit suggest an underlying problem which is being masked. And you can ask legitimate questions about whether the huge sums of extra expenditure have resulted in proportionate improvements of service.

There is also a big pensions crisis looming which someone will have to deal with, irrespective of how unpalatable it is.

But to suggest that you if you vote in the Conservatives everything will be solved is Alice in Wonderland stuff. They haven't even come up with any detailed proposals what they will do different, so how can anyone say it would be better?

coolangatta

'Brit in Japan' you speak a lot of sense.

BTW: I'm an investor in the UK, not a borrower, low inflation/interest rates are not good for everyone.

Brit_in_Japan

You're not doing much investing in Japan then ?

KiwiGTI

The oil currently extracted is a fraction of the potential oil. Shale Oil, Oil Sands etc are alternative but at the moment are not economically practical (or require too much energy) compared to the current process of refining.

Technology and focus will change allowing these oil resources to be exploited. eg: build Nuclear Power stations to supply energy for converting shale oil.

coolangatta

Time and effort - Yes
Money - No

Brit_in_Japan

Exactly my point. We are already harvesting all the low-hanging fruit. Cheap and plentiful oil production will tail off starting in the next 10 years or so and we will persue new oil producing methods as it becomes financially viable to do so. Oil is vital to the plastics industry, something which often gets overlooked, so we will need to continue oil production.

However if we invest billions in nuclear power I would prefer to see that energy used to generate hydrogen rather than to produce more oil. Let's have cleaner air and less CO2 and leave the oil for the plastics industry.

pslewis

This has turned into a very sensible thread ..... especially what Brit in Japan says!!

To the poster that said about why are we a nation of, "I want more than my neighbour!" ????

Look no further than the Tory Government of the 80's - that's when ALL the countries ills started ................ the 'yuppie' era killed of any chance of a moral future!!

Maggie Thatcher leaves a legacy of greed ............. Tony Blair will leave a legacy of right, justice and fairness!!

Just the way it is .........

Pete

ajm

Yes... fair... I think its high time Lewis started to share out his bursting coffers amongst the bone idle miscreants as is the Labour ideology. He grew fat and rich under the Conservatives and now he should give it all to pregnant druggies, dole bludgers, criminals and corrupt, inefficient governmental organisations.

It's what's right, just and fair!

douglasb

Fair point

And there you go putting it back off track

KiwiGTI

But what is the real reason for this? I know a lot of that growth has been solely on the back of domsetic growth based on borrowing.

But more importantly what about the cultural aspects. Live in France or Germany and you'll find they are completely different in their spending habits.

Vegescoob

"Managing decline".
That is the task facing future UK Governments.

Brit_in_Japan

Interest rate policy is a large part of it I think. The interest rate here is set with our economy in mind. We don't have to worry about whether a rate will cause overheating in the Irish economy or stagnation in the German economy, they set it to what is right for us.

Each country signed up to the Single European Currency (SEC) has different spending habits, taxation rates etc. Also they have different economic cycles. Until such time as they harmonise the fundamental dynamics of those economies (meaning harmonising the economic cycle and also taxation/spending systems) I think that setting an appropriate interest rate is going to be a pretty haphazard for a significant proportion of the peoples of Europe.

OllyK

This seemed kind of appropriate

SJ_Skyline

Loved the stormtroopers!

Flatcapdriver

So we should have kept the Tories then?

The only reason for that is the inflexibility of their economies which are underpinned by strong union activity and a lack of free market reforms and policies which were introduced by the Thatcher government. Without those, the UK would have been in a similar position.

The independence of the MPC was yet another Tory policy adopted by Labour but the raping of the pensions industry wasn't and as wonderful as some people think Labour are I cannot see them avoiding a recession no matter how much massaging of the figures Brown does.

You mean there are more people than ever claiming incapacity benefit instead of unemployment benefit don't you? Again, just another way of distorting the figures.

And either that money has gone down the drain hole or it has been grossly mis-spent as I can't see an improvement in any of the above services and after eight years they are still trying to blame the Tories for their ills.

Why not? That was exactly the same reasoning that the electorate used to vote in Labour in 1997 so the same principle can be applies again, surely?

106rallye

well the markets don't look too good today! FTSE 100 down near enough 100 points

Brit_in_Japan

Since when has the electorate voted for a political party purely based on the state of the economy? Lot's of other factors at work. When New Labour got in it was as much because the people were sick and tired of the Conservatives as much as anything else.

It's not the only reason, but it's definitely part of the story. They are locked into a higher cost labour market and are only now beginning to look at the reforms introduced during the Thatcher era. The German car companies have already won some big battles with the unions by threatening to move work to eastern Europe.

Come on now, the Conservatives had from 1979 to 1995 to make the MPC independent and yet they never did. At least New Labour didn't dither on that one. The changes to taxation of dividend income to pension funds has definitely had a bad effect. In addition the changes in company reporting rules which forces companies to include company pension fund surplus/deficits in the profit/loss account has killed off lots of company pensions to the detriment of millions of people in the long term.


No I don't mean that. Records show that there are more people in paid employment in the country than ever before.

In my earlier post I said the numbers claiming incapacity benefit was problem.

I read recently that transport is starting to improve. There has been more investment in new railway lines than in the previous 20 years.

The police have had lots more money, they've increased their number to record levels. People's perception of crime is still that things are getting worse. What will the Conservatives do differently?

