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Hmmmm. So Messrs Brown and Obama want the UK to commit yet greater proportions of its GDP to further economic stimulus plans. As the Governor of the Bank of England has already said we can't afford to do so, this seems like a great plan.
It seems pretty plain that the 'banking crisis' has precipitated the UK downturn - it's caused widespread panic and evaporation of confidence. Whether or not the banking crisis is responsible for the entire of the global downturn is beyond me - I am not an economist - but it's certainly been a key factor.
The UK 'banking crisis' seems to have been caused, in my humble view, by two things.
The first of these was irresponsible people deriving clever ways of creating 'theoretical profit' from 'clever' deals and then showing it as profit in their trading accounts - these deals being backed up by insurance policies to protect against a loss. Insuring against losses may have been well and good - until the insurers ran into trouble - cue AIG.
So, great - notional profit is all well and good - but it isn't 'money in the bank'. In my view this has to be where things started going wrong - i.e. notional money isn't the same as 'real' money - it isn't available, it isn't tangible - hence some of our banks became reliant on the money markets to generate liquidity. Whilst cash was available to borrow, this worked fine and the banks rode happily on the crest of an artificial wave, posting record profits, toasting stratospheric levels of apparent success.
The second key factor was an abundance of irresponsible lending by the banks - the money being lent all too frequently being provided to the banks by the money markets - i.e. they weren't lending their own money, they were borrowing it.
Once the money markets dried up the banks were left high and dry without any 'real' money of their own to play with - what happened next is history.
The thing to appreciate is that the bank's apparent success in the preceding years (and to a degree our economy's apparent success) was about as 'real' as the profit generated by the bank's incredibly clever yet artificial deals - i.e. yes, we appeared to be doing well for just as long as the whole house of cards managed to stay standing. We rode higher than we should have done for a good couple of years - and what is currently happening is readjustment.
It's similar to what happened with the property market - demand rose, prices soared artificially high - they stayed high - they've come down again.
The problem is that the trouble in the banking sector spooked a lot of people - it caused panic. The panic was amplified by the media - panic caused the run on Northern Rock. The run on Northern Rock precipitated further panic - it led to the UK Government nationalising Northern Rock, which started the whole banking-bailout-ball rolling - cue further panic re the state of the banks and the erosion of consumer and industry confidence.
The economy had ridden artificially high and it was due for a period of readjustment. The likelihood is that this was always going to cause a degree of discomfort in certain sectors - however, due to the incredibly heavy, suffocating amounts of airtime dedicated to the 'impending recession' by the media, panic ensued, confidence evaporated - leaving us in the predicament in which we currently sit.
There is no point in our governments expending huge proportions of our GDPs to attempt to reinstate the economy to the artificially healthy state it up until recently appeared to be in - it wasn't real.
As David Tang has said, the key to our recovery is consumer/industry confidence. This makes perfect sense. Yes, parts of the banking sector were always going to run into stormy water, given the way they had been operating - but there was no need for the panic attributable to parts of that sector to spread to everything else! The fact that the panic spread, there can be no doubt, was due solely to the media and some incredibly reckless reporting - governments ploughing billions into business/economies thereafter (cue further reporting) didn't help - it undermined confidence still further.
It therefore does not make sense for governments around the world to keep stumping up (read: borrowing) billions of dollars/pounds to artificially stimulate our economies. The more money governments plough into our economies, the less confident people/industry will be - i.e. if people see the economy being propped up, given adrenaline shots and wheeled about in its customised Pope-mobile, there is no reason why confidence should return - instead it will erode yet further.
We can only hope that common sense prevails. If people spend, the situation will improve - if our governments continue to spend billions and billions on our behalf, though, it will not. Quite why anyone would listen to Gordon Brown anyway is beyond me - it has been reported that up until recently he was taking advice from the very people who are now thought to have pilotted the banks in their charge into the trouble which they are now in!
Wakey wakey people, it's coffee time....
Congratulations must surely be extended to Canada for declining to allow the outspoken, odious, wretched, 'infandous' George Galloway entry.
