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Gordon Brown's Recession?...lol?

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Hypnotic_Me

Failing to prepare for something that happened overseas doesn't make it his fault alone. you have convinced me that it's likely he is partly to blame, but aren't banks privet businesses?

If they sell 'bad debt' to each other and then window dress them, that's their own affair.

If he insists on controlling the national interest rate, is it unfair to ask that he use it in such a way that it does not encourage banks to lend riskily? They are private businesses (perhaps that phrase would be better in the past tense, actually), but, with his control over interest rates, he certainly could have stopped it happening. But he didn't - he let it going so as to inflate the economy.

Reply 21

SuperhansFavouriteAlsatian

pollystyrene07

how on earth can a quote from GEORGE OSBOURNE convince you that the recession is gordon's fault? don't you think he's gonna be a wee bit biased? yesterday you thought it was ridiculous that people were saying it's Brown's fault, now you're convinced that it is...i can't understand how someone can be so gullable. :confused:

The fact that he has a vested interest in arguing to a certain end doesn't immediately means that which he says is incorrect - it isn't in this instance, for example. None of what he said was untrue, was it?

Reply 22

cru_jo0

news papers have to be sold.
To be fair the markets arnt all doom and gloom, its just very volitile.

Reply 23

gamer91

Osborne is a nasty piece of work, and the sooner the torys can dispose of him, the better, Tbh everyone is to blame, the USA and their sub prime, brown for not regulating the banks (where is your free market now?), the banks for being greedy and taking too many risks.

the mud slinging match certainly does not help, if labour/the torys stopped pointing fingers perhaps we could focus attention on the economy, (and Mr Osborne's scaremongering is a right pain - if destroying consumer confidence is part of his plan for the economy, god help us).

Reply 24

qgujxj39

Well, he'll be to blame for the Tory spending cuts in a few years when the debt catches up with them.

Reply 25

Hypnotic_Me

DanGrover

I think it's unfair how no one was proclaiming praises for Gordon Brown when everyones wallets were swelling. All of a sudden Gordon Brown is to blame for everyones misfortune, such an economic recession has never taken place due to uncharted territory. How does one think to look for something that past experience hasn't taught them to look for. The point is for the attackers is the fact that it's easy in hindsight, it's 20/20.

Reply 26

SuperhansFavouriteAlsatian

Hypnotic_Me

How does any of that affect whether or not Gordon Brown's actions have directly affected the brevity of our current economic situation? What you're saying there isn't that he's not to blame, it's that he couldn't have predicted it. They're totally different things, and for what it's worth, there are people who predicted it. It's a fairly well known cycle, actually - it's called "Boom and bust" ...

Reply 27

Hypnotic_Me

DanGrover

I'm aware of the cycle, it's common place in business theory. This particular recession is unique though, making the severity of the impact sting that much more.
Reading some previous posts, perhaps Brown should have regulated the banks, but it's still a stretch to call it his personal recession. It implies he is soley to blame, which is ridiculous.

Reply 28

SuperhansFavouriteAlsatian

Hypnotic_Me

It's only unique because of the uniquely large ammounts of artificial credit that was available, thanks to Brown's interest rate. Bush made similar mistakes in the US, but their entire budget and public spending was lower before anyway, and as a result of our not being the worlds only super-power, we're compelled to consider that economic factors out of our control could very well affect us and compensate accordingly.
And the situation doesn't require greater regulation of the banks, it simply requires more cautious use of the interest rate.

Reply 29

Curty

Tories are winning on the recession score though.

Still 3-1

Hows those market forces treating you?

Reply 30

L i b

Hypnotic_Me

Failing to prepare for something that happened overseas doesn't make it his fault alone. you have convinced me that it's likely he is partly to blame, but aren't banks privet businesses?

Oh, don't get me wrong, you're quite right - he is only partly to blame. Our banks and financial institutions have shown themselves to be completely idiotic in this whole affair.

Reply 31

Hypnotic_Me

Wouldn't it be more apt to place a lot of blame on Maggie Thatcher, she is responsible for deregulating the banks in the first place. ^_~

Reply 32

gamer91

Hypnotic_Me

Wouldn't it be more apt to place a lot of blame on Maggie Thatcher, she is responsible for deregulating the banks in the first place. ^_~

Reply 33

meenu89

Hypnotic_Me

Wouldn't it be more apt to place a lot of blame on Maggie Thatcher, she is responsible for deregulating the banks in the first place. ^_~

Labour could have re-regulated the market, but there was a reason why they didn't.
Get used to it, they have had 11 years to do things, no good blaming Mrs. Thatcher

Reply 34

Hypnotic_Me

meenu89

Labour could have re-regulated the market, but there was a reason why they didn't.
Get used to it, they have had 11 years to do things, no good blaming Mrs. Thatcher

Lol why not? we can blame the ol' hag for so many things, one more on the list can't hurt.

Reply 35

Bagration

pollystyrene07

people who believe that gordon brown is responsible for this GLOBAL financial crisis need to watch this:

http://www.labour.org.uk/webcabinet

ps. it is very funny.

LOL that is AWESOME

Reply 36

Bagration

gamer91

brown for not regulating the banks (where is your free market now?), the banks for being greedy and taking too many risks.

You think that price fixing isn't a form of regulation?

Reply 37

Student2806

He's not to blame for the recession - that responsibility must lie on the shoulders of the bankers here and on the other side of the pond.
He is to blame for us having no money now though - he was chancellor for 10 years. He oversaw amazing economic growth when he was in the Treasury and he should have put some money aside to weather a downturn.
My personal view is that he never envisaged a recession during his political tenure and that he could spend, spend, spend and let someone else deal with the consequences when a downturn did hit.

He make a cataclysmic error in the spend spend spend era of the last 10 years - now we need money to prop us up, we don't have it, and so our national debt is skyrocketing. All his claims about him ending the "boom and bust" cycle have come back to bite him hard.