Off Topic The QPR Not 606 Rolling Election Poll

Affordable housing, either rented of for sale, is of course a massive issue. Companies are beginning to get involved in order to protect their workforce. Just discovered that my son has his name on the list for a room in one of his company's houses, which they have a couple of to help their lower paid staff (which he as a 19 year old is) survive. Good move if you want to retain people as you invest in them and they develop.


is in in here with oz and barry sb73

 

for people that don't tweet sb
what else is al promising

free fruit based drinks for the ladies

 

I missed the original broadcast, but saw an abridged version on Newsnight which was quite strange. Showing the Peter Lilley clip was bizarre - will Red Ed be confronted with excerpts from Tony Benn speeches?

"Do you get angry when the Tories are called the 'nasty party', Dave?"

"Yes, I do get angry. Grrrr!"

 

he would have my vote

 

Not challenging my statements, I see...

 

I think Stan did a pretty good job on that, Chaz

 

I'll give my award of Quote of the Day yesterday to Nick Clegg, who said the Lib Dems will "add heart to a Conservative Government and a brain to a Labour one." Says it all.

Since forming a coalition government five years ago, the Lib Dems do seem to have succeeded in pulling their heads some way out of their arses. Whether the electorate like what they see, remains to be seen.

 

No, he just said that the OBR underestimate the numbers, so in fact the Tory 'estimates' are both upper- AND lower-case c conservative. A retained Tory majority will likely -on those figures - deliver a greater return than that expected. Hardly a dismantling of my view...

 

Well, I wasn't attempting to 'dismantle' your view, though you seem to have missed the second and third paragraphs of that post which show that your assertion that 'if you want a strong economy, vote Tory' is not historically true. It doesn't make much difference who's in charge of the government.

 

Fancy doing some research into which policies are the best for managing countries out of recessions, Stanley? I think it's clear that governments in themselves are not necessarily or exclusively to blame for recessions, but presumably there are effective remedies and ineffective remedies for them. I don't mind if you don't want to take up the task - I can't be bothered either.

 

I know, I didn't claim you were 'dismantling' my view either...

 

This might help.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-14366054

 

You ****er. I don't have an answer of course.

But to show the depths that I have sunk to, I have really have been looking into stuff related to this today. Actually I had to, to explain to some of my American colleagues why Japan, my company's second biggest market, is so counter intuitive. I won't bore you with the Japanese conclusions.

Forgive the length of this, I'm using the post to think it through for myself. For us, as always, it's a balancing act. The economy, in UK government terms, is essentially about national debt and government surpIus/deficit. These are the things which they think they can influence/manage. I don't think many people realise how much economies depend on the whim of market 'confidence'. With 'confidence' you can borrow cash on decent terms and keep on investing/spending. Without it you are ****ed (see Greece, UK after ERM fiasco etc). Inflation starts to rise, with it interest rates, everything gets skewed, confidence reduces, Governments can only borrow to keep services going on shorter and worse terms, massive downward spiral.

The Japanese have been in recession for 20 plus years, they have a national debt way over 200%, yet they retain 'confidence'. That's because most of their debt is owed to themselves, due to their habit of saving. Guess what, although we don't save, 65% of our national debt (80 - 100% of our GDP, depending on who you ask) is held in Britain too. 25% of it is owed to the Bank of England, which is a nationalised institution, or was last time I looked. So the Bank, in it's 'quantitative easing' strategy, has been buying Government Bonds/Gilts, which have been contributing to the Governments spending, but it's also kept inflation and interest rates down. Labour had no choice but to borrow hugely to keep the financial system afloat in 2008-10, otherwise we would have gone completely belly up. If the Tories had come straight in with austerity I genuinely believe it would have been much, much worse.

So we are doing ok, the debt and annual deficit numbers are just numbers. Bit of a blip getting our credit rating downgraded a notch but hey ho. So why are the Tories, Labour and the Lib Dems so obsessed with reducing the deficit and thereby reducing the need to borrow? Firstly it would help if they, Cameron in particular, would get the vocab right, he always mixes debt and deficit up. There is still a lingering whiff of the sulphur left by Thatcher, who kidded us that national economics are the same as household economics. But they are not. If our credit card spending gets out of hand we can calm it down without affecting our income. If the Government reduces its spending it also risks reducing its income - this 'living within our means' stuff is just irrelevant in the terms in which it is presented. This country has only been in surplus for about 4 of the last 40 years (3 of them under Labour). National debt in the UK was 200% of GDP in the early 50's. Who cares? I don't get this obsession. The parties are playing round the margins on this I feel.

What I really can't stand though is this slavery to 'market confidence' something which doesn't have a central nervous system, let alone a brain or a conscience. Just takes one bloke to get out of bed the wrong side and that's it. Nobody can control it, because it's a piece of collective imagination. But we won't change that with elections, we'll need a revolution, or more likely collapse of the whole system. Due to lack of confidence, probably.

I see your squeeze Leanne is back on telly. Jo Brand was on for Labour earlier, saying we must vote for them, otherwise we'll 'lose the NHS as we know it'. Why does she want me to vote Tory?

**** me, I've written an essay. Sorry.

 

Watching the debate. Seems to be a bit of a disaster for Miliband.

I'm moving to Scotland.

 

Watched the first bit before walking the dog, seemed to me they spent too much time having a go at Farage who very unwisely had a pop at the audience before Dimbleby put him in his place. He's a sideshow. Must have moved on to Miliband once I left. They all forgot to have a go at Cameron, who must have been delighted with it.

Thanks Nines. I'm into this collective imagination stuff at the moment, due to a book I've mentioned on here before 'Sapiens - A Brief History of Humankind' by Yuval Noah Huvari. Highly recommended, thought provoking and enjoyably readable, though like eveything not to be read without a little skepticism. One of his central points is that in groups of up to a maximum of 150 we can operate on personal relationships. Beyond that we need imaginary things like religions, nations, companies, markets, money, political ideologies, football clubs etc to help us trust people we don't know and get stuff done. When you think about them they are all absurd, but we really do need them, or other collective fantasies, to operate. he's also very good on writing (first written records found are....balance sheets), credit and biology.

 

Sounds like an interesting read, but on those terms I wouldn't describe humans as a success.

Forgive me if I am missing some irony here.