In the Telegraph today, statements stating the obvious:
1. "Hopes that manufacturers can drive Britain’s recovery have been dealt a serious blow by the head of the UK’s biggest industrial group who said a weak economy and high costs are damaging Britain’s competitiveness"
2. " 'Time to face up to never-ending austerity' -
Sometimes, reality can be so painful, so scary that nobody wants to accept it, with even intelligent, perceptive people preferring to twist the facts to make them conform to a deluded, make-believe world."
At least motorists will rejoice "The 3p fuel duty increase due to come into effect in January is expected to be postponed again to put more money in consumers’ pockets."
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.........and then we have this lunacy, all on borrowed money!
tinyurl.com/cfx6fgt
Last edited by: Roger on Wed 5 Dec 12 at 09:45
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>> .........and then we have this lunacy, all on borrowed money!
>>
>> tinyurl.com/cfx6fgt
We're too generous by half.
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Around £15 million will go to help cattle farmers practise “low carbon agriculture” in Colombia
Yep! they`ll bin the "Moo`s" and start more carbon-friendly Opium plantations.
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Aren't they more likely to grow coca plants to make cocaine. They'll leave opiates to the Taliban in Afghanistan surely.
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>> "The 3p fuel duty increase due to come into effect
>> in January is expected to be postponed again to put more money in consumers’ pockets."
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>>
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How does not imposing a 3p fuel tax rise put money in my pocket?
On that argument if he decided not to impose a 98% income tax rate we'd all be rich.
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I think you've cracked it Cliff.
Make that man Chancellor of the Exchequer.
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"On that argument if he decided not to impose a 98% income tax rate we'd all be rich."
We would wouldn't we? Next you will be telling me that in those BOGOFF deals I don't really get one free.
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>>BOGOFF deals I don't really get one free.
you probably don`t, they will have calculated that the free one will be financed by the people that can`t resist an apparent bargain, and buy the one they didn`t really want or need just to get the free one!
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We've been living beyond our means for the best part of 30 years. It was always going to come crashing down sometime.
We can either spend 5-7 years gradually getting used to incomes about 20% lower than they used to be, or we could carry on as we were, putting the day of reckoning off further and further into the future.
The country owed more than a year of GDP. Individuals owed more than £1tn of debt. And that was before we hit the recession.
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I always find it hard to visualise what this debt hanging over us actually means, in practical terms.
Supposing all the members of the C4P forum composed a community on an island. Some of us grew crops, some made useful things for the other members, some were labourers, one was a doctor, one a mechanic, etc etc. You get the idea - we are Britain in miniature.
We use money - bits of paper with arbitrary values written on them, which we pass round between ourselves to even out the problems of us not all wanting each others' services at exactly the same time. One of us is in charge of printing these notes and handing them out.
Then one day I invent the concept of debt. Instead of giving someone money that I possess, I give him an IOU instead. He does the work, and when he in turn wants to buy something he doesn't necessarily have to have any "real" money, he can just pass on my IOU.
10 years later we are all doing much the same sort of thing, but our "economy" now has an enormous debt mountain. It is many times the value of our GDP.
But nothing real has been destroyed or wasted. We still grow our food, etc.
Some of us have a stash of paper marked "Bonds" or "IOUs", some of us have bits of paper called "Money", some of us have statements saying we are in debt.
In my newly elected role as Chancellor in waiting, I'd like to get my head round this before I start. Does it matter? Do I need to do anything? What would happen if I just let it roll for another 10 years?
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Think of it like this, i am leaving the island, and I want my IOU's cashed from all of you and if you cant pay I want all your good and chattels. NOW.
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>>Think of it like this, i am leaving the island, and I want my IOU's cashed from all of you and if you cant pay I want all your good and chattels. NOW.
And I reckon you can't pay off your IOUs so I try and sell all the one's I've got for less than the going rate, and then word gets around so everybody start selling yours.
And you need to buy food.
But of course nobody will accept your IOUs unless you promise to pay back twice as much as you borrow to make it worth their while to risk it and even then they want it back in regular payments. And you can't make those payments with IOUs, so you have to borrow some real money from some dodgy lenders. But then you have to give them IOUs and because words got around, then they don't like your IOUs either, so they charge you a ridiculous exchange rate.
So as Chancellor I need to try and do something about this, because if you can't borrow any money, then you won't buy anything so I need you to get some funds from somewhere.
Having said that, you already owe too much, so I have to get you some extra money without getting you in debt............
But anything I should do will be unpopular, so then I'll get voted out by someone who promises to undo everything I've done. Now his solution might be better than mine but in reality will be no more popular when he starts it, yet no solution will work until we stick to it for 5 - 10 years.
