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$17 Billion
faded.princess
Posts: 1,627 Forum Member
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Lest we forget.
Todays record high gold price means that the difference between what Brown sold OUR gold for and what it could have fetched now we need it is nearly $17 Billion. That's right, $17 Billion.
Investment analysts think that it will reach over $2,000/ounce within three years.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/investing/gold/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/investing/gold/8432970/Gold-40-years-of-turmoil.html
Hardly anyone supported his sale of the gold or the way in which he did it. He did not need to sell it, it was part of our assets. I would like to know what happened to the paper money that it was exchanged for, is it still in our reserves or was it "dipped" into.
Anyone still think Brown was an economic genius?
Todays record high gold price means that the difference between what Brown sold OUR gold for and what it could have fetched now we need it is nearly $17 Billion. That's right, $17 Billion.
Investment analysts think that it will reach over $2,000/ounce within three years.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/investing/gold/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/investing/gold/8432970/Gold-40-years-of-turmoil.html
Hardly anyone supported his sale of the gold or the way in which he did it. He did not need to sell it, it was part of our assets. I would like to know what happened to the paper money that it was exchanged for, is it still in our reserves or was it "dipped" into.
Anyone still think Brown was an economic genius?
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He must be a genius - he is trying to get himself elected as the next head of the IMF.;)
However, i've always thought that with gold the only price, long term, is up. Brown, the economic terrorist, should not of flogged our gold and kept it for a 'rainy day' in the future or to add worth to the country.
How does that align with your past comments about Thatcher
Oh how convenient, will have to remember that.
But did taxpayers personally lose out by the sale of gold as they did on Black Wednesday?
What have they made on the money that was invested from the sale of the gold?
Until you take into account the profit or loss from where it has been invested and see how well it has done you only know if they had kept the gold.
At the end of the day, we are living with the consequences of the past 30 years of riding the neoliberal merry-go-round which was a dogma she emphatically embraced
And if I want to criticise the Blessed Margaret - our very own Founding Mother of Mass Welfare Dependency - then I shall
We needed it then too. Do you think the Tories left zero debt in 1997? They were borrowing at record rates in 1992 and 1993 and we paid for it for the rest of the decade.
Where do you think the mobile phone sale money went too?
http://www.usagold.com/reference/prices/1999.html
I'm not sure whether Gordon Brown was right to sell the gold but from what I can see all it was doing was lying in a vault and I don't think he or anyone else would have expected it to ever become worth as much as it has during the last 12 months or so.
Don't burst their little bubble of Brown Hate, by mentioning selling off fresh air for £20bn. You'll upset them.
Yep, in 1993, public spending as % of GDP was 44% and revenues 35%; a deficit of 9% and the Conservatives didn't have to contend with the worst global financial crisis and economic downturn this side of the Great Depression (and its probably just as well)
I've extracted that from the The Economists The World in 2011, which I purchased last week for a bargain £1.50 (i..e £4 off)
Clearly, in the real world, deficits and debt are nothing novel to Britain and certainly nothing novel to the Labour Party. Rarely have we ran a budget surplus. Seemingly, 1% of GDP in 1988, balanced in 1989 and 1997, surpluses 1998-2000, balanced in 2001, then back to modest deficits before hitting 11% of GDP in 2009 (for obvious reasons)
Yet in terms of public debt to GDP ratios, the UK of the G7 is at the lower end. Japan, Italy, the US, France, Germany, the UK ... and Canada
Debt ain't some British thing, far from it, faded princess
I love this idea that selling off the airwaves was all just free money...
Who do you think has been paying for it ever since?
You could fly around the world for free on the hot air from The Economist! But their guides are excellent and cover much detail.
Spot on the money DT!
Clever Gordon Brown sold off the G3 licenses for over £22 billion which was, in effect, a super invisible indirect tax paid as part of everyone's mobile phone contacts ever since.
When Brown sold the gold he was not doing so as a speculator, to make a profit, so it's wrong to ascribe these motives to him. It's hardly proof he was bad at economic management. It's no different to complaining that someone sold a house in 1997 and saying look how much they've lost due to increases in house prices over the years. The money from that house sale could have been invested in something else more profitable. Or the house sale might have been for non investment reasons.
At least we got some return for the sale in the form of foreign currency reserves. The Black Wednesday crisis was a total loss to the country.
But the 3 billion wasnt a total loss was it? - without the fiasco of Black Wednesday we would have never escaped from the ERM - the 3 Billion was the price that needed to be paid to allow us to have the longest period of sustained growth in modern times
But the growth in the value of the foreign currency he bought was dwarfed by the loss in value of the gold he sold - a net reduction in our assets that cost far more than BW
If that is the case then how come you constantly bang on about what has happened in the past
A rather pointless question as according to Brown at the time, he was replacing gold with paper money as part of our national reserves. The value of the money he replaced gold with fluctuates but assuming it was a mixture of Euros, Dollars and Yen, then there has been no significant increase in its value.
Nick Leeson was jailed for a crime much less than that of Gordon Brown. Both speculated with others money and only one was punished.
Ah, our blaspheming CHRISTIAN Democrat.
Amongst other things, it formed part of our reserves upon which, much of our credit rating is based. So in effect, we could have had another $17 Billion in our reserves making our credit rating more secure.
Based on your philosophy, we should sell of all non paper assets.
Please show me where have I made any reference to debt? This thread is about Gordon Brown being an economic idiot.
This post deserves a separate reply.
The Euro, oh yes, that is our currency, isn't it? In that case, why was Britain the only country to sell of such large quantities of gold. I do not remember Germany or France selling off 400 tons of gold each. How much gold is held by the Euro zone countries?
Red herrings such as comparing the selling of reserves to house prices are not even worth replying too.
No we did not get any return for our sale of gold, we had a very large LOSS.
And as Majlis pointed out, £3 Billion was the price we paid to get out of something we should never have entered in the first place. (one of the few bad decisions that had nothing to do with Brown).
I think Brown was okay as Chancellor, his problem is he was too niaive, trusting of those around him. Follow the paper trail and you'll see that Brown was fooled into selling our gold reserves.
After all, he couldn't have been that bad, the PFIs which the Tories criticised, they are now ploughing on with them!
Brings to mind that old saying about a fool and his money.