Osborne unveils £140bn scheme to kick-start stagnant economy

[Jim Graham]

You can't really still be trying to argue that all the problems we face are all caused by Gordon Brown. Most of the newer issues have been caused by George Osborne. Brown and Osborne are both idiots.

 

Brown's incompetence spans 13 years so he's got a lot more to answer for. He laid the groundwork for a lot of the problems we have today. It is clear that Osborne is hopelessly out of his depth as are most of Europe's political elite (lol). Osborne is a one trick pony but who else have the Tories got? They are as big a bunch of lightweights as Labour.

[Jim Graham]

But Jim, he's only cut the deficit by a half of what he anticipated. It's actually cut by a quarter which if he's lucky means over this parliament it will be cut by a half.

 

Alastair Darlings plan was to cut the deficit by a half over the parliament. And the plan could have been executed without so much vindictiveness.

 

Osborne has failed. As Simon Heffer said in the Daily Mail on Saturday Cameron needs to ditch Osborne. He's useless.

 

I am afraid your argument fails to pass the Balls Test because he is claiming that the government are cutting too much too fast. So the idea that if Labour had stayed in they would have cut more is laughable. Osborne may be useless but Labour are not credible at all.

[I1L2T3]

I am afraid your argument fails to pass the Balls Test because he is claiming that the government are cutting too much too fast. So the idea that if Labour had stayed in they would have cut more is laughable. Osborne may be useless but Labour are not credible at all.

 

I'm not saying they would have cut more

 

I think they would have cut differently. It would still have been brutal in some areas though.

[epiphany]

We may not actually need to cut as much if we had a more robust public option in the banking system, which neither of the two main parties are willing to discuss yet many states have adopted. This is why the US is analysing the success of the North Dakota model more closely than ever as one possible solution to the austerity vs debt dichotomy. Interesting article that also looks at Germany's banking system and how it differs from other European countries...

 

http://www.webofdebt.com/articles/public_options.php

 

"Europe has a strong public banking sector; and leading it is Germany, with eleven regional public banks and thousands of municipally-owned savings banks. Germany emerged from World War II with a collapsed economy that had degenerated into barter. Today it is the largest and most robust economy in the Eurozone. Manufacturing in Germany contributes 25% of GDP, more than twice that in the UK. Despite the recession, Germany’s unemployment rate, at 6.8%, is the lowest in 20 years. Underlying the economy’s strength is its Mittelstand—small to medium sized enterprises—supported by a strong regional banking system that is willing to lend to fund research and development."

[grafikhaus74]

 

Alastair Darlings plan was to cut the deficit by a half over the parliament. And the plan could have been executed without so much vindictiveness.

 

Ah, Alistair Darling. Another one who contributed to he current mess but, like Balls and Milliband, seems to have benefitted from a collective amnesia by the electorate:

 

'A weekend trip to Brussels last May (2011) is proving mighty costly to the British taxpayer. It was taken by Alistair Darling, whose party had just been beaten in the general election but because coalition talks were still taking place, he remained the de facto Chancellor. In that capacity, he signed the UK up to the new EU stability mechanism aimed at bailing out the weaker brethren in the eurozone. He agreed that the British Government, despite not being in the eurozone, would underwrite 13 per cent of the new fund.

 

It was an expensive decision. It has already cost us £3.8 billion to help keep the Irish economy afloat and could now cost us a further £4 billion doing the same for Portugal.' Link.

 

In other words, he followed Brown's scorched earth policies, and sod the UK taxpayers.

[Mecky]

If the government stops borrowing money they would have to cut public spending by £127bn this year. Look at the howls of protests from the wretched spendaholics when they've only had £50bn cut from their budgets so far.

 

How can you be sure that governments have borrowed money to pay for the public sector? Do you have every receipt for every quid borrowed just to make sure it has been spent of the public sector?