PaulT Posted July 31, 2016 Share Posted July 31, 2016 There is a clip on YouTube of the exchange between Robin Day and John Nott:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ln3SpXXYTHY Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gluestick Posted July 31, 2016 Share Posted July 31, 2016 PaulT and Rabbie:The first core problem is the Quinquennial Act which demands a General Election at least every five Years. (In the UK that is).Not sure about la belle.Five Years is simply insufficient time to reverse any serious trends; let alone really solve problems!Politicians crow, repeatedly, "Look how well we have performed!": in socio-economic terms of reference, any substantive change to fiscal strategy takes a considerable time to actually feed through the system: thus within that five year spectrum, the triumphs they crow about are either caused by external peripheral drivers they had nothing whatsoever to do with, or are the resultant of policies implemented by the previous mob!The second core problem is party politics: any career politician seeks preferment: from humble MP to junior minister to Secretary of State and full cabinet membership. It is from this inner influence the rich rewards of executive seats on boards emanate. If for any reason, an MP goes again the party line and thus whips, then they can forget preferment.Imagine: 99% of the electors in a constituency demand their MP vote against something which is diametrically opposed to party rote; thereafter, they can forget that nice seat on the cabinet!On many occasions I have been having tea on the terrace with MPs or in meetings with ministers when the division bell rings; suddenly they are galvanised and scramble back to the House or into the lobbies to vote!Yet, they haven't even listened to the debate! A total charade, yet they have the temerity to describe this as "Democracy"!My derriere.The final core problem, is so-called "Special Interest" groups and lobbying.We saw with Brexit how major global corporations and banks, including Soros, Goldman Sachs and J P Morgan and Co, pumped zillions into the Remain concept. But they are not even British!This lobbying ploy has been directly copied from the corruption of US politics: Washington DC is chock full of law firms: hardly any actually practice law! They are lobbyists and represent "Special Interest" clients. And where and if their man (or woman) is boosted into the hot seat then they demand payback; big time... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
woolybanana Posted July 31, 2016 Share Posted July 31, 2016 To which might be added other lobby groups such as trade unions. Just read how Jeremy Corbyn would pay back their support, somewhere in today's press.This at least is relatively open, but there is a darker lobbying which takes place, such as the churches, via their own people or such organisations as Opus Dei, Freemasons (not sure if they are still a power in the land), Scientology etc.Then there is the very dark hand of the establishment, from the Royal Family downwards.Is there anyone who does not have a lobby? I reckon even Norman has a little man who hisses sweet nothings into politicians ears and makes offers related to ladies of the night and electromechanical toys! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chancer Posted July 31, 2016 Share Posted July 31, 2016 3 armed Gendarmes standing guard outside the Basilique this morning for the messe. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rabbie Posted July 31, 2016 Share Posted July 31, 2016 Gluestick, At present in the UK we have the Fixed Term Parliament Act which states that except in exceptional service there should be a five year interval between General Elections. I appreciate the point you are making but I think that any attempt to lengthen the interval would be seen by the electorate as an attempt by politicians to keep their place on the gravy train. There is also a danger that a longer period would widen the gap between the electorate and MPs. The UK is also unique in democratic countries in having a second chamber that is part hereditary and part filled with people that have been appointed for life. This clearly needs to changed in a rational way but seems to be very low on any party's agenda.As you so rightly said we need to learn the lessons of history to avoid making the same mistakes again. I am not holding my breath that our present politicians of any party will do this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gluestick Posted July 31, 2016 Share Posted July 31, 2016 Rabbie:For me, I believe Britain has been facing a series of crises, as serious as war.Fiscal Reality, particularly, Sovereign Debt; Economy; Housing; Education; Health; Infrastructure; Unfettered Immigration; Crime and Law and Order, generally.The only logical way to rectify these, is for party politics to be adjourned and a real coalition formed. Not the pretence of the Cameron-Clegg fiasco, which simply resulted in Dave having to provide the idiot Liberal Democrats with (what America describes and Pork Barrel goodies) sops to their crazy ideological Wunderkind. Perhaps the best example being climate change legislation.This has emasculated what little is left of UK industry by saddling it with energy burdens at a time when even Germany has basically abandoned its renewables and resorted to coal-fired electricity generation in order to meet demand.If not?Then Britain will accelerate its rate of current decline and further degenerate into a quasi-Third World State.Remember, the supposed "Wealth" is illusionary, since it is based, mainly, upon insane house price escalation. In order