Labour, should have reined in the welfare bill but let it balloon to unprecedented levels and they also helped create the something for nothing society by bringing in ridiculous levels of benefits and instead of slashing benefits Labour borrowed more and more which got us in a mess
All of the above/something else altogether - please state!
The bankers have taken over nation states in order to plunder the tax system directly, but then we have politicians who have allowed it, nay encouraged it, made it a career, and a population who have voted for it as long as they can have a 42" plasma screen.
Gordon Brown and his mismanagement of the economy, reckless, immoral and irresponsible bankers and gamblers on the worldwide markets, members of the general public who took on too much debt and property speculators.
I went with bankers but I'd like to give some credit to the Conservative party and their partisan supporters who ceaslessly and selfishly talked the economy down until they got what they wanted... and despite all that economy recking negativity still couldn't win and overall majority
Looking at the results, it seems Thatcher is still to blame in some places. With a mindset like that, this country will never progress, instead we'll be resigned to a future of don't blame me, blame the other guy. Fiddling while Rome burns seems more appropriate.
I went with bankers but I'd like to give some credit to the Conservative party and their partisan supporters who ceaslessly and selfishly talked the economy down until they got what they wanted...
So nothing to do with Labour spending more than our income then?
Stupid. Blaming one man for Britain feeling the effect of a global economic crisis...
Yes we were hit hard, but putting all blame on one man is just ridiculous and naive. Say whatever you like about Brown, but 'idiot' or 'immoral' are not fair. He's smarter than everyone on this board, absolutely no question about that and he's devoted his life to public service. MP's might look like crooks to you, but a man of that caliber could have (and could still but doesn't, his reputation abroad is very good) made a hell of a lot more in the private sector.
But no, continue to buy into the myth so Cameron and Osborne can continue to make all those ideological cuts. I sometimes wonder if Cameron removed the NHS this board wouldn't say simply "well we had to do something. We inherited this mess we didn't know about":rolleyes:
Looking at the results, it seems Thatcher is still to blame in some places. With a mindset like that, this country will never progress, instead we'll be resigned to a future of don't blame me, blame the other guy. Fiddling while Rome burns seems more appropriate.
Well you have to ask where that culture originated and took its roots from. The Thatcher era.
Easy Gordon Brown. The bankers could only do what they did because he let them. He was in charge for 13 years wasn't he, or does he only take the credit for things that go well in finance.
Plus banks should have been allowed to fail. He bailed them out and then realised they had him by the balls.
Easy Gordon Brown. The bankers could only do what they did because he let them. He was in charge for 13 years wasn't he, or does he only take the credit for things that go well in finance.
Plus banks should have been allowed to fail. He bailed them out and then realised they had him by the balls.
I know GB and Labour are an easy target, but how do you assign the blame to them fro the PIIGS and American sub-prime mortgage crisis? I voted for the banks, but it's much more complex than this with many factors involved. While it is difficult to blame Thatcher, it was in her era that the demand for property expnded coupled with the ban on using council house sales money to build more, that started the housing shortage and spiraling prices. However, this is not the sole cause of the recession and does not explain the worldwide extent.
Although bank lending was ultimately responsible for the recession, the banks were responding to customer demand to provide a service and protecting their profits by offsetting them to other institutions who were so greedy for high returns that they didn't understand the risks.
Thee is no single cause, but it seems to be a bubble of consumer demand that eventually burst.
I know GB and Labour are an easy target, but how do you assign the blame to them fro the PIIGS and American sub-prime mortgage crisis? I voted for the banks, but it's much more complex than this with many factors involved.
Brown relaxed regulation in the City. He also sold off all the gold at a very low level and put no money away for a rainy day as he proclaimed that boom and bust was a thing of the past under his leadership.
While it is difficult to blame Thatcher, it was in her era that the demand for property expnded coupled with the ban on using council house sales money to build more, that started the housing shortage and spiraling prices. However, this is not the sole cause of the recession and does not explain the worldwide extent.
So with high unemployment and a housing shortage so bad, young people can never afford to get their first house, was record, irresponsible and uncontrolled immigration was a great idea then?
Although bank lending was ultimately responsible for the recession, the banks were responding to customer demand to provide a service and protecting their profits by offsetting them to other institutions who were so greedy for high returns that they didn't understand the risks.
Thee is no single cause, but it seems to be a bubble of consumer demand that eventually burst.
Yes but if you believe in capitalism, they have to be left to go bankrupt. The government should only have save the high street type average savers, everyone else goes to the wall.
OK their would be a recession , but the economy would rise afresh like a phoenix. Bankers would be humbled and self regulate in their own interests and not just pay lip service to the tabloids.
