Malcolm Robinson

So the EU have come out now and criticised the UK and in particular the Brown/Darling deficit reduction plans. This from an organisation which cannot even sort out its own house.........the problem is they are right: its just we never like 'Johnny Foreigner' telling us where we are going wrong! The reason for this statement is that we have breached EU stability rules, exactly the same as France and Germany!!!!!!! So the B/D plan is to half the deficit in the next four years, possible, maybe, probable no, they are now hooked on a huge PSBR which has been inbuilt into the system. This deficit figure doesn't even take in the real position as the likes of PFI, public sector pensions, etc are not included. If we look at public sector pensions and take our own county as an example of this particular black hole country wide, we find 50% of the total combined overall budget for county is the same as their pension deficit, over £400 million and being reassessed (upwards) as we speak! When I questioned county about this, after being told we (ratepayers) will just have to keep paying into it, I was then told as it was a countrywide problem it was almost being ignored. Sound financial planning indeed and conveying a high sense of confidence in abilities to actually manage a billion pound a year business! If we then think about the fact that almost 50% of all jobs in our county are in the public sector I hope we can all start to see the very real problems we are about to face, its called reality! The forthcoming election (only concentrating on the two major parties sorry Stephen) now seems to have some blue water between the parties, fiscally anyway. We have a choice of either paying more and more into an ever increasing black hole of debt or seeing policies implemented which could result in 10,000 plus redundancies locally, and that's just public sector ones. Neither would seem particularly appetising but sometimes that's politics! I think it boils down to 'Do we take the medicine now or put it off for a while?'

Well it would seem the Guardian's 'senior European source' might have jumped the gun as we still wait for official news of the Greek bailout. France's finance minister, Madam Largarde, has just spoken out in the FT seemingly at pains to point out German culpability? The point of her tirade, she says the Germans are as much to blame for the euro crisis because of their productivity gains, increased competitiveness and trade surpluses? WHAT, oh yes this is France!!!!!!! She then goes on to say the successful German economic model is not one the rest of the EU can sustain, or would want to for greater convergence. (Is that what you call a backhanded compliment or what?) The Germans meanwhile go on with their, non aggressive this time, take over of continental Europe insisting on fiscal discipline and stable prices, always centre pin in German economic after their own spectacularly disastrous QE programme! Can anyone really expect Germany to somehow stop being as industrious, stop insisting on a stable currency and ask it workers to work unpaid overtime to allow its continental partners to benefit from their more relaxed way of life? No wonder the leaders can't agree, the whole thing is nuts and all the while Greece is left like a gaping sore on the side of the Euro!

Just watched Ken Clark on the Andrew Mars show yesterday morning and like Vince Cable what came over was a sensible option, even at the expense of support from the more extreme party faithfuls. These two have to be in treasury positions whoever gets in! Cameron and Clegg are little more then fags whilst Gideon (Osborn) is fagging to the fags! Survivalist extraordinaire, Gordon Brown, must be wondering how on earth he is still in his position after several halfarsed failed attempts to get rid of him by his own party. He is there because they deemed it better to go with him at this time rather than let Milliband reorganise everything at the eleventh hour. I think it is odds on that if Gordo pulls it off and wins the election he will be replaced soon after and consign the country to yet another PM by default.

I think that is Monsta's point Mr D, this is not a Citizen's Advice board where questions and answers have broader repercussions. Of course some questions can be answered in an authorative manner given the expertise of members in certain areas but by and large this is a general discussion board where people post their opinions on the topic subject matter.

Gives new meaning to the term 'hung' parliament! http://uk.news.yahoo.com/22/20100314/tuk-uk-britain-libdems-porn-fa6b408.html

