Thursday 9 August 2012

DOWN, DOWN, DEEPER ON DOWN

The Bank of Britain England has warned that George Osborne's new £80 billion scheme to kickstart lending to households and businesses may end up being paid out in bank bonuses rather than helping the economy.

Rather like the quantitative easing of somewhere in the region of £200 billion then.

If Mr Osborne's main function were to ensure that banks continue to make vast amounts of money and pay their executives and gamblers huge bonuses, while we are discovering scam after scam, that they have engaged in in an effort to make ever more money, he would be a resounding success.

Unfortunately for both Mr Osborne and the public of the UK's countries, Mr Osborne's job is to be the Finance Secretary, looking after the UK's economy. At that he seems to be rather second rate. Indeed a great big fat failure.

The central bank has downgraded its growth forecasts for the year yet again, this time to zero. This means that the BoE has finally caught up with the rest of the City and realised that the economy is going to flat line, at best, for the rest of the year. There is, however, still time from another downgrade. It's only August after all.

This leaves only the body set up by George Osborne himself, agreeing with Mr Osborne that things are more rosy. In March, the Office of Budget Responsibility (OBR) estimated the economy would expand by 0.8% in 2012, rising to 2% in 2013 and 2.7%. 

It is likely, however, that the OBR will bring its forecasts into line with everyone else by November, which will mean the Office will have to increase estimates of the government's borrowing requirement for next year. 

The result of this will be to throw the Chancellor's deficit reduction strategy off course yet again.

It really can only be a matter of time before there is a downgrading of Mr Osborne's sainted credit rating.

Fortunately, however, there is a wide range of people we can blame for this unfortunate state of affairs: The Eurozone; the Chinese; The Queen's Jubilee (the one that was going to boost the economy); August Bank Holiday; The Olympics (the ones that were going to boost the economy), and the weather.

Nothing to do with the fact that Osborne is a pile of useless pants that couldn't distinguish between the economy and a Gregg's Cornish pasty, then?

Thought not.

14 comments:

  1. tris

    Dont forget Alex Salmond going around trying to destroy the UK even if its brings Scotland down as well.


    Ole Osborne is going to give 110% he says (twat) we would settle for him giving 50% if he could get it right for once he wont!.

    The problem with this Toff is he says 110% to be one of the lads but the lads stopped saying 110% years ago and he dont know it....

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  2. How will getting out of this sorry mess bring Scotland down, Niko?

    The international statistics approved by several owrld bodies suggest that Scotland would be somewhere between 6th and 9th richest country(per capita) in the world.

    Oh I wish I were that far down, so I do. Then I wouldn't be worried if it were a cold winter, or the car wouldn't pass its MOT, or that they've put the bloody road tax up AGAIN.

    I don't think Osborne did percentages at school. He was too busy learning croquet and polo, how to eat smoked salmon, and to check that the butler had decanted the port right.

    I'd settle for him giving zero % if he'd just kindly bugger off to the British Virgin Islands to be reunited with the family fortune and never come back again.

    Thick nob.

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  3. What is REALLY scary is that the alternative, from the RED Tories, aint any better.

    Come to think about it having the RED Tories Balls machine in charge of the country's economy is even MORE scarier than what we currently have.

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  4. John Swinney is a much better option, Arbroath.

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  5. John Swinney is the ONLY option Tris. :lol:

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  6. Niko,

    I suspect that you are only kidding when you refer to your union allies as twats (whatever that means?). Why look for allies when you have enough twats in your own party.

    Vote yes - you know it makes sense!!

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  7. Niko,

    If posters are condescending and kind enough to post on your blog it would be good if you answered them. I posted several comments on your friend Grahamski's blog but he's moderated the lot - I can't imagine why!

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  8. Yes, sorry. You're right Arbroath. John is the man who can somehow manage to find money for important things, despite the size of his budget being cut.

    I'm not sure how he does it when Osborne, or Darling found that kind of thing impossible.

    One possible suggestion is that he isn't syphoning off big chunks of the budget for bankers and the super rich.

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  9. Not just allies, John. They are the people who are paying with their dinners in Surrey and all these London stockbrokers and venture capitalists forking out huge amounts to keep the oil, no sorry, what am I saying, the dear people of Scotland in the "most successful union of states ever in the world and the universe, and indeed the multiverse, ever, ever".

    Hmmm.

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  10. I didn't know Grahamski had a blog John. I remember him from the days when I posted on the Scotsman (Printed in England).

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  11. Very good CH.

    I love that guy. He dares to say it how it is.

    I've said for a long time that Britain is an ally (for which read willing slave) to the US, and the US doesn't give a stuff about the UK.

    If the City of London falls, England will be stuffed big time, seeing as Thatcher thought it was the only thing that mattered and more or less wiped everything else of the face of the map. We need to be free by the time that happens.

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  12. Twis

    Sadly people just don't care enough anymore to put pressure on Osbourne, Alexander, Cable and king to do the right thing and re-think their failed policies. As I am of a certain age and remember the early 80's under Thatcher as a teenager, I will never forget or forgive seeing my Dad thrown on the scrap heap and taking years to find another job. I fear that this mob are pursuing the same policies based on their own agenda of low wage, high demand workforce to maintain the wealthy and elite. It certainly feels that way.

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  13. Anon:

    I wrote a HUGE response to you, and it disappeared into cyber space! Oh well, here goes second attempt.

    First, I don't know that people don't care. I think it is more that they see no point. Labour and Tory follow more or less the same policies. You get the same whatever you vote.

    Additionally in so many constituencies the seats never change hands anyway, so at a local level it appears to be a waste of time trying to get a new MP.

    The Liberals wasted the one chance they had to demand change. PR would have made the country a little more democratic. It has worked in Scotland.

    The House of Lords desperately needs to be reformed. That has been botched too.

    People keep telling us that the Lords reform is unimportant. The economy is the most important thing. It probably is, but some sort of Lords reform (not the mess Clegg cobbled together, but maybe just a normal Senate, like normal countries have) would have gone some way to democratise parliament, and hopefully the way we are managed... including perhaps the economy!

    I sympathise with you about your father losing his job. It was soul destroying to find yourself out of work with no prospects of anything that you could reasonably do.

    Mrs Thatcher never understood the damage that she did.

    I've found time and time again the politically incorrect fact that some men want what they call "a man's job".

    That translates roughly as a job that you come home from dirty and tired, muscles aching.

    She wanted everyone in smart suits going in to the City. She forgot sometimes that there was more to Britain than London.

    It is amazing that it didn't occur to her that modernising outdated factories and outdated union power, balancing management an unions, and trying to get rid of "them v us" was what was required.

    But no. She shut it all down.

    Germany modernised instead, and went on to take in 22 million Germans from the GDR, and now seems to be able to support hundreds of millions of southern Europeans.

    Oh for some decent government in the UK.

    I'm afraid I haven't really said all that I said last time, nor have I said it as well. Sorry!

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