Brown. But only in the absence of a "Labour" option. It's the labour policy of chucking money at a problem in the hope that it will go away, and if it doesn't chuck more money at it. Millions were thrown at the nhs. did it improve? yes. Did it improve in proportion to what was spent? no. Unemployment was hidden by enlarging the public sector making it disproportional to the private sector. The tax credit system was set up to give people money for having kids. But it wasn't limited to a maximum number of kids. Then there's defence spending. two aircraft carriers that might as well be cross channel ferrys because we have no aircraft for them. Yet they will cost more to cancel than to build. In who's constituency are they being built i wonder?
Plans to build nuclear power stations while at the same time selling off Westinghouse, the only company we had to build the things, to the Japanese. Lets not also forget the sale of qinetiq for a pittence to the Americans. Then there's the EU. our contributions increase and Labour gives up our agricultural rebate in return. Two major wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that are costing a small fortune. Money being laundered to the Labour party via the trade unions through the union modernisation fund. That's all before we get to gold being sold off after driving down the market price. Or the ever rising cost of hosting the olympics. Yet people still think that a few bankers getting a couple of thousand pounds worth of bonuses bankrupted the country.
Sorry, but anyone who thinks they can abolish the economic cycle is a sandwich short of a picnic..
Indeed...
I still, to this day, find it absolutely staggering that this blundering dimwit found himself at the control panel of the UK economy.
At the time, I thought the UK couldn't possibly end up with a chancellor worse than Norman Lamont - surely, that just was not possible...then, with Gordon, we get a man whose attitude to the UK finances could have landed him a role in 'Brewster's Millions'!
I mean, fancy claiming to have abolished the economic cycle. And that on top selling all that gold at the bottom of the market!
Surely that must have set off some alarm bells, even within the Labour Party? Surely, someone there must have paused for thought, and twigged that the guy had a bit of faulty wiring going on upstairs?
All of the above/something else altogether - please state!
Even so... I don't think Brown can solely bear the brunt of the blame. The financial crisis was/is a global one, caused largely by bad consumer debt and short term banking policies.
Brown, for his piss poor regulation of the city, and his exemplary public finance management skills. He did an excellent job of wasting money and ensuring only the highest levels of borrowing.
And every other country affected had their own Gordon Brown too?
So I have a feeling that maybe the western style democratic capitalist/fiat economy as we know it had reached some sort of saturation point. A point where the all important 'growth' factor was attained through more and more debt by means of ever more complicated and unreliable financial tools/products/models. It simply couldn't last and a crash was inevitable.
I would agree with this. Nothing can grow forever, and growth cannot be artificially stimulated without disastrous results (eg "we'll spend our way out of the recession!!1").
The current mentality that growth is always good is counter-productive and only really creates prosperity in the short term, for a select few, for example the current obsession with prices of houses always going up, push it too far and no first time buyers can afford to get on the market, who's business is needed to keep the housing market balanced.
Lefties!:p My favourite comment in 2010 was the poster who said that Billy Bragg still tosses himself off to the 'Internationale' every night!Thank you for the biggest lol of 2010!
I notice a few people commenting that GB was at fault for not regulating the banks more throughly, so I have a question.
There is an argument that imposing higher taxes on Banks won't work because they will just decamp and register their business somwehere else. If Brown/Labour had attempted to scrutinise and regulater their activites more prohibitively, would they not just have done the same thing and disappeared off to the USA or Iceland for example?
Gordon Brown for not reining in the deficit, and for allowing a huge bubble of personal debt to be built up.
The bankers for gambling in an unaccountable manner.
Thatcher for promoting the greed culture (which led to the bankers position) and for killing off manufacturing industry, thus narrowing our economic base to being too reliant on financial services.
I don't blame the baby boomers or the property speculators.
Labour, should have reined in the welfare bill but let it balloon to unprecedented levels and they also helped create the something for nothing society by bringing in ridiculous levels of benefits and instead of slashing benefits Labour borrowed more and more which got us in a mess
Perhaps they should but if they had how many people would now be homeless, unemployed and begging in the streets now ?
Personally I think it started with the Tories under Mrs Thatchers reign with mass unemployment (and no new industries to replace the ones which were closed down) but has continued to get worse over the years. So I would say all of the options given apart from the 'Baby Boomers' which I would change to irresponsible personal debt that many people allowed themselves to get into because of the 'I want it and I must have it now' culture many people seem to have adopted. For this I do blame Labour for starting the 'We've never had it so good' mantra but I also blame ordinary people for exploiting it.
Comments
^^ This coupled with the false belief that things can keep getting bigger and better within the closed loop of planet Earth.
Yup I agree.
So nothing to do with Labour spending more than our income then?
Yes we were hit hard, but putting all blame on one man is just ridiculous and naive. Say whatever you like about Brown, but 'idiot' or 'immoral' are not fair. He's smarter than everyone on this board, absolutely no question about that and he's devoted his life to public service. MP's might look like crooks to you, but a man of that caliber could have (and could still but doesn't, his reputation abroad is very good) made a hell of a lot more in the private sector.