The NHS is a super-tanker of a public service, changes take time to be seen. For example the last conservative government cut the number of training places for doctors. As it takes somewhere in the region of 8 years to train a doctor you can't just boost numbers overnight. From what I've read the services provided are improving. But as I said before whether the improvements are proportional to the money spent is up for debate.

What is the alternative? Perhaps you would prefer a system like here in Japan where patients must pay 30% of their care costs? Not a problem for a general checkup, but what if you need major surgery? It's not unusual here for families to get out the begging bowl (figuratively speaking) if someone needs a major operation. Family and friends hold fund raising events to pay for treatment. The level of service is high, but at a price.



Sure, it could happen that way. There could be another "time for change" mood sweep across the UK where people are more interested in getting the current government out than questioning the opposition about what they would really do if they got into power.

But I think the Conservatives really need to decide what ground they are going to occupy first. Do they go further to the right, pandering to the right in their own party? Do they stay more in the middle as they are now and have a beauty contest with New Labour?

Time will tell.

MikeCardiff

iTrader: (2)

Have noticed though that labour seem to have done an amazing job moulding themselves into the party that cares most about minorities ( thieves, scroungers, illegal immigrants etc... ) while completely ignoring the majority, who are the ones who voted for them in the first place.

Remember when they used to be 'the party of the working man' ? all the support to the Unions, strikers etc.... and now they are the party of the non working ( or at least, working on the side, or under false papers ) man ?

Re the reply saying the Bank Of England decide the interest rate - erm.... do you really think they are a wholly independent body who can do what they like with no interaction with the government and its policies ? If this were the case, how could labour be boasting of stopping a recession or market crash ( soft recovery etc.... ) ?

While I never had any particular love for the Tories, at least they had some ***** and used to make some effort to stand up to people rather than being a smirking sycophant like Blair who just wants to keep everyone happy while offending no-one.

( and the earlier post saying we are all better off than 8 years ago is pretty much useless - of course most of us are, we are 8 years older, and 8 years further into a career etc.... )

Leslie

Well said Mike Cardiff.

The last thing NL can be accused of is being a Labour party anyway.

Les

TelBoy

In fact they really are. Of course they work together, but if the MPC want to do something that seems to contradict current Government policy, they will do. Like talking about rate hikes now, when Gordon Brown must be quaking in his boots at the prospect.

The difference between NL and the Tories is undoubtedly much smaller now than it ever was. Many, many people vote based on image, ideology and such like, it's rarely got anything to do with policies. The fact that NL have basically sold out adopted what would have been a traditional Tory programme a generation ago speaks volumes to me, but the spin allows Bliar to continue to be the one pulling the trigger.

Flatcapdriver

Look, I admire you for trying to keep an open mind about Labour and as much as I criticise them I realise they have done some good for the country but underlying that is a deeply rooted scepticism about a party that was unelectable until they hijacked Tory policies and adopted them as their own in order to get elected.

You cannot make the point about the UK's economic performance outstripping that of France and Germany without acknowledging the reasons behind that, namely that Thatcherism largely made unionism redundant in the UK, increased labour flexibility and introduced free market reforms that enabled UK Plc to be more responsive both internally and internationally. On that basis, Labour can hardly take credit for reforms that were introduced before they were even in power and you only have to look at the raft of recent red tape brought in by Labour to see the stifling effect it is having on British businesses which coincidentally (or not) has had a detrimental effect on the economy.

As for their decision on the MPC, look in the Conservative manifesto for the 1997 election and find out what their plans for the MPC were - strangely enough they were identical. Another case of Labour stealing Tory policies? You bet.

As for the NHS taking time for investment to show through, well , this is spurious at best. How long does it take? Eight years? Sounds long enough to me and I suppose this is the same NHS we are talking about where freshly minted British doctors cannot get jobs because there are insufficient funds to pay for them?

Personally, I'd abolish the NHS and make the system totally private which works well enough in Oz but I can't see the peasants going for that, just as they didn't like the Poll Tax ensuring they paid their way so we're stuck with it I suppose.

As for transport improving, I can't see I've seen any improvement unless you mean Prescott's proposals for tarmaccing the South of England and if this government had any ***** then they'd insist that all of these state owned multi-nationals from France and Germany that own the British railway network had their own infrastructure opened up to UK companies to compete in. Not likely though as Billy has more important things to worry about like who to invade next, rather than concentrate on a cohesive domestic policy that actually worked.

As for your last point, hopefully Cameron will win and take the party slightly more to the right in order to differentiate it from Labour which should appeal to the little islander mentality that is so pervasive in British society these days.

Iwan

I agree, I guess because I pay for private health/dental insurance anyway - but still pay NI to fund the NHS. It's a nice idea to have free healthcare for all, but like anything that's free it always gets abused.

Regarding poll tax, again I agree totally. What could be fairer than each person paying for the resources they use? I was quite happy paying my own poll tax, probably because I work, and don't have a massive degenerate sponging family.

Yeah I get 25% off my council tax for being a single occupant of my house, but in a fair world the sponging doleite family of 5 down the road should be paying 500% more than me - not 25% more.

Hopefully

pslewis

Back on topic ... the economy ... read and study this ...

http://www.shef.ac.uk/uni/academic/N...paps/pp15.html

One line:-

"This will certainly cost considerably more: Britain’s state schools currently need to recruit 50,000 additional teachers just to replace the massive staff cuts made by Mrs Thatcher in the 1980s - one of the many hidden costs of tax cuts (Szreter 1997, pp. 98-9)"

If you still believe that the Tories would be better - then you are beyond hope!

Pete