Thought Id start this one going because its rather dead on this board at the moment and I suppose all my usual muckers are either at the Stella tennis event watching Dim Tim (lose again) or at Henly Regatta eating cucumber sandwiches (they wish,...NOT).

Anyway please feel free to just talk to yourself blast away and let it go on any company or subject you wish. Just wish Id thought of this one before.

cheers GF.

Hays,

I am surprise that they are keeping AAA rating.

If they keep it after the last 2 quarters of this year I will be even more surprised.

But have a look are GPDs of Europe in comparison with the UK's.

The only countries seemingly worse off than ours are those going for "austerity" for the "masses" in order to protect the few.


Edited for Shucks

No doubt you can explain the correlation between the AAA rating of a country and its GPS, by which I'm guessing you meant GDP?

Just own up Fred the cons are not doing a bad job. Under labour we would be a junk rating by now, like many of the other european countries. Through over spending by the labour party. :-))

Labour is either the 'tax and spend' party or when the spring dries up they are the 'borrow and spend' party. Both are a disaster.

A better style is the 'spend what you can afford' party or the 'cut back and pay your debts if you are broke' party.

Agree H. Fred - bla, bla,aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa Dont agree before you even comment.

A man who had just bought a new Mercedes turned on the radio and nothing happened. Furious, he stamped back into the garage and yelled "When I buy a £50,000 car I expect the damn radio to work."

The salesman explained to him that the radio had been programed to his voice and all he had to do was tell the radio what he wanted to hear.
He got back into the car and said "Country music," and old Willie Nelson started singing.
"Rock and roll," he exclaimed, and immediately Elvis started crooning.
"Easy listening," he remarked, and at once it sounded like he was in a supermarket.

He was relaxed, driving back to his home when a car cuts him up. He controls his temper but before he knows it another driver cuts him up.

"Useless stupid cu*nts!" he screamed.
The radio comes on ... ".. now follows a party political broadcast on behalf of the Labour Party..."

There was a young man named Gordon who bought a donkey from an old farmer for £100.00. The farmer agreed to deliver the donkey the next day.

When the farmer drove up the next day he says, "I am sorry but I have some bad news - the donkey is on my truck but he's dead!"

Gordon replied, "Well then, just give me my money back".

"I can't do that" replied the farmer, "I went out and spent it already."

Gordon said "Ok just unload the donkey anyway".

The farmer asked "What are you gonna do with a dead donkey?"

"I'll raffle him off" said Gordon.

The farmer exclaimed, "You can't raffle off a dead donkey!"

But Gordon with a big smile on his face said, "Sure I can. Watch. Just don't tell anyone the donkey is dead."

A month later the farmer met up with Gordon and asked, "What happened to the dead donkey?"

Gordon said, "I raffled him off. I sold 500 tickets at £2.00 each and made a huge profit."

Totally amazed the farmer asked "Didn't anyone complain that you had stolen their money because you lied about the donkey being dead?"

To which Gordon replied, "The only one who found out about the donkey being dead was the raffle winner when he came to claim his prize. So I gave him his £2.00 back plus £200.00 extra which is double the going value of a dead donkey so he thought I was a great guy."

Wait for it

Gordon grew up and eventually became Chancellor of the Exchequer and no matter how many times he lied or how much money he stole from the British voters, as long as he gave them back some of the stolen money, most of them thought he was a great guy.

And that's politics!!!

A driver is stuck in a traffic jam on the motorway. Nothing is moving.

Suddenly a man knocks on the window. The driver rolls down his window and asks, "What's going on?"

"Terrorists down the road have kidnapped Tony Blair, John Prescott, Gordon Brown and Jack Straw.

They're asking for a £10 million ransom. Otherwise they're going to douse them with petrol and set them on fire.

We're going from car to car, taking up a collection."

The driver asks, "How much is everyone giving, on average?"

"Most people are giving about a gallon."

Good old Prescott!

Reminds me of the tale of the John Prescott whose car has crashed into a lamp-post. A helpful passer-by calls the ambulance, and goes over to

talk to the poor Deputy Labour Leader trapped behind the steering wheel.

"Where are you bleeding from?" He asks. "I'm from bleeding Hull, ain't I

The first time i heard that joke it was a Essex girl in the car and he said " were yer bleeding from love " and she said " Romford , were are you from "

If you think Slasher Osborne and Wavy Davy and their crazy economics U-turn policies are going to improve the UK economy situation of the UK, you are mistaken.

Cuckoos comes to mind.

I saw better qualified spivs pushing wheel barrows in Oxford Street as a kid than the pair hays and some of you seem to be is supporting.

I suppose it is the PR which attracts.

As Oakeshott inferred, they both appear to be on "work experience" and learning nothing.

I am just wondering whether "friends" of the rating agencies have short term "longs" and waiting to dump them back on the market.


The way to dig the UK economy out of the deeper hole they are digging is not by increasing it "borrowing" as Osborne is doing, but increasing GDP to cover those debts initially and then repay debt.

What Slasher is attempting to do for political reasons, is to cover up a failing policy which will later need a more obvious devaluation of sterling to get him out of his hole.

In normal times would you buy a company whose policies are to cut output, without any real plans on how they can provide later for expansion.

Squeezing "wages" or and seeing wages simply as "costs", will not work in the way that some expect.