To show just how out of touch if not incompetent the current ruling Euro politico class are here is a statement made by Romano Prodi , one time prime minster of Italy and former European Commissioner. "For Greece, the problem is completely over, I don't see any other case now in Europe. ” I disagree Signor Prodi, and I guess the 25,000 strikers in Athens the other day would too. Even with this 'new' package of backing announced by the EU, Greece still has a hard road to go down to get its deficit back under control. The austerity programme their government is trying to implement to get the fiscal deficit back to the Euro level of 3% of GDP by 2012-13 will produce even more populous unrest and once we consider other states stumping up their own domestic cash to help Greece out we will soon see unrest there too as their populations ask why they should have to go without to further the grand EU experiment. As I have said before without political union.......... BTW, if Greece does manage that trick it will beat the German plan to get their deficit under that threshold! I wonder if Signor Prodi has heard of Latvia who the IMF 'helped' out with a similar austerity package when their economy went bits up? They are now in junk bond status with a B rating and dropping. Remember those Greek bonds which went out at such a premium our hedge fund managers fell over themselves to get in the action, well the market is catching them up and eroding that premium. Currently Greek 10yr bonds attract 6.33% not so far off the 6.75% the 5 billion issue went out at. I expect we have seen some reassessment of positions in those figures!

Here comes the rewording............ http://uk.news.yahoo.com/22/20100313/tpl-uk-greece-20b2d2f.html

Stout fellow.

Not quite GGGG! Already looking into getting a town map and the costs......about the same as a decent second hand car! As for red tape already hit it!

That would seem quite a well thought out and cognitive argument knocking the ball firmly across the net.............................

Monsta, Are you old enough to actually go into such establishments?

Monsta, You should be ashamed of yourself, that is very disrespectful.......... to short planks!

Google maps have the library at the wrong place!

http://www.newspostleader.co.uk/latest/Plans-are-submitted-for-Tesco.6134410.jp

As an antithesis to Kate's speech there has been a report by the IMF done by Daniel Kanda entitled, 'Asset Booms and Structural Fiscal Positions.' Bit heavy, maybe, but it focuses on the Irish economy and their housing bubble which in a lot of ways replicates our own. Quote: 'Asset booms and sectoral changes can distort traditional estimates of structural fiscal revenue, and could lead to serious fiscal policy errors. This paper extends the estimation of structural revenues to take account of asset prices and sectoral changes, and applies this to the case of Ireland, where a property bust has revealed a large hole in the public finances. It is shown that excluding these factors led to a substantial bias in the estimation of structural revenues and the structural balance prior to the crisis was much larger than earlier estimated.' What this means and what the paper goes on to say is that Ireland took the revenue generated by the likes of the housing bubble to increase its public sector provision thinking income, VAT, stamp duty, capital gains tax etc, would continue. Without that 'extra' tax income they were left with a burgeoning public sector which was unable to be supported by an economy entering recession. (BTW this is exactly where I think France and some of its continental partners have it wrong, their take is that the private sector is only there to support the public sector, dumb or what, quite obviously the wrong way around unless they really are a communist state!) Anyway we can easily draw comparisons with the UK and Ireland in this respect; however Ireland has already begun the much needed austerity measures to get its finances back into some semblance of order. Bit like Greece needs to do now if the people allow it! What is clear is that UKPLC will have to at some point, and the sooner the better, revalue not only its assets, and get the froth out of them, but also examine the public sector and trim that cloth to suit. With the biggest employer in our county the public sector worrying times ahead. While there is much in this single IMF report to congratulate there is also a contradictory view of the organisation as a whole. The Polish finance minister quoted in the FT said of the IMF, 'Spain is complaining that the same institution which was urging them to increase their budget deficit last year is now telling them what a dreadful mistake it was this year. We were on the end of that same advice but we took a contrarian view… Well done Poland and can you have a word with Gordo........

No one can speak well, unless he thoroughly understands his subject. Cicero

I agree with most of that GGG but the electorate don't actually vote for a prime minister. We vote for a 'local' representative and if they are in the winning party then a select few vote for a leader. I do think traditional party politics has had its day or is very close to having it. Maybe it is time to vote for a leader and let them form their own executive out of whoever else is elected? The reliance on the party vote really just dumbs down the electorate as there is now so much common ground between them these days. I would like to see each candidate hold a public meeting in the community centre and debate the issues we feel concerned about, both local and national. If they are truly representatives of the people when was the last time one asked how we would like them to vote on any subject? We have been subjected to a quasi feudal democratic structure for way too long. Last election Labour got in with about 22% of the possible vote and went on to say it held a popular mandate????? Over 25 million people voted and they got 9 million odd so they didn't even get a majority of the votes cast. Seems a crazy system when we consider the ethos behind the word, democracy. So we have a government who didn't get as many people voting for it than those who regularly watch Coronation Street! It is unbelievable! As for their Lordships.........a few times