Off Topic Great Britain General Election May 7th 2015.

They are all in the same league. Some of these people are cult members, Freemason etc. If you touch one, you touch them
all.

 

Dunno, but I do know that much of BAE's weapons are in the middle east fighting that the BBC are providing shedloads of propaganda for.

 

• UK GDP 2010 2.8%
• UK GDP 2011 = 1.3%
• UK GDP 2012 = 1.1%
• UK GDP 2013 = 1.4%
• UK GDP 2014 = 3.1%
• UK GDP Mid 2015 = 3.3%
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Coalition Economic Recovery vs Labour Collapse
The economy remains the primary voter issue, because without an economy no government can do anything. The above GDP graph illustrates that as forecast the Coalition's economic recovery was one of two halves, first 3 years of austerity to try and get a grip on the nations finances following Labours economic collapse that resulted in an £170 billion annual deficit, followed by 2 years to achieve a debt fuelled election mini economic boom, tweaked to peak during May 2015.
The following table better illustrates the comparison of economic growth between Labour and Coalition as the economic collapse of 2008-2009 virtually wiped out the growth of the preceding years of the Labour government that only marginally recovered into Q1 2010 on the back of a £170 billion of unsustainable deficit spending that left Labour with GDP growth over 5 years of just +3.4% and the accumulative quarterly GDP of only 3.3% which illustrates the magnitude of the collapse.
GDP £ Start GDP £ End % Change Accum Quarterly Change
Labour 1,513,009 1,564,918 +3.4% +3.3%
Coalition 1,564,918 1,713,458 +9.5% +8.8%
* 2015 Q1 estimated at the same rate as 2014 Q4
Whilst the Conservatives current 2 year economic bounce has overcome the stagnation of their first 3 years to leave GDP 9.5% higher, however accumulative quarterly GDP comes in at a lower +8.8% that reflects just how close the UK came to going back into recession during 2012.
Therefore where the economy is concerned, there is NO comparison between the last Labour government and Conservatives in terms of GDP growth as the Coalition achieved near 3X the growth of the last Labour government, this despite attempting to reduce labours out of control budget deficit.
UK House Prices Economic Growth Driver
For Britain the most critical economic driver, far beyond interest rates, inflation, or even unemployment is the trend in average house prices for the fundamental reason that positive housing market SENTIMENT IS that which makes the all difference between the UK economy being in recession or in an common boom, as you don't tend to get one without the other. Which any government of the day fully realises and why the Coalition government has literally bent over backwards to first ignite and then to target maintaining a house prices bull market right into the May 2015 General Election through a myriad of tax payer funded schemes such as ZERO interest rates, the Help to Buy Scheme, Stamp duty cut and a continuous flood of liquidity forcing savers to spend or invest depreciating value of bank deposits into primarily bricks and mortar as I have covered at length for several years -
19 Aug 2013 - UK House Prices Bull Market Soaring Momentum
What Academics and Journalists Will Never Understand About Markets
In having immersed by myself in the markets for 30 years now, I know that what many academics tend to take for granted rarely matches reality. Whilst I covered many aspects of trading markets in my last ebook (Stocks Stealth Bull Market 2013 and Beyond - Free Download). However in terms of economic trends what academics will always fail to grasp is that markets are NOT driven by fundamentals but by SENTIMENT and it is SENTIMENT that CREATES the fundamentals! Which is why the academic economists rarely have any real clue as to what is going in the markets because they are nearly always looking in the WRONG direction i.e. they are looking at the CAUSE rather than the EFFECT, as in reality it is the EFFECT that makes itself manifest in the price charts long before the CAUSE appears in the economic data that academics focus upon, which is why the SAME economic data can and is used by economists and pseudo-economist (journalists) such as that which we see on TV news shows to explain EITHER price rises OR falls.
You can only know the markets IF you TRADE the markets! The pseudo and academics economists will never get you on the right side of trends years ahead of the herd, in fact most press media commentators will be some of the LAST people to jump onboard trends, usually just before they end!

 

Sources say prime minister vetoed Lib Dem leader’s participation in third event because he did not want to be only absentee

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Nick Clegg, Gordon Brown and David Cameron after the second of the three live TV debates in 2010. Cameron has said that the debates ‘sucked the life’ out of the campaign. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/AFP/Getty Images

 

Unfortunately I think we will end up with a Labour/SNP coalition so will lurch to the left with Unions enjoying more power. Cue foreign companies reducing their investment in the UK and higher taxes. Although Ed Balls has said he will not increase income tax, he would not rule out reducing the figure at which you start paying 40% tax.