I think some of the tory leadership and some of their supporters are naive and their thinking suggest that they believe themselves to be living in the past.

===========

Have a look at past and present austerity programmes on the economies of other countries during periods of recession.

Also, have a close look at QE, devaluation, fiscal stimulus etc, . They are just simply different points on a circle of a developing economy.

============

Cameron and Slasher are like blind men walking without their dogs.

Fred1new. Your grasp of economics is quite amazing in its child like simplicity and total misunderstanding of the principles involved, but at least you provide entertainment for those who giggle at stupidity. Personally, I don't find it funny, merely pathetic and sad, I don't really understand why you feel you must prove that stupidity day after day.

I'm sure Moody's will downgrade the UK's AAA rating if the GDP continues to remain in negative territory, yeah right. Very funny.

Tell me, why do you find it so necessary to invent puerile nick names for those you dislike (and in one case, just downright nasty)? Does it make you feel superior, better or is it a response to a lifetime of self failure?

Well said chuckles. Also I note Fred that you keep stating what DC/ government are
doing wrong. Lets have your views how you would run the country. The Labour party are the same as you, keep picking up on the government and not having any real tested answers themselves.

Oh Shucks,

Actually, quite a few people thought I was reasonably successful at many things. Sometimes I couldn't understand why.

---------------

Dreams.

Suggest you read Fiscal Stimulus, Fiscal inflation or Fiscal Fallacies by J Cochrane.
May support your political leaning.

Should take about 20mins, but it has its own fallacies,

Also, the Wavy Davy and Slasher are thought by many to be in "charge" of the country and should be showing good governance. Many in the coalition and their own party don't think they are doing so.


=========

As far as what I would do, read back.

Also, remember the advice "if you are doing something and its not working, try something different".
-------

Fred, one thing for sure I am balanced.

Cannot understand as you make it sound so easy to put the country on the right path that you are not the PM.lol

There are no quick fixes to economic mailase. The Labour government inherited a strong stable economy and then proceeded to dismantle it in its entirety. The challenge for the coalition is to repair that damage within their term of parliament, a tough ask, but time will tell if their policies will work. My sense is that we've just had the last quarter of negative GDP, the rest of the year will see a return to growth.

Dreams.

“Fred, one thing for sure I am balanced.”

Many a mad man has believed the same.

8-)

-------------------

Shucks,

Tell me, why do you find it so necessary to invent puerile nick names for those you dislike (and in one case, just downright nasty)?


Mockery and satire has probably been part of the the UK history since its infancy.

Also, it has been part of this thread and others since early on. For some it seen more often than not as humorous, but it also sometimes points succinctly to characteristics of those or what it refers to.

If you kept your remarks to the argument, or points raised rather than personalising them, my responses to you would probably be in the same vein.

However, when you make remarks such as:-

“Like all radicals you marginalise yourself to a point where you become a figure of fun, albeit I see only sadness not humour. I guess you were bullied at school?”
“

Or.

“chuckles - 26 Jul 2012 13:35 - 17761 of 17815

Oh my God, you have grandchildren??

not only have you had the opportunity to brainwash your own offspring with your warped, misinformed, uneducated radicalism, you have access to even younger minds?

This is not good
”

You can expect some of my responses to you to have the same degree of virulence.

As far as one “nickname” is concerned, it was again made in response to personal remarks and innuendoes made against me and others.

If you wish to check, read back. But personally I wouldn’t waste my own time doing so.

------------------

Your posting chuckles - 17815

“There are no quick fixes to economic mailase.”

I agree, but before the previous election in order to denigrate, or undermine the previous government, denial that all the UK’s economic “chaos” was unrelated to that of the world wide “chaos in the financial markets”, “economies” and “factors” outside the direct control of that government, was irresponsible.

At the moment, instead of repeating the mantra of it was all due to “labour failures”, the coalition’s mantra seems to be is that it is down to Europe to get their house in order, while digging a bigger and bigger hole for the UK.

Also¸ under the coalition government which has been in power for August 2012, i.e. nearly 2years. The UK’s GDP has gone done, we are in recession, borrowing is up and National Debt is going up.

I think it is reasonable to critical of this government’s present policies.

The economic problems are difficult to overcome, but the processes are circular and “stimuli” or “interferences” are supposed to be helpful. The present governments timing seem to be out of sync with what is necessary.


http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/george-osborne-warned-uk-will-miss-key-debt-targets-7960105.html

"The Chancellor will miss one of his key fiscal targets, the International Monetary Fund warned yesterday, prompting calls for the Government to adopt a Plan B on the economy.
In June 2010 , George Osborne gave himself a "fiscal mandate" to ensure that national debt as a share of GDP is falling by 2015-16. But in its annual report on the health of the UK economy, the IMF said Britain's national debt will still be rising by then.
Embarrassingly for Mr Osborne, the IMF said that government debt will peak at 79.7 per cent of GDP in 2015-16, and will not start to fall until 2016-17.
"Under [our] staff's weaker medium-term growth projections, the net debt target is expected to be met one year late," it said.
If the IMF's forecast is correct, Mr Osborne is facing a very difficult choice. He can either scrap the national debt target, which would be a political embarrassment, or he can impose greater cuts and tax rises in an attempt to get back on track. The latter would almost certainly further weaken an economy suffering its second recession in three years."

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Another rambling post