Tag: Chancellor

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Osborne Bails Out Osborne

Chancellor George Osborne (who will eventually become an Irish Baronet, we should remember) today announced a bailout loan for the (basically insolvent) Irish banking system of around £7bn, this to come from the British taxpayer. He defends this as in our national interest because we export more to them than we do to several of the emerging economies combined. True enough no doubt, however, it’s difficult not to think his real concern is to preserve the British banks that are owed billions by the Irish banking system. They made loans presumably agreeing with the then Shadow Chancellor, one George Osborne, who in 2006 was so impressed by the Irish economy that he asked “What has caused this Irish miracle, and how can we in Britain emulate it?” http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article733821.ece
The fact the British banks made loans to the Irish says little for their grasp of sound banking principles. If they made bad loans, they deserve to go out of business, not be preserved at the expense of the taxpayer. Preserving them only allows them to repeat their mistakes again and be bailed out again in a vicious circle that can only end with the destruction of the entire economy.
The Chancellor appears to have no more idea than do the banks he wants to preserve. We need to get shot of the lot of them.

Incidentally, today comes news that the Chancellor’s promised White Paper, due soon, in which he promised to detail his plans for growth will not now appear till sometime next year. It appears for all his bluster he hasn’t even got a plan A, let alone a plan B.

BB

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Toothless Watchdog

The International Monetary Fund, the IMF, has described the chancellor’s plans to make draconian cuts as, quoting from the Daily Mail here, “strong, credible and essential”. This is being trumpeted in some quarters as being a ringing endorsement of Osborne’s policies – but from whom does it come exactly? Many would suggest the IMF themselves have little idea of what’s what economically, their own credibility standing open to question since along with the majority of economists they were conspicuously NOT howling iceberg at the tops of their voices in 2007.
What good are they then, and what merit has their opinion?

BB

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Government Loans

I’m watching David ‘Dave’ Cameron live on TV at this moment, earnestly (and quite rightly) explaining how the interest we pay on loans to the government are overwhelming us. True enough, and the subject deserves an airing. However, I note he isn’t pointing out that much of the National Debt is to banks, banks who haven’t actually loaned money they already had to the government but instead have loaned money created out of thin air using their authority to do so granted to them by that same government. This doesn’t get a mention, where the National Debt actually comes from. The banks conjure money from the air under license from the government, loan it to the government at interest and we, the taxpayers, have to find real money out of our pockets to pay it back with. Nice work for the banks, you might think, and it is – but what about us the electorate – aren’t our politicians supposed to be working for our interests, and not the banks? Shouldn’t all debts created under this Alice In Wonderland system be voided in full? Where’s the discussion about why we, or any nation, should have such a thing as a national debt in the first place???

BB

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Immature Debate

This is Chancellor Darling quoted, I imagine from their own PR, at the Labour Party conference (speaking on economic stabilisation and improvement), “I welcome the chance of a mature debate on how we achieve this goal – even if it is hard to see the Shadow Chancellor taking much part,” he said. “There has, after all, been little that is grown up about his performance so far.”

This is what those who wish to run the country have to offer us by way of mature debate? In any genuinely mature debate I can’t see much chance of either Chancellor taking part on that showing. The silly idiot opens his mouth only to disqualify himself from further comment. I say this again and again; while I accept if we remain a nation we need someone to run this country but it can’t be the bankers and it can’t be the politicians either. Should we wish for a military coup now? That doesn’t seem feasible with our overstretched resources almost permanently abroad. Perhaps that’s why, in the face of mounting evidence that their mission there is futile, they’re there in the first place. As Britain descends ever faster into chaos perhaps this is a rare tangible example of genuine prudence from the PM, keeping the army so spread out they couldn’t manage a local coup even if they wanted to.

BB

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Brownout – Judgement Fail

Why is Brown being greeted with smiles, applause etc. at the Labour Party conference? This is the man who was UK Chancellor during the run-up to the greatest near-breakdown that world finance has ever had, and was Prime Minister when everything he was in charge of almost collapsed! The UK economy, his brief, was at one point just a few hours away from going to the great till in the sky yet the bloke in charge while this was all happening is warmly greeted and congratulated. Why aren’t they putting a teacloth over his head and hiding him in a corner somewhere?

More to the point, how can we ever trust this lot?

BB