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Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart
36804 Posts
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 Posted -
28/04/2011
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07:37
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Political comment is a high risk activity on the site these days so I thought I'd try again to give those who are interested in politics a safe haven!
Stanley Challenger Graham
Barlick View
stanley at barnoldswick.freeserve.co.uk
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Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart
36804 Posts
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Posted - 31/07/2011 : 06:00
"it would take up much more than a little posting to go into all the relevant details" Yup, and considerable posting has been done. Read the back issues.
Stanley Challenger Graham
Barlick View
stanley at barnoldswick.freeserve.co.uk  |
Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart
36804 Posts
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Posted - 01/08/2011 : 05:36
The democrats and Republicans have cobbled together a compromise on the US budget. The EU does the same for Greece. Markets heave a sigh of relief and so does Ossie.
But. Both these are sticking plasters driven by the markets. Obama's solution of spending to stimulate growth is under attack, pity because it was starting to work. The EU 'solution' for Greece is temporary and depends on a lot of unknown factors, it will flare up again in the Med. So Ossie has a monetarist policy that seems from the evidence not to be working, the economy is flat-lining before the effects of the cuts work their way through. Danny Alexander quite rightly attacks the hard-liners who say that the 50p top rate should be cut, what a signal that would be for the middle and lower income bands. Hinton's blue sky thinking on more cuts gets shot down in flames. Meanwhile Ossie keeps stum, his line is that all is well, the economy is stable. Meanwhile inflation and wage cuts plus uncertainty eat into domestic spending, the main driver of growth. Not a pretty picture!
Stanley Challenger Graham
Barlick View
stanley at barnoldswick.freeserve.co.uk |
Tardis
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Posted - 01/08/2011 : 15:34
Back issues are like history where you utilise the knowledge gained to ensure that you don't make the same mistakes again. Always good to have a different viewpoint to open up the debate.
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Tardis
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Posted - 01/08/2011 : 15:41
Milk wholesale prices in the UK are 5p per litre below the price of the equivalent dairy farmer in the rest of the EU, and yet the UK imports milk. Most milk farmers not making a profit, and many still leaving the business.
EU subsidies mean that some hill farmers receive over £50,000 in payments and yet their operations fail to ensure that they pay any tax because their businesses run at such large losses.
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Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart
36804 Posts
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Posted - 02/08/2011 : 05:34
Michael, see the back issues in Stanley's View. 'Price of milk' and 'Milk shake up 1-4). But it's only history..... (with evidence).
One thing that struck me the other day when I was listening to a discussion on milk prices was how artificial the distinction is between 'the liquid market' and 'manufacturing'. This stems from the formula the Milk Marketing Board constructed before WW2 to make the milk market work efficiently. They paid more for doorstep milk than that which went for making into cheese, butter cream etc. and balanced the two incomes to give an overall average price for all farmers. Clunky but it worked because realistic farmgate prices were set. I don't see why these distinctions should still be used, after all, no matter where the milk is going it still costs as much to produce. It may be time for a simplification, Pay a price which gives a fair economic return at the farm gate and let the distributors fight over the rest. The market will soon decide the economic price for the manufactured products.Then, instead of the idividual farmers fighting the might of the supermarkets they can get on with producing the milk and leave the fighting to the big boys. (Probably too simple a solution. Leaves no wriggle room for the big boys)
Stanley Challenger Graham
Barlick View
stanley at barnoldswick.freeserve.co.uk |
Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart
36804 Posts
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Posted - 03/08/2011 : 05:53
News this morning that interest rate on borrowing has gone up for Spain and Italy. Not good news for the Euro. External events Ossie!
Stanley Challenger Graham
Barlick View
stanley at barnoldswick.freeserve.co.uk |
Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart
36804 Posts
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Posted - 04/08/2011 : 06:10
Berlusconi says that everything is fine so that's all right then.
Very quiet on the home front... perhaps too quiet.
Stanley Challenger Graham
Barlick View
stanley at barnoldswick.freeserve.co.uk |
Tardis
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Posted - 04/08/2011 : 10:51
What got me about milk prices, is that the producer gets a higher price if he supplies a supermarket.
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Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart
36804 Posts
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Posted - 05/08/2011 : 07:32
I thought it was too quiet! I suppose you've picked up the fact that the markets appear to be in a bit of a tizz. Explanation seems to be that the bond-holders have been looking carefully at the Euro and have found that due to the fact everyone's on holiday the key part of the much vaunted Euro Sticking Plaster, the fund that backs the bonds, the actual cash, didn't exist! There had been no unanimous agreement and evidently nobody got on with the job of creating the support mechanisms. So the investors started to move their money to 'safe havens' like the Yen and the USDollar! (SAFE?) This left the Eoro Central Bank with no option but to start to buy the junk bomds and once the market realised this they reacted even faster because they know this is simply not good enough because by doing so the bank increases its exposure and in effect becomes part of the problem.
Add the miserable bank results in UK and general misgivings about the global economy and what you have is confidence being eroded.
Question is, where does this leave Italy and Spain? Despite Berlusconi telling us all is well and Spain not having a viable government some people seem to have their heads in the sand. Where are our UK leaders? Reports are that they are all on holiday. My suggestion is that they should pack their cossies up, jump on the plane and get back here to man the barricades!