But no, continue to buy into the myth so Cameron and Osborne can continue to make all those ideological cuts. I sometimes wonder if Cameron removed the NHS this board wouldn't say simply "well we had to do something. We inherited this mess we didn't know about":rolleyes:
Well you have to ask where that culture originated and took its roots from. The Thatcher era.
Plus banks should have been allowed to fail. He bailed them out and then realised they had him by the balls.
Thatcher is probably the mirror opposite of bankers. She despised socialism, but was a passionate believer in not spending what you don't have.
If Brown had stuck to prudence and saved for a rainy day, that would have been more in line with Thatchers personal views.
Sorry, but anyone who thinks they can abolish the economic cycle is a sandwich short of a picnic..
I know GB and Labour are an easy target, but how do you assign the blame to them fro the PIIGS and American sub-prime mortgage crisis? I voted for the banks, but it's much more complex than this with many factors involved. While it is difficult to blame Thatcher, it was in her era that the demand for property expnded coupled with the ban on using council house sales money to build more, that started the housing shortage and spiraling prices. However, this is not the sole cause of the recession and does not explain the worldwide extent.
Although bank lending was ultimately responsible for the recession, the banks were responding to customer demand to provide a service and protecting their profits by offsetting them to other institutions who were so greedy for high returns that they didn't understand the risks.
Thee is no single cause, but it seems to be a bubble of consumer demand that eventually burst.
Yes the option should have been, the Labour Party or the Labour Party and Gordon Brown.
Brown relaxed regulation in the City. He also sold off all the gold at a very low level and put no money away for a rainy day as he proclaimed that boom and bust was a thing of the past under his leadership.
So with high unemployment and a housing shortage so bad, young people can never afford to get their first house, was record, irresponsible and uncontrolled immigration was a great idea then?
Yes but if you believe in capitalism, they have to be left to go bankrupt. The government should only have save the high street type average savers, everyone else goes to the wall.
OK their would be a recession , but the economy would rise afresh like a phoenix. Bankers would be humbled and self regulate in their own interests and not just pay lip service to the tabloids.
Plans to build nuclear power stations while at the same time selling off Westinghouse, the only company we had to build the things, to the Japanese. Lets not also forget the sale of qinetiq for a pittence to the Americans. Then there's the EU. our contributions increase and Labour gives up our agricultural rebate in return. Two major wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that are costing a small fortune. Money being laundered to the Labour party via the trade unions through the union modernisation fund. That's all before we get to gold being sold off after driving down the market price. Or the ever rising cost of hosting the olympics. Yet people still think that a few bankers getting a couple of thousand pounds worth of bonuses bankrupted the country.
Indeed...
I still, to this day, find it absolutely staggering that this blundering dimwit found himself at the control panel of the UK economy.
At the time, I thought the UK couldn't possibly end up with a chancellor worse than Norman Lamont - surely, that just was not possible...then, with Gordon, we get a man whose attitude to the UK finances could have landed him a role in 'Brewster's Millions'!
I mean, fancy claiming to have abolished the economic cycle. And that on top selling all that gold at the bottom of the market!
Surely that must have set off some alarm bells, even within the Labour Party? Surely, someone there must have paused for thought, and twigged that the guy had a bit of faulty wiring going on upstairs?
How on earth was he allowed to continue?
Regards,
Cypher
And every other country affected had their own Gordon Brown too?
I would agree with this. Nothing can grow forever, and growth cannot be artificially stimulated without disastrous results (eg "we'll spend our way out of the recession!!1").
The current mentality that growth is always good is counter-productive and only really creates prosperity in the short term, for a select few, for example the current obsession with prices of houses always going up, push it too far and no first time buyers can afford to get on the market, who's business is needed to keep the housing market balanced.
There is an argument that imposing higher taxes on Banks won't work because they will just decamp and register their business somwehere else. If Brown/Labour had attempted to scrutinise and regulater their activites more prohibitively, would they not just have done the same thing and disappeared off to the USA or Iceland for example?
The bankers for gambling in an unaccountable manner.
Thatcher for promoting the greed culture (which led to the bankers position) and for killing off manufacturing industry, thus narrowing our economic base to being too reliant on financial services.
I don't blame the baby boomers or the property speculators.
Perhaps they should but if they had how many people would now be homeless, unemployed and begging in the streets now ?
Personally I think it started with the Tories under Mrs Thatchers reign with mass unemployment (and no new industries to replace the ones which were closed down) but has continued to get worse over the years. So I would say all of the options given apart from the 'Baby Boomers' which I would change to irresponsible personal debt that many people allowed themselves to get into because of the 'I want it and I must have it now' culture many people seem to have adopted. For this I do blame Labour for starting the 'We've never had it so good' mantra but I also blame ordinary people for exploiting it.