............welcome to the dilemma
Last edited by: No FM2R on Wed 5 Dec 12 at 15:17
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>> Think of it like this, i am leaving the island, and I want my IOU's
>> cashed from all of you and if you cant pay I want all your good
>> and chattels. NOW.
>>
Ah, but you haven't read the small print. It doesn't say you can be paid in goods and chattels.
It just says that I promise to pay the bearer on demand the sum of XXX.
So here is another bit of paper in exchange, with XXX written on it.
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>> Ah, but you haven't read the small print. It doesn't say you can be paid
>> in goods and chattels.
>> It just says that I promise to pay the bearer on demand the sum of
>> XXX.
>> So here is another bit of paper in exchange, with XXX written on it.
The man printing the money wont give you any more, so I asked the island elder what to do and he told me to take the the value from your pigs you are rearing.
Trouble is you only have pigs, and I have taken them, and everyone knows you cant pay your IOUs so they wont accept them any more. You are now up SC without a paddle.
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until somebody says, I don't trust IOUs any more I want to be paid in real money and all you have are IOUs
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........but what is REAL money?
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either bits of paper which I can use elsewhere outside the car4play island or something equally negotiable since I have decided that your IOU is worthless.
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>> I have decided that your IOU is worthless.
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But it's not just my IOU. It's your IOU too. Didn't you realise your bank account is full of them? Your pension fund is built of them.
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I understood all this until you lot started explaining it.
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>> I understood all this until you lot started explaining it.
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Yes, like some of the explanations in ISIHAC to "One song to the tune of another", e.g.
"The game works like this. The teams have in front of them the words but not the music of a song which is different from another song of which they have neither the music nor the words. The tune of this second song, which is quite unlike the first song both in words and music, will be played but without the words to which the teams will substitute the other words they have from the first song which obviously will have no tune because that's made way for the tune from the other song without its words.
"This might be hard to explain, so perhaps this alternative definition will help. Despite the title, each contestant will be allocated two songs, or words sung to music, but from one he will concentrate only on the lyrics while trying to disregard the tune, and from the other he will focus on the music while ignoring the words.
"I know what you are thinking, which one is which? Well the first, or one song, is the set of words sung to music which no longer has the tune, and the second, or another as we know it, is the tune to some words without the lyrics but retaining the music. All you have to do is put them together, in other words — literally — one song to the tune of another."
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Cliff,
In reply to your original question " What would happen if I just let it roll for another 10 years?", I say to you just observe what is happening in Greece.
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If you want to look at a country which has done all the wrong things for the past 20 years - and not done the right ones (cf Germany) - look at France.
An object lesson as what could happen if Ed Balls became Chancellor.
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Could have sworn i heard something on the radio news i failed to silence quickly enough earlier in the year, something about recession being officially over, we made daisy chains and danced barefoot in the fields to celebrate this miracle.
Then i realised it was the BBC, propaganda arm of the current one party state, therefore pure bull.
Eventually, possibly in our lifetimes cash will no longer be legal tender and everything will be electronically transferred via the VAT and tax offices, monitored by the faceless ones, its the only way the beast can be sure to get every bit of blood.
Stick your heads in the sand and vote yet again for the same spivs idiots and traitors who've taken us thus far, they must laugh their socks off (in between counting the millions, Peace Envoy Blair or giving away the billions, Cast Iron Cameron), doesn't matter how bad the complete and utter shambles they make, the turkeys can't wait to vote for Christmas...utter lunatics.
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>>and vote yet again for the same spivs idiots and traitors who've taken us thus far,<<
Give us an option then GB, put yourself up for the vote and see how much better you can do.
It's very easy to criticise from a safe distance, but far harder to actually put some effort into making it into the Utopia you seem to think we are all entitled to.
Pat
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"What a gloomy world you live in GB. "
I look around me and see a population well fed and comfortably housed for the most part. Being born in the late forties I escaped the world wars that blighted my father's and grandfather's lives. If I or my family are ill I can be treated free of charge. I eat a range of food that my grandparents could only dream of. I can still afford holidays as can most of my friends and acquaintances. I have access to more entertainment than I can possibly read, watch or listen to. I have a car standing in the drive and I can go where I want
Of course its not Utopia and there are a lot of things that could be done to improve life for some and there are indeed some having a miserable time but you would be having a lot harder time if you were not fortunate to be part of the the wealthiest 5% of the world's population or indeed were living in virtually any other time other than the present
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Budget - Autumn Statement 2012 - Roger.