Oh, and by the way, the projected growth figure for UK for this year has been dongraded from the already miserable level forecast. And Oh Dear, the inflation forecast is expected to be higher.... Ossie is right, his policies will work in the end, but how much damage on the way and will we be here when we reach the Promised Land.
We are not being governed, we are drifting helpless on a very stormy sea. Batten the hatcjes down!
Stanley Challenger Graham
Barlick View
stanley at barnoldswick.freeserve.co.uk |
Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart
36804 Posts
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Posted - 05/08/2011 : 07:33
Michael. Milk. No mystery there, the supermarkets cut out the middle men by buying direct. That's where the extra comes from but it still isn't enough.
Stanley Challenger Graham
Barlick View
stanley at barnoldswick.freeserve.co.uk |
Tardis
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Posted - 05/08/2011 : 10:41
http://www.labourlist.org/does-labour-need-its-own-tea-party-movement
Maybe a little movement in the central thinking.
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handlamp
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Posted - 05/08/2011 : 15:53
Stanley, they're keeping their heads down -ti's all beyond today's politicians and their, so called advisors. As our old mate, Harold MacMillan would say, ` Events, dear boy, events' - and today's boys can't handle 'em. Our Dave's cuts programmes are costing far more than if he'd left 'em alone. All over the country we're making redundancy payments hand over fist and the same people are being taken on to do much of the work formerly covered and we haven't really got under way with the Health Service debacle yet. Even our late lamented Frank's favourite journal is reporting that, at least 4500 civil servants have been taken on since the election - three times the number that have been handed compulsory redundancy notices.
Ted |
Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart
36804 Posts
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Posted - 06/08/2011 : 06:10
Ted, you still have all your chairs at home, spot on!
Dave and his mates may try to hide but as you say, external events! (Now where have I seen that phrase before?) I watched Vince Cable struggling to defend them last night and failing miserably. Dave will have to tear himself away from Tuscany anyway because there is going to be an Emergency G20 meeting.
Meanwhile, in another part of the forest Standard and Poors drops US credit rating one notch to AA+ and Obama tells them they have their figures wrong. The bad news is that they haven't, as they said this morning the debt reduction debacle gives no sign that the US will do any serious debt reduction. Berlusconi has had to do a U-turn on his message three days ago that the Italian economy and its banks were fine thank you. Last night he announced that Italy was under attack from speculators and that the date for a balanced budget would be brought forward to 2013. In a pig's ear, that's impossible and everyone knows it, he is in cloud cuckoo land.
Remember that the reason for this latest storm is basically that the markets realised that the 'sticking plaster' the EU put on Greek debt didn't exist, they'd all gone on holiday and not actually put the funds in place. That's why the EU central bank is having to buy up Greek bonds to support them and in the process weakening itself.
As for us here in the UK. Ted is dead right, Ossie's policy is fiscally quite correct, if savings are made and spending reduced debt will reduce. However, there is no evidence that his 'savings' aren't costing more than the 'savins' they are meant to produce. In addition they are directed at the wrong place, the bottom 85% of the electorate and are on too short a time scale, they are damaging domestic consumption and stopping growth in economic activity, that's why growth is flat-lining. On top of this we have this latest combination of events in Europe which will be exacerbated by the downgrading of US debt. Protest how they will, our banks are weak and exposed to EU debt. The global economy will be hit as confidence evaporates, exports will fall and it's exports that the ConDem Coalition have pinned their hopes of recovery on. In other words, as Ted says. "Events Dear Boy!"
On the bright side, the US economy is a fifth of the global economy and is still immensely strong. They have had a nasty letter from the bank manager. Instead of arguing with him they should take some serious action to rein in US spending. Plenty of scope without hitting the poorest. That's the way all governments should be going including ours.
Have you noticed who hasn't got dragged into the debacle? True they will be affected but there may be a message there, I don't see China panicking....
Marx said that Capitalism contains inside it the seeds of its own destruction. He might have been right, you can't run a Western Economy without growth. I've always thought that this was because there are inherent flaws in the system and one of these may be incompetence in our governing classes and capital holders. Their track record of late has been miserable. Another factor is Monetarism and blind adherence to the Market Economy as a self regulating mechanism. Joseph Stiegltz was on R4 last night making the point that growth can only be acheived by investing in industry, borrowing money if needed to stimulate production and get people working. He's right but our pathetic coalition can't bring themselves to admit that it's true. The 'New Economics' that first started in the 1960s with Friedman and Chicago School monetarist policeis is a busted flush. Time someone bit the bullet and admitted it.
Stanley Challenger Graham
Barlick View
stanley at barnoldswick.freeserve.co.uk |
Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart
36804 Posts
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Posted - 06/08/2011 : 06:38
PS. It will be interesting to see what the markets will do on Monday.........
Stanley Challenger Graham
Barlick View
stanley at barnoldswick.freeserve.co.uk |
Tizer
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Posted - 06/08/2011 : 10:48
China has spoken..."China blasts US over credit rating downgrade". It has $1.2 trillion of US Treasury debt and demands that the US tightens its belt and confronts its debt addiction.
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