Politics

[SteveTheShadow]

Politics is not the issue in this country, well not in the old sense of the word anyway.
Interest rates remain at record lows as the government cuts, cuts, cuts and cuts again.
We all know about the £1.2Tn national debt and the deficit etc.
We, as a country have a far bigger problem than this. The elephant in the room is the £1.5Tn owed by British households on mortgages, credit cards and personal loans. This truly is a ticking timebomb of terrifying potency. As soon as interest rated go up BANG foreclosures galore, house price crash, negative equity, insolvencies on a terrifying scale, not seen before.

Then pay down your debts say the holier than thou; live within your means blah blah. OK everyone does this and starts paying down. BANG! the economy crashes because we rely for growth on consumer spending and selling off Govt assets. There is no way out of this problem.

Thatcher began this with right to buy, selling off public assets and destruction of the manufacturing base and the creation of the post industrial society. Union reforms were only a holding tactic until the loadsamoney worshipping idiots who became convinced by constant adverts for cards, loans and Tell Sid share schemes that they could afford fantasy lifestyles, took the bait hook line and sinker.
Now the govt don't need union reforms anymore because debt slavery has shackled significant sections of the population into serfdom, because they are one paycheck from the breadline and cannot, indeed dare not rock the boat.
No government of any colour since 1979 has done anything. Indeed they have encouraged the borrow borrow borrow and if you cant afford the repayments, borrow some more mentality.
What better way is there to control the population of developed countries than debt slavery. Absolutely brilliant! Game set match to capitalism and governments of whatever colour, who are all in the pockets of multinationals, banks and financial institutions. The super rich 1% get exponentially richer on the misery of the unfortunate people who believed the hype and believed they were entitled to a new car every year houses, new kitchens, jacuzzis, and two foreign holidays. They can cut wages, erode working conditions, hire and fire with impunity because the workers can no longer afford to withdraw their labour.
The multinationals sold the dream, aided by complicit governments and now we sit and wait for the explosion, whilst Osborne and co shaft the poor, disabled and disadvantaged, who did not cause this mess, whilst the debt shackled, frightened, impotent middle and affluent worker classes point the finger at immigrants and benefit scroungers. They do not have any idea of what is going to hit them.
Worrying. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comm ... -bomb.html

[Daniel Quinn]

It is not possible to grow GDP without borrowing .

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

A cake is a cake no matter how you slice it.

[Daniel Quinn]

Yes , but consequent to inflation the cake must get bigger every year .

Who was who described inflation as nothing more than the aggregate outcome a few greedy bastards putting up thier prices ?

It may have been undergraduate DQ

[joe]

This is all bringing back long-forgotten Economics A level lessons, which I mostly slept through, but which can all be boiled down to supply and demand. If demand is high and supply is low, the price will rise. If demand is low and supply is high, the price will fall. If demand and supply are about equal, prices will remain stable. The prime example of the first is house prices in the South of England. Huge demand, limited supply, so house prices just keep going up and up. (The example we were given was of a talented footballer who could command a huge wage, because his skills were scarce, but in great demand, because back then the housing market was fairly stagnant).

As the bloke who does the Dilbert cartoons wrote: 'I did a Masters in Economics. I remember only two things: the first was something about supply and demand; the second was that it's not actually possible to die of boredom, though you might wish it was'.

[Progmeister]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07SCKcP6AAI

[Daniel Quinn]

This is all bringing back long-forgotten Economics A level lessons, which I mostly slept through, but which can all be boiled down to supply and demand. If demand is high and supply is low, the price will rise. If demand is low and supply is high, the price will fall. If demand and supply are about equal, prices will remain stable. The prime example of the first is house prices in the South of England. Huge demand, limited supply, so house prices just keep going up and up. (The example we were given was of a talented footballer who could command a huge wage, because his skills were scarce, but in great demand, because back then the housing market was fairly stagnant).

As the bloke who does the Dilbert cartoons wrote: 'I did a Masters in Economics. I remember only two things: the first was something about supply and demand; the second was that it's not actually possible to die of boredom, though you might wish it was'.

this is the bullshite which prompted undergraduate DQ to collapse inflation to a selfish bastard putting up his prices .

supply demand is classical economics bullshit which portrays economies as machines instead of humans acting in social environments . You may well remember from those classes the concept of economic man which is the concept of human agency employed by economics and is largely responsible for economics piss poor predictive powers .

suppply and demand is analogous to explaining how your TV works by saying it as an off and on button .

[joe]

this is the bullshite which prompted undergraduate DQ to collapse inflation to a selfish bastard putting up his prices .

supply demand is classical economics bullshit which portrays economies as machines instead of humans acting in social environments . You may well remember from those classes the concept of economic man which is the concept of human agency employed by economics and is largely responsible for economics piss poor predictive powers .

suppply and demand is analogous to explaining how your TV works by saying it as an off and on button .

At end of

Like I said, I slept through most of it. Still managed to get a reasonably good grade, though. The teacher had a terrible stutter, and it took him ages to say sssssupppplllyy and ddddeemmanndd. Strangely, because was quite a little bloke, I found out later he'd been in the England rugby team in his younger days.

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

Smaller guys are often wingers or full back. Scum Half is the most likely to be a small bloke. The famous Welsh scrum halfs were all small and very agile. I played wing or full back at school as I am only 5ft 8in. Fast, agile and extremely annoying to heavy leaden footed forwards, until you slip and one of them gets you. I had concussion for three days after one of those, went to school normally remember nothing about it.

[Macca]

Thatcher began this with right to buy, selling off public assets and destruction of the manufacturing base and the creation of the post industrial society.

Just a slight correction to a factual inaccuracy since the rest of your post is opinion and fair enough. Thatcher did not 'destroy the manufacturing base' of this country, despite what you may have read in the Socialist Worker back in 1987. Manufacturing output in this country is higher than it ever was and, a few minor blips aside, has continued to increase since the start of the industrial revolution. It just employs a lot less people than it used to; this is entirely due to technological advances.