to illustrate this, in 2003/4 ONS's (Office of National Statistics) Annual Wealth of Great Britain survey showed residential real estate equated to around 65% of TOTAL supposed "Wealth". Madness!In order to fund the last Blair-Brown bubble economy, the capital had to be imported from the global Interbank Market. The debt accrued was packaged and sold on as "Securities", as MBSs (Mortgage Backed Securities).Britain, nationally and more critically, privately, is an island floating on unredeemable debt obligations.Which cannot enjoy a perpetual continuum."The world's first commercial nuclear power station, Calder Hall at Windscale, England, was opened in 1956 with an initial capacity of 50 MW (later 200 MW). The first commercial nuclear generator to become operational in the United States was the Shippingport Reactor (Pennsylvania, December 1957)."Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_powerYet, now, Britain cannot even afford to build one and has to go cap in hand to France to build it and China, forsooth, to fund it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mint Posted July 31, 2016 Author Share Posted July 31, 2016 The trade deficit has even become unmentionable and unmentioned by the new chancellor, Hammond. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gluestick Posted August 1, 2016 Share Posted August 1, 2016 Agree totally, Mint.Indeed, I have been warning about this for many years.The problem is successive governments, Blair-Brown and Cameron-Osborne have simply ignored the reality of this massive systemic weakness in the UK's fiscal-economic financial system and whitewashed the numbers by not actually dwelling on the bare trade imbalance, but instead using the Current Account as the principle metric.(Current Account is capital flows and balance and thus the trade imbalance is subsumed into the whole.)No wonder why governments have been so keen to allow foreign asset-stripping investors to rip off UK businesses and projects and thereafter crow about how "successful" they have been in attracting foreign investors!Nice graph here: you can select from 1 to maximum 1955-2016:http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/balance-of-tradeAlso Current Account with a slightly longer time series: 1946 to 2016:http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/current-account"In the 3 months to April 2016, the UK’s trade in goods deficit with the EU widened by £0.6 billion, to a record 3 monthly deficit of £23.8 billion. In the 3 months to April 2016, exports of goods to the EU increased by £2.1 billion and imports of goods from the EU increased by £2.7 billion, to a record 3 monthly level of £58.6 billion."Source: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NickP Posted August 1, 2016 Share Posted August 1, 2016 Gluestick writes: to April 2016, the UK’s trade in goods deficit with the EU widened by £0.6 billion, to a record 3 monthly deficit of £23.8 billion. In the 3 months to April 2016, exports of goods to the EU increased by £2.1 billion and imports of goods from the EU increased by £2.7 billion, to a record 3 monthly level of £58.6 billion."Forgive for not wanting to get into a discussion with experts on UK debts as I left school at 15; and just did manual work all my life so economics etc. we're not part of my education, but would I be wrong to think that these facts show that it would be in the EU's interest to keep a post brexit UK happy? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chessie Posted August 1, 2016 Share Posted August 1, 2016 NickP - this goes over my head as well; but nothing beats common-sense, and you are quite right about the eu. Some of the big eu companies have admitted that the eu Needs The UK rather than the other way around.There are experts, there are economists - I thought they were supposed to be running the banks, and the IMF and the ECB... experts ? huh.I'd prefer ordinary people with Mr Micawber's outlook any day; too many clever people bluffing and blustering out of their depth have got us into this financial mess.Gluestick - agree with you about Parliament and length of term - but there is no other fairer way of - democratically - running a country. But aren't all the permanent Civil Servants and Mandarins supposed to be managing behind the scenes and ready to advise 'new' Ministers - who let's face it really are totally clueless most of the time. Most effective Environment Minister recently - Owen Patterson - got sacked by Cameron. Only man who sorted out the horse-meat scandal, and the floods in the West Country because he knew his brief, and he took no prisoners. Michael Gove another one who seemed to have a bit of nous; David Davis - the best Leader the Tories never had... but these are the few.And yes, I do hate the lot of them don't trust 'em, none of 'em - but we don't have any better options do we ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
