Imagine, for a moment, that you have severe debt problems – that you can’t extend your overdraft, that you have “maxed out” on credit cards and can’t get a loan for love or (certainly not) money from anyone. In desperation you consult a financial adviser – whose considered opinion is that you need to borrow even more money, perhaps by taking out a new credit card, in order to overcome your current cash flow problem leading – eventually – to you becoming debt free. Sounds like nonsense doesn’t it.
Yet this is exactly the insane “strategy” that the government is following – as revealed in today’s budget.
Osborne’s cunning plan appears to be that of carry on borrowing to avoid economic misery before the next general election and then of keeping fingers firmly crossed for an unprecedented run of economic growth, lasting for a decade or more – on a scale comparable to that of the post war German “economic miracle”.
Unfortunately there is absolutely no reason to think that it is going to happen – why should it?
All that George Osborne is achieving with his borrowing is to lumber future generations of Britons with crippling levels of debt.
According to the government’s department of “Wishful Thinking” this country is going to experience economic growth of 1.8% next year, 2.3% in 2015, 2.7% in 2016 and 2.8% in 2017 – this, remember, being the very same government that could not even accurately predict the growth over the last year and has, subsequently, halved its growth prediction to a miserable 0.6%.
This being the same government which has to borrow a further £6 billion this year (on top of the £108 billion it has already borrowed) and intends to borrow at least another £350 billion by 2017 – all of which will have to be repaid at interest by ourselves, our children and our grandchildren.
To put matters into perspective sovereign public debt (as a share of GDP) will rise from a “mere” 75.9% presently to an astounding 85.6% in 2016/17. As these are official government figures it can be taken as read that they are “best case” gross underestimates.
As bad as the above statistics appear (and are) the fact remains that these dreadful figures assume that the economic situation in Europe and beyond does not significantly deteriorate further – if not nosedive. Should that happen no amount of borrowing is going to save this country from economic meltdown and social upheaval on a scale not witnessed in centuries.
2
What Cameron, Osborne and the rest of the clowns are doing is selling generations yet to come into debt slavery in order to retain their cushy jobs now.
Sorry off topic but have you noticed how the bnp is avoiding reporting on the terrible election result in their best ward in London? Nothing on their website about it and nothing on the simon darby blog. They obviously dont want their members knowing about it, Gooshays ward in Romford proves that the bnp is finished. They came next to bottom in a ward that they have previously won twice and nearly won once. Some say that the ward was their best ward in the country and that they threw everything into trying to win it. They only got 200 votes when they used to average around 1400 – 1700.
The worst aspect of it is that UKIP of all parties won! The BNP used to hand a beating to UKIP in all but the most middle-class areas and Gooshays ward isn’t particularly well-heeled. If Nick Griffin had any decency he would stand down and stop bringing our noble cause into disrepute. I blame him in many ways for the BNP’s downfall because he didn’t properly reform the BNP (one way it could have been changed was to take a more rational and sensible approach to the sensitive subject of gays) and he could have prepared better for that awful Question Time appearance. The fact is he done the BNP significant damage by not surrounding himself with the best talent within the party and by doing that he ensured no one could replace him.
Now, people are voting for UKIP en masse because they mistakenly think it is some kind of ‘respectable’ nationalist party when all it represents is the Thatcherite anti-EU wing of the Tory Party in exile and we are very lucky they have so far failed to obtain an MP because if that does happen then it will be nearly impossible to get people to vote for a TRUE nationalist party like the British Democrats.
Griffin is incredibily selfish and should put the cause first not his own ego.
How on earth are the Griffins apologist going to spin this one !
News has reached Brum about the London result. According to one of my work mates who has continued to support the BNP in the hope that things will improve local activists are pig sick and thinking of walking away. He sees no future for the BNP and intends giving the Brit Dems a go.
Economic experience suggests that once state debt pushes towards 100% of annual output the trend growth rate falls a per cent or so. That may not sound much but it compounds over a few years to a massive loss of accumulated output making paying debt off an even bigger problem – let alone the effect on unemployment.
Growth in employment equals growth in output minus growth in productivity. If growth is say 2% and productivity growth 1% then employment rises. Knock off a percent from output growth and unemployment stays the same.
Talk about walking into a trap! The outlook is truly horrible.
