Comments on: Best budget ever

By: Philipa

Philipa — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 08:54:37 +0000

What Stan said.

Well said that man.

By: Stan

Stan — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 23:31:27 +0000

“The perceived wealth of the last decade was largely borrowed from overseas rather than earned at home.”

Spot on – built on a mountain of government, corporate and personal debt. Troube is, people forget the basic law of market economics – supply and demand. We’re paying ourselves too much in a global market place. When there are 6 billion people on this planet who are willing to do the same job as you for a tenth of the pay, don’t be surprised when you either no longer have a job or are earning a damn sight less. In a globalised world we can not continue to pay ourselves £30,000 a year for doing something that someone in India will willingly do just as well for £3000 a year. The service industry? The service industry relies on having a producer industry to serve (and thus pay for the service) – it is a supporting industry to manufacturing, not a bloody substitute for it! Comparative advantage? Relies on having something that gives you an advantage – name it.

No nation can remain a consumer nation for long and maintain its living standards. The debt grows and grows until, finally, the credit bubble bursts and the depression strikes. Depression ALWAYS follows globalisation – as it did in the late 19th century and again in the 1930′s (the only two previous attempts at “globalisation”). Yep – on both occasions it also produced a prolonged period of boom – but now as then, that boom was built on debt.

Does this budget address the problems – nope. Would the Tories address the problems – nope – they haven’t got a clue.

Troubled times ahead.

By: Blue Eyes

Blue Eyes — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 22:49:57 +0000

Patently – make me Chancellor when you are PM!

Julia – great minds…

P – yes now I have watched the analysis all I can think (politely) is “how irresponsible”.

ND/P – that’s for that image…

BQ – I am a bit younger than you by the sound of it. We had that austerity as well in our house. It was pretty galling for us youngsters because some of the kids at school were very rich indeed.

By: bill quango mp

bill quango mp — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 22:35:59 +0000

Blue.
In my mum’s house in the 70′s if my brothers and sisters caused wear to our shoes, used the telephone, broke anything, damage or dirtied our clothes, we caused my single parent mum untold anguish. There was no money to replace anything.We had food.. those crap 70′s clothes and a crap car. We were living like our grand parents, but without the quality of items. Cheap MFI wardrobes, that had to last as long as an antique heavy pine.
Cars that didn’t start, patched knee school trousers etc

When I started work in the 80′s I paid 33% tax on 90% of measly £2,500 salary. I can’t remember what NI was. guess about 6%. That was the legacy of the bust 70′s.

Let us hope the poverty of austerity is not too long lasting over the next few years.

By: Philipa

Philipa — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 22:02:28 +0000

They don’t like it up ‘em you know.

By: Nick Drew

Nick Drew — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 20:11:04 +0000

did I hear you say basically we have to bend over ? no ? well you almost did

By: Philipa

Philipa — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 18:52:23 +0000

We knew we had to tighten our belts but instead of a stringent budget we had disaster. What we needed was a tough parent patiently guiding us out of the mire. What we got was a bunch of teenagers barely past puberty pissing our country up the wall.

By: JuliaM

JuliaM — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 16:05:38 +0000

“…I cannot bring myself to give a monkey’s.”

Me neither.

By: patently

patently — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 14:12:06 +0000

taxes have to go up, spending has to come down, the economy will hurt for several years to come, there are no easy fixes.

Add in enough waffle, spin and misleading comparisons to pad that out to 45 minutes and yes, that’s pretty well Darling’s speech.

You didn’t miss much.