Well done indeed for turning away this Islamist-extremist sympathiser and general purpose whipping boy. It's astonishing: straight after 9/11 his comments were akin to saying 'America got what she was asking for, many people around the world will be delighted about this'; straight after the London bombings his comments were akin to 'oh well, you reap what you sow' - and most recently he has headed up a motorcade travelling through France, Spain, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Egypt to reach Gaza, to deliver aid and supplies into the hands of Hamas.
Indeed, it seems that Hamas are so chuffed with the efforts of this attention seeking buffoon that they have presented him with a Palestinian passport. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7939480.stm)
How can it be that a member of the United Kingdom Parliament can spend so long campaigning and fundraising to support those behind and those who support an inherently terrorist organisation..?(!) Is this what his constituents want him to be doing? If so, it seems to me that somewhere along the lines something has gone badly wrong - i.e. how can a sector of society that must (if that were the case) support terrorist activities and anti-UK aims be allowed to have a voice in the UK Parliament..? But then, I find it very hard to imagine that the majority of Galloway's constituents do support the activities he chooses to engage in - it seems more likely to me that he is content just to carry on and run his own little agenda. 'What is that agenda?', you ask - well check out the t-shirts promoted on his website: http://www.philosophyfootball.com/product_images/pimg4961644291fcf_front
At the end of the day, for whatever reason, Galloway seems (to me) to have positioned himself as the poster-boy (sorry, alternative words fail me) for Islamist-extremist sympathisers in the UK. Whenever there is an 'outrage against Islam', seemingly Galloway is invariably there, blowing hot air into a megaphone, empathising (apparently) or otherwise making sympathetic noises.
George, if the UK really does so little for you that you'd rather channel your time, energy and talents into promoting, and sympathising with those who support, an extremist, terrorist organisation, how about moving, hey? I understand lycra is pretty popular in Afghanistan at the moment...
I should just start by saying that I have (or rather, had) nothing in particular against Jade Goody/Tweed.
Her relatively short and in some respects tragic life has now drawn to a close. That she faced her final days in the full beam of the media glare in many respects showed a great deal of courage - that she endured her suffering in full public view for the future benefit of her two young sons is nothing but commendable.
However, the suggestion of Archbishop Jonathan Blake on the Channel 4 news this evening that her contribution to society in the latter days of her life was of 'biblical proportions' was stupendously ill-judged. Further, the Archbishop went on to claim that in the last month or so of her life she 'saved thousands of lives' and that she can be considered worthy of 'saint' status(!)
That a (presumably) intelligent man could make such bold (yet loopy) statements left me momentarily aghast and shortly thereafter prompted me to direct some hot air of my own in the direction of the television..!
I simply do not see, that however tragic her demise, anything Jade managed to do in the last few months of her life could have in any way served to elevate her to 'saint' status, or that she achieved anything of 'biblical proportions' - unless we were talking about the amount of cash she generated (supposedly and I very much hope it is the case) for the future benefit of her sons.
Doubtless there will follow a week or so of 'mourning' in magazines of the 'OK' variety - which will sell issues and help to sustain their circulation. What annoys me is that the OK-buying public either do not see how trite and entirely superficial this perpetuation of the Goody phenomenon is - or that they do realise, yet continue to buy the vacuous drivel regardless.
It is worth remembering that the media created Jade and made her its play-thing. It pulled its macabre strings from the outset, poking fun and sneering - then it attempted to annihilate her following the 'Shilpa Poppadom' episode. The media mocked and derided her more often than it didn't - and through it all money was generated for the publications and the PR representatives concerned. To the very end (and indeed beyond) the media and the PR people have cashed in at every step - they created her, they profited from her - and doubtless they are now indeed filled with remorse - remorse, that is, that her life is over so soon.
In many ways it seems the best tribute anyone could make to Jade would be to not purchase the forthcoming series of clichés and crashingly awful metaphors that is inevitably to be served up by the 'coffee-table-glossies' (yuck). I would say that 'in every way' this would be the most appropriate tribute, if it were not for the suggestion that it is her two sons who will benefit from the royalties/publication fees generated.
It is monumentally irritating that the hackneyed, clichéd, flea-ridden carcass of the cheapest, lowest, most shameless form of journalism continues to profit from Jade's life and demise.
Mind you, this would be just a fraction as irritating as it would be if Tweed were to somehow now morph into a media spectacle in his own right.............. heaven forbid!
Over and out...