idun Posted August 1, 2016 Share Posted August 1, 2016 We do not have better options and in fact, that means we do not have any options.I would say that I always found that the french played with the truth about figures more than I reckon that the UK ever did. They were always sneakier with getting more money off people, in many guises these have been, but basically more tax to be paid as far as I am concerned.Warned, well, me I warned of the financial crisis years ago, but everyone told me I was talking nonsense. What the likes of me sees is never taken seriously by anyone until it happens and then everyone 'knew' which is a load of absolute tosh. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gluestick Posted August 1, 2016 Share Posted August 1, 2016 [quote user="NickP"]Gluestick writes: to April 2016, the UK’s trade in goods deficit with the EU widened by £0.6 billion, to a record 3 monthly deficit of £23.8 billion. In the 3 months to April 2016, exports of goods to the EU increased by £2.1 billion and imports of goods from the EU increased by £2.7 billion, to a record 3 monthly level of £58.6 billion."Forgive for not wanting to get into a discussion with experts on UK debts as I left school at 15; and just did manual work all my life so economics etc. we're not part of my education, but would I be wrong to think that these facts show that it would be in the EU's interest to keep a post brexit UK happy?[/quote]Nick:Half-a -Pound of nous, is far better than five tonnes of "Expert's" opinions...One of my treasured reference text books is a small tome titled "The Death of Economics" written by an economist, Paul Ormerod, in which he savages his fellows for teaching and spouting rubbish.Money is rather simple: Earn £5, spend £5. Result; Balance.Economies: Tax Income £100 Billion (If you like £100,000,000,000) spend £95 Billion and you have £5 Billion for a rainy day.Unfortunately, today we have most Western governments (except Switzerland!) with Tax Income of £100 Billion: and spending of £125 Billion and therefore constantly increasing national debt of £25 Billion. And more...Interesting little site to see how badly many EU states are doing!Here:(n.b. GDP = Gross Domestic product: = the total value of work value output).EU needs Britain more than Britain needs EU. Quite correct, Nick. Already, the major German manufacturers have warned Mad Mutti Merkel about this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulT Posted August 1, 2016 Share Posted August 1, 2016 Interesting that the Eastern bloc has the lower GDP to debt. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gluestick Posted August 2, 2016 Share Posted August 2, 2016 Isn't it, Paul!More prudential management of their fiscal balances, clearly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
idun Posted August 2, 2016 Share Posted August 2, 2016 And why is it that it seems that many 'eastern block' billionaires get their money out...... now why is that...........?Some things in this world do not make sense to me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gluestick Posted August 2, 2016 Share Posted August 2, 2016 [quote user="idun"]And why is it that it seems that many 'eastern block' billionaires get their money out...... now why is that...........?Some things in this world do not make sense to me.[/quote]Simply because they were previously Marxist centralist supposed governments, idun and as Soviet Russia collapsed and its satellite states and Comecon and the eastern Bloc collapsed, too, many top politicians and members of the Mafiya feathered their own nests before scarpering westwards.The Yeltsin period in Russia is a most fascinating study! Boris the Boozer favoured his cronies big-time and helped them to rip off state assets for nothing. This created the era of the so-called Oligarchs. Roman Abramovich, Alexander Abramov, Oleg Deripaska, Mikhail Fridman, Mikhail Prokhorov, Alisher Usmanov, German Khan, Viktor Vekselberg, Leonid Mikhelson, Vagit Alekperov, Pyotr Aven, and still Vladimir Potanin and Vitaly Malkin.Vladimir Putin did rectify many of the abuses (unpaid vast taxes; state assets stolen) even imprisoning quite a few and seizing assets.In order he could carve out his own share, no doubt! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulT Posted August 2, 2016 Share Posted August 2, 2016 So the rich western countries, i.e. UK, France, Germany and Italy who have high debt to GDP are pouring money into the eastern block countries with low debt to GDP - my brain hurts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andyh4 Posted August 2, 2016 Share Posted August 2, 2016 Think of it like the "well-off" family in London. Good salary, but huge mortgage, bank loan to pay for the top of the range Merc. Credit cards and store cards for top London stores. Paying huge taxes to help support a poor unemployed family in a rented house in Bolton.Well perhaps you might like to think that is what should happen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gluestick Posted August 2, 2016 Share Posted August 2, 2016 [quote user="PaulT"]So the rich western countries, i.e. UK, France, Germany and Italy who have high debt to GDP are pouring money into the eastern block countries with low debt to GDP - my brain hurts.[/quote]And personally, my wallet hurts 'cos of the taxes necessary to support this nonsensical idiocy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gluestick Posted August 4, 2016 Share Posted August 4, 2016 Interesting but very worrying...Here: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
woolybanana Posted August 4, 2016 Share Posted August 4, 2016 Don't worry, guys, Jeremy "Our Saviour" Corbyn has just promised to spend £500 billion of our and borrowed money on State stuff. This will solve all our problems for ever.May Bobo bless Jeremy the Jackass Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rabbie Posted August 4, 2016 Share Posted August 4, 2016 It doesn't matter what Jeremy promises because he is never going to be in a position to deliver. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harnser Posted August 5, 2016 Share Posted August 5, 2016 Hmm - you know what the saying is "never say never" and remember that the popular opinion was that the UK would "never" leave the EU. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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