Steve vRS

Money Central - Times Online - WBLG: Gordon Brown's 10 worst financial gaffes

Although it misses out one of the biggest - the PFI debt bubble.

Labour boast that they have rebuilt the nations school and hospital stock and that is where the tax take has gone. However, we haven't paid for it yet. We are renting our public buildings at a silly rent and will then have to buy it at an inflated price sometime in the near future.

Steve

cster

Well at least his stewardship will have a legacy

warrenm2

actually in his defense (and thats not something you'll hear me say a lot) he kept us out of the euro with his five tests. The man's still a traitor though and should be hanged for the Lisbon treaty amongst others

cster

With the Pound plummetting in value relative to the Euro over the last five years, I'm not sure that should be used in mitigation

Simon K

^^^^^^^^^^ Aint that the truth !

SBK

Leslie

You can expect the Pound to go down of course with the problems he has landed this country with anyway. That ever so clever term "Quantative Easing", used to hide the fact that it means printing money which the country can't back up, it as good as any a reason for that and the inflation which will follow that does not bear thinking about! However you try to talk around it, we are essentially bankrupt because of that maniac's policies where he spent all our taxes as fast as he could for no good purpose,and we now have debts which will take years years in relative austerity to pay off. Borrowing money hand over fist to make the economy look good when it is in fact failing and spending the cash like water is a pretty stupid policy.

Has anyone yet explained why he sold off half of our gold reserves in such a hurry at the bottom price available? Surely he was not running out of cash already when he did that or was he?

As was mentioned, thay have been very quiet about all the PFI projects which we will also be paying back for years to come!

It is beginning to look as though the country was actually better off financially just after WW2!!!

Les

warrenm2

*groan* - I dont feel like educating someone else on economics, but suffice to say having financial independence is a good thing and outweighs the cost of your holidays. A good exmple is Iceland v Ireland - one with free floating currencey, the other not. See how they have fared......

hodgy0_2

I think the disastrous Gold price was to some degree offset by a favourable exchange rate with the dollar – at the time he sold the bulk of it

kingofturds

iTrader: (1)

China seem to be buying up most of the gold atm, I guess it's to offset all those worthless dollar bills they are owed

Leslie

Yes but why lose out over selling the gold anyway?

Les

hodgy0_2

well who knows the pros and cons of the decision

he must have had some sort of reason -- misguided or not

but hindsight is 20/20

Wurzel

iTrader: (1)

The pound can keep plummeting as far as I am concerned so can you please keep Brown in power until I have finished fixing my impreza and Mini Cooper Or at least until after christmas!

The euro is currently worth 92p so a little bit more would be great for helping my decision to go home for christmas or not

Well done Gordon you are doing a Sterling job for us rats who have already deserted the sinking ship

hodgy0_2

are you saying that Iceland is in a better financial/economic position than Ireland?

f1_fan

iTrader: (9)

Every cloud eh?

scubbay

iTrader: (61)

The solution

1. Open a new file in your computer
2. Name it 'Gordon Brown'.
3. Send it to the Recycle Bin.
4. Empty the Recycle Bin.
5. Your PC will ask you:

'Do you really want to get rid of 'Gordon Brown?'

6. Firmly Click 'Yes.'
7. Feel better?

_Meridian_

iTrader: (1)

An idea they stole from the Tories I seem to remember?


M

hodgy0_2

off course the real experts in off balance sheet accounting were the Enron Crowd

that all went pearshaped -- big time, followed by a raft of "never again" legislation and compliance compliance compliance

and hey presto 10 years later we are back again

cster

Beware of Greeks bearing gifts springs to mind.

warrenm2

yes

hodgy0_2

isn't Iceland having to be bailed out by the IMF because it is bankrupt

and is on the verge of reneging on its debts (some to the UK)

Deep Singh

Why is that whenever anyone questions this govyts financial decision making you bring up big business bad practices as some sort of deflection/defense?? Sure, the latter should have good governance, but that doesn't make the appalling decisions made by this govt any better

hodgy0_2

no ones perfect Deep

and life would be boring if we all just harped on about how **** labour have been and how great its going to be with the conservatives and how business have all the answers and rarely fvckup in the way politicians do all the time

Leslie

It is not going to be great for a long time whoever is in power. The next government is going to have to raise a lot of money to just pay the interest off let alone anything else. We are financially well in the Dwang! we can expect a period of real austerity. What else can we possibly expect in the present situation?

The difference is that maybe the Conservatives will be more sensible in their spending rather than keep overborrowing until the IMF tells us to get lost as they did Callaghan, and throwing the money away on ridiculous and unnecessary projects etc.

Les