There seems no way out for George Osborne. As the article states, more borrowing will increase the deficit but if he reduces borrowing, then more public sector cuts are inevitable. This is the path that should be followed according to most Tories- but just a minute. The private sector is also up to its eyeballs in debt and is de-leveraging as fast as it can. If both the public and private sectors of the economy are de-leveraging in tandem, the economy will plunge ever deeper into the abyss of depression. We Nationalists have always had the answer to the dilemma facing George and many conventional economists are beginning to agree with us. Lord Adair Turner advocated in a recent lecture the introduction of what he calls Overt Money Finance (OMF) to finance the deficit without incurring further debt. OMF is just another way of saying debt free fiat money. The lecture is called “Are concerns over Inflation Inflated” and can be seen on YouTube
The call from solutrean is simply for Government to print money and spend it Zimbabwe style. Turner can dress it up in all the fancy terms he likes and claim that ‘strict controls’ will be applied to its use. Some chance.
So Mike Newland is a better economist than Lord Adair Turner? I don’t think so. Lord Turner has the honesty to admit that conventional economists (including himself)got it all wrong and that the debt based money system caused the recession. Banks don’t allocate existing money when they make loans, they create new money and they do so with very few constraints Hence the Zimbabwe style house price inflation bubble that eventually burst and caused the recession. A few moments of reflection should convince everyone that the ONLY path to economic recovery is to issue debt free money. The question that was asked by Lord Turner in regard to debt free money or “Quantitative Easing” for the people and not for the banks was also answered by him. Debt free money is NOT inflationary. See the lecture yourself on You Tube and make up your own mind.
solutrean has no correct idea of how the existing money system works and has no interest in knowing. It’s precisely this sort of following which has done so much to make make nationalism a fringe joke.
The banking system did indeed inflate the money supply and create bubbles but not quite by the route he supposes. Not good. But having the government do the same sort of thing is not good either. It’s what will happen. Politicians are incurable. But it’s understandable that when you are in a big fix the idea might surface. It always does.
One would think from your attitude Mike that we had never had a banking crisis and a financial collapse. You still deludes yourself into believing that the current system is sustainable and the best one possible and anyone putting forwards alternative reforms must be a bit “nutty” .Lord Adair Turner used to be a conventional economist just like you but having surveyed the wreckage that the system has caused and that you are so supportive of has had the humility to say “we had it wrong”. Better still he has opened his mind to the possibility that those “nutty” monetary reformers may have been right all along. So what do you do Mike, why you now place Lord Turner on your list of “nutters” by hinting that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Everybody seems to be moving in the direction of monetary reform except you.
Lord Turner knows exactly what to do to advantage the bankster class. He acts not in ignorance or madness.
The banking system has been a disaster in the way it was run. The danger now is another disaster in trying to recover from it.
There is banking reform and banking reform. The question is what form it should take not that it’s unrequired. .
School debating tactics like suggesting that ‘everyone’ supports your position and referring to a particular ‘book’ for further biblical support with the implication that it contains truth without the ingestation of which no one can know the ‘truth’ are facile. It’s the stuff of doorstep religionists and sundry other cults.
You should learn to be more charitable Mike. If Saul of Tarsus can become St Paul, then Lord Turner can become a monetary reformer (another religious connotation for you to mull over). I’m sure that John Tyndall would have welcomed Lord Turner’s conversion to monetary reform.
Mike. My idea of how the existing money system works is as laid out in the book “Where Does Money Come From” If that book is wrong, then I am wrong but I don’t think so. The forward to the book is by Charles Goodhart. The book is not written by one individual but was researched by a team from the New Economics Foundation led by Professor Richard Werner. Where is this book wrong?
solutrean certainly chooses a prize figure to support his position in the person of Lord Turner.
He was head of the CBI, the disastrous FSA and also a boss of Merrill Lynch. Precisely the sort of establishment figure who got us in this mess.
None of the above serve the interests of the British people. Whatever Turner suggests is intended to benefit bankers and international business. I expect he thinks that will amount to the same thing. They did or claimed to last time.
Let the fox look after the chickens! He’s sorry about last time.
(Party Member) Although this article is from last year it clearly applies to yesterday’s Walter Mitty budget speech. I am very conservative on economic matters but realise that our policy of National Preference and CLASLESS NATIONALISM is the way forward. One thing is sure, Britain can not afford the LibLabCon !