Lordy

I have been back a few weeks after 2 years in Perth and I honestly can see no difference, I was expecting it to be different after all the media and bad news but the pubs and shops seem as busy as ever....will report after next week when I try and get a job.

the troubadour

So glad we are in accord. What i was pointing out was that easy money had been around well before Blair got in.

BadgeIsBack

I don't believe that. Labour precided over one of the longest booms going - with every man jack enjoying prosperity - wages increased, some prices decreased. Technology..a brand new second car. 1997-2004(?) will seem like a dream for many who saw their 50k house go to 200k. I still have memories back to 1998-2000 and they were exciting times to live in. Brown is not the leader he should be - GFC was coming though and would have happened anyhow.

paulry

It's hard to say for certain what would have happened had the Tories stayed in power. All we can be sure of is everything veered out of control once Labour dominated the scene. Things like 0% credit cards, 110% mortgages - they all occurred under Blair & Brown's watch. The GFC was so predictable yet Labour did nothing to batten down the hatches.

renth

It was all illusory. The boom was based on people borrowing money, often on the increased values of their houses. It was all about debt. It was a debt boom not a boom in prosperity. It had to end badly and it has.

Brown promised "no more boom and bust" and then went on to preside over one of the worst boom/busts in living memory.

The chickens have barely begun coming home to roost. The next 10 years will be tough in the UK. They have barely begun to reign in spending and raise taxes which will have to happen soon (read: after the election).

BadgeIsBack

Have to admit, I was always uncomfortable with debt. Perhaps I can allow the fact that they gave independence to the Bank of England. I'm no Labour voter by the way.

framac67

Absolutely young man because we need a socialist government. Hear hear.

kaungchiau

Brown was derided by economists when he proclaimed no more boom and bust. Unfortunately, he made the statement near the top of the boom and many people bought into that.

The UK has an artificial economy based on surging house prices, City bonuses and consumer spending and taking on more debt. I don't know much about Brown but I have a nagging feeling that he is from Greenspan School of Economics and could be buddy with Helicopter Ben, who once said that the Fed would drop money from the sky.

Maggie Thatcher's battle with the miners was a short term victory with long term consequences and repercussion. Had the mines not been shut down, the coal could be sold to China.

Labour sucked up to US during George W's tenure. The financial crisis forced the US to seek new friends and allies and the special relationship is no longer so special.

I hope UK will not be another Japan, but with BoE's money printing machine, the scene has probably been set for another financial crisis.

renth

Zimbabwe style hyperinflation here we come...

"In the latest attempt to prove that nobody ever learns anything from history, the Bank Of England is practically betting the Devonshire farm that by putting the UK's economy on nitrous, it will recapture all the lost output during the recession, and that it will be able to time the stimulus exit perfectly, thus avoiding hyperinflation, or so thinks Citigroup economist Michael Saunders. We are fairly confident that the Weimar Republic also did not have hyperinflation as a policy end goal."

http://www.istockanalyst.com/article...icleid/3627401

Buy gold, buy silver, buy canned food - the shitstorm is coming UK soon.

MartinLuther

Or the Euro.

Catch

i beg to differ Mr pistol shooter,since ive been here ive never had so much money off the state,Moan i may do about things,but centrelink is your buddy.In the UK i got bugger all.

kaungchiau

Is it human nature not to learn from the mistake of others? Is that also the reason that history may not repeat itself, but it rhymes?

The Zimbabwe hyperinflation scenario may apply also to US dollar. All paper money goes back to their intrinsic value, ie zero. The unknown is when.

MartinLuther

Bit of a bummer for Zim as they've just switched to the US$

Comauver

What a load of cobblers.

As has been determined, in 1997 Labour inherited a golden economic legacy including a pulic debt of only £350 million as opposed to £175 billion now!

Yes Brown gave independence to the Bof E - big deal. Ken Clarke always got the interest rates right with the help of his 7 wise men. At the same time Brown took away powers from the Bof E and set up the FSA to regulate the financial services and that was where constraints on the commercial banks were eased and they all had to be bailed out with taxpayers money.

Brown also pillaged the pension funds by stopping them from claiming the tax dividend credit and as a result a lot of god pension policies went bust and many became worth a lot less. This was compounded by poor returns on the Stock Exchange over the last 12 years.

On a personal level, I was commuting to a job 40 miles away so an 80 mile round trip and I saw the price of fuel increase from 60p a litre to 80p (it was impossible to travel by train) largely brought on by Brown's fuel escaltor. The hauliers had enough of this and quite rightly brought the country to a standstill. I jacked my job in and took lower paid employment nearer to home.

And if it was such a good bloody boom where were the income tax cuts? There weren't any because every year Brown always spent more than what he received in taxes, a lot of them on bloody useless schemes like Surestart, EMA, 700,000 public sector workers (not that many in frontline services) paid for by taxpayers money, quangos and convolluted tax credits.

rugbymatt

Where the hell is Lee anyway?