Apparently if the 40% rate had kept in line with inflation no one earning less than 60k would pay it. Due to the last Labour government promising not to increase income tax in order to get elected they allowed the thresholds to fall back against inflation and suddenly teachers, police officers, etc are classed as rich enough to pay high rate tax.

I would prefer lower taxes and higher VAT so that at least we choose were we pay our taxes by what we purchase.

Labour/SNP will also borrow huge amounts to fund their election promises. Give it 5 yrs we will be like Greece, but not being in the euro will not have Germany baling us out.

 

If a Labour-SNP coalition change the current government's focus on keeping the poorest in society poorer because of austerity and change it to targeting those at the top of the financial chain then fair play to them.
The Con-Dems are quick to tell us we're all in this together, well its about time the rich felt the finacial pinch because the poor have been used to prop up the countries purse strings since the start of the recession with cuts to everything vital to them and no raise in pay to keep up with inflation.

 

That's not actually quite true, as the people who've felt the pinch the most are the lower middle classes. Many have not seen an annual wage rise since 2008, their standard of living has been gradually eroding.

Those on minimum wage have actually closed the gap in the last few years, the real squeeze has been felt by those in the middle.

That's not to say bedroom tax etc hasn't affected some of the very poorest, but generally pro rata it's been middle of the pack who've had the hardest kick.

 

Yeah I agree with your point Tobes, I would class those you mention in with the poorest though because the gulf between the middle-class and the financially protected mega rich is so vast, and btw those in work with mortgages and cars have been visiting the Dickensian foodbanks themselves.

 

How Do You Tell When a Politician is Lying? (His Lips Are Moving, and Moving, and Moving.)

 

When he or she is filling in an MP's expenses form.

 

This is too simplistic for words, mate.
Exactly how have they earned their money? Are you sure it's by legal and moral means? Are all benefits users professional scroungers-what about those who paid all their due taxes when they could and further down the line need some of it back? That's what we have a society for, and the Chiefs wouldn't be wealthy in the first place if it weren't for the indians.

 

Sorry if i've hit a nerve. Let me clarify my position, firstly i have already said we should be catching people at both ends of the spectrum and cutting out loopholes. Obviously most people are on benefits because they need it. Its a safety net for people who have been unfortunate to lose their jobs and cannot find another one, it is also for people who have genuine disabilities and for carers whose families who have disabilities. I have no objections to this.

What i cannot stand and obviously this is a media driven agenda are the career slackers who do not want a job because its easier to sit around and get more benefits than working, for those couples who have 50 kids and do not want to work but feel their kids are entitled to the best and lastly the group that pretend they can't work with a bad back or what not and then are seen on holiday swimming in the sea. Obviously this is probably a low proportion of cheats but if you had to line up these tax dodging corporations and the career benefits and decide who i hate more, i could tell you right now it would be latter of the two groups

 

Not at all. You're entitled to express your opinion and I was just discussing it with you.
Of course there are some who milk the system, but although their actions may be reprehensible I believe their impact on the economy overall is negligible. Many people or companies at the top are similarly reprehensible, but they have a much greater impact because we're talking about much larger sums of money.
There wouldn't be a wealthy top of the pyramid without the support of the rest of the edifice underneath.
The wealth of a society is generated by the whole of that society- perhaps if it was distributed more fairly then there would be no scroungers at all, because a decent basic wage would make it more worthwhile for them to be in work?
At the moment, the tactic to get people off the dole is more stick than carrot, and I don't see that ever being a successful policy.

 

The slackers are a issue but in terms of financial value, it's only a fraction of what the tax avoiding companies cost.

 

I thought Ed Milliband got his arse kicked tonight in the leaders debate, partly because of the way bird in charge let Cameron have longer with his rhetoric and get his digs in first but mainly because he was a fish out water.

 

Cameron came over like Nixon in '60.

 

You saw a different programme to me.

 

'Suddenly"? I pay that tax, and it hasn't come 'suddenly'. The ConDems have had five years to lower it. And I'd prefer the unions having more power than those hundred tax-dodging, hedge-fund owning, zero-hours contract using, Tory-party funding shysters that put their names to Lynton Crosbie's pre-election honours freebie list in the Torygraph yesterday.

 

Sorry donga but I expected more from him in the time he was given.

 

You must have been pissed, as what I saw was Milliband owning the key issues particularly immigration