f1_fan

iTrader: (9)

OK it is becoming clear that whatever the government are doing as regards the UK economy it isn't really working even by their own measures and milestones

The UK has slipped back into recession yet the government borrowing figres are climbing and they are now likely to miss their borrowing targets.

So do they do as the right wants and make further cuts to try and bring spending and hence borrowing down further or as the left wants and spend to stimulate growth and hope that the receipts from a growing economy start to get us out of this mess?

As yet no EU country has blinked as regards austerity measures... will the UK be the first to change course?

Discuss

Tidgy

we have been in recession for the past few years, anyone who claims different isn't living in the real world and just fiddling figures.

specialx

Nimbus

I see that one reason for the poor figures was that benefit payments were up. There's one target to reduce costs..

GlesgaKiss

As we've talked about before, the economy is too reliant on spending other people's money. I can't see how stimulating is going to fix that. The whole economy needs to restructure over a medium to long time frame, and it won't be a lot of fun.

I think the quesion most people are asking is what needs to be done politically to make people feel better, and to what extent should that interfere with the reality of the restructuring process - which in a nutshell is people just accepting life and getting on with what work they can.

This summer is the quietest I've seen by far in the 5 years I've been doing what I do (agricultural and industrial construction). It's more like a poor winter, which is a big difference.

hodgy0_2

When you look at the global economy has a whole, it just seem inevitable that we see these recessions, various countries holding debt, reducing demand in others etc etc

What we need to do to create actual new wealth is start trading inter galacticly with our nearest neighbours, this will inject some much needed outside trade and capital into the world economies so reducing inflationary pressures

We do need to be careful though as the rise of the Sith was basically started by a VAT dispute between Naboo and the inter galactic Trade Federation.

r32

The UK (thats all of us) now owe over one Trillion pounds. That's £41,000 for every UK family.
Last month alone the Government borrowed over half a Billion pounds. George's startegy is not working. Not suprisingly if you cut spending, there are fewer job, which means what we now have........ less people paying tax and duty and more people on benfits.
So tax revenues are falling and benefit payments are soaring. However over all Government spending is continuing to rise, amazingly at a rate higher than the previous Labour Government.

So what's the answer?
Flocked if I know. Flocked if any one knows.
But isnt it time to try to grow the economy?

RobsyUK

iTrader: (2)

some guy on 3 counties yesterday was talking about this and one thing he did say was the Britan hasn't actually done any cuts yet. They have just stopped spending. the cuts are to come and it will ruin everything!

stedee

iTrader: (4)

how i see it is yes we are struggling but not doing too bad compared to europe, there`s plenty of jobs about in my are of employment so i`m not complaining.

i think the government and boe have done a decent job so far regarding the economy, i dread to think where we would be with labour

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

I'm VERY interested to see what happens with France, who have started trying to spend to stimulate their economy.

The last time, they ended up in the same place as us, but with five new TGV lines and hundreds of miles of new motorway, to name but two....

chief-long-shin

Surprised no one has suggested in this post yet slash the fuel. I'm fed up of these garage owners taking my money with their fancy watches, they'll be working in Armani suits and that's before the tax paid. Surely a substantial drop in furry would stimulate other areas like transport costs but then the businesses would just reap the extra cmoney as their profit. It needs to snowball through economy to grow again

f1_fan

iTrader: (9)

The figures say otherwise, I think I'd rather see some evidence than just thinking they have done a great job.

As for the comment about Labour, you may well be right, but it's irrelevant as we have a Tory government not a Labour one. Thinking they would have done a worse job does not make the current situation any better.

ScoobyWon't

It's time for something more radical, but the government is too scared it do anything which could lose it votes.

EddScott

I read a post on another forum about how fuel was cheap in the 70s but tax was very high. Now we have expensive fuel but tax is relatively low. The assumption is tax has to come from somewhere so we either get cheap fuel and high tax or high fuel and low tax.


I also think that although its not brilliant but they are making a reasonable fist of sorting things out. The media makes this big thing about lack of growth - how can you grow when you owe? Its like a family wanting to reduce debt. You tighten your belts and you don't grow until things are better.

Yes and no. The same process could be achieved by paying one man to dig a hole and another man to fill it on and a third man to supervise the process. Artificially creating jobs and growth. China has done something very similar building cities that no one can afford to live in. The growth is huge but its artificial.

Having praised them in the 2nd comment wasn't it the tories that chose german trains over UK trains for some new route or other? OK the firm isn't UK but the jobs are. Seems idiotic.

ScoobySteve69

iTrader: (13)

Well, as long as you have foreign families having their £2000 a month rent paid in affluent parts of London while they sit on their fat ***** doing **** all, moaning that their 6 bedroom house is too small for all their smelly kids it`s never gonna recover. Kick all the free loading immigrants out and cut the benefits for the scrounging b@stards who have never worked a day in their life (but still go on holiday 2 - 3 times a years and run nice cars). It`s a start!

f1_fan

iTrader: (9)

Thing is thought they, as in the government, have now admitted they think it unlikely they will meet their own borrowing targets. Nothing to do wth growth or the media. Hence my orginal post.

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

Siemens as a whole own and employ a hell of alot more British workforce than the other lot ever did though. I think this is a fact that is often overlooked.

I'm not a fan of them but we cannot escape the fact that this company could easily pull most of its operations out of the UK if it so desired.

Martin2005

Blimey how many such families are there - must be millions if that is to blame for all our woes

EddScott

Well they were never going to were they? No matter who was in power they'd be too optimistic. My point is that the media bleats about how there is no growth in the economy but you can't have it both ways.

I didn't know that. In that case I can only hope Siemans being chosen over Bombardier was for the right reasons.

ScoobySteve69

iTrader: (13)

Why don`t you read what I posted.

Martin2005

I did, and that's why I posted what I posted

Your post appears to be just more ill thought, mindless Daily Mail driven scapegoating, nonsense.

speedking

We need to attract money from abroad. That means supporting businesses that actually make physical products for export, e.g. cars, tourism and exportable services like insurance.

Although I am close to the Construction industry, I don't think that building new homes for British people to buy or rent is the answer. That just feeds the merry-go-round without increasing growth.

Martin2005

I agree with the sentiment. We need a long-term plan to develop our manufacturing sector. Essentially this means a significant intervention from the government.

I think construction is part of the shorter-term solution though, we have a shortage of housing, so let's get on with building some more.

ScoobySteve69

iTrader: (13)

You're too thick to even argue with.

Martin2005

You don't need to argue, you just need to use some facts...

Leslie

Can you actually justify the situation described by Scoobsteve? Is it right to hand out all that cash to families with that kind of attitude and who behave in such a way?

When you consider our enormous national debt, around £1 trillion which was instituted by the previous government's continual overborrowing in an effort to fool us into thinking that the economy was doing well, and the interest payments which are crippling us, what do you suggest this government does to recover without yet more overborrowing and hence increasing the interest payments even further and which we just cannot pay off. Looking honestly at the situation as it is, how can you criticise this government when they are trapped financially at every turn?

Please give us a truly effective way out of it!

Les

Martin2005

Les, I haven’t criticised the government on this, in fact I wholeheartedly support what they are trying to do – so I don’t quite get where you are coming from.
The reason I question his post was because he did the usual trick of posting up an ‘aunt-sally’ argument then somehow aggregated up this fairly unique scenario, so that it could be blamed for a large part of the problem.
I’m not at all squeamish about getting tough on people that are cheating the system, just as I’m not squeamish about calling out people who lazily want to blame immigrants for all our woes.

tony de wonderful

End the debt!

Lisawrx

iTrader: (1)

To be fair, Martin, Steve hasn't blamed immigrants for all our woes as you put it. He has mentioned an area where money could be saved, the benefits system. Both targeting those free loading, be it immigrants or our natives. He hasn't claimed that they are all fully to blame, but said looking at this would be a start.

Just because someone dares to mention immigrants, doesn't mean they are blaming all of them, or for that matter saying problems are all down to them.

Martin2005

He also managed to 'mention' their 'smelly kids'!!!!

His post was fanciful, baseless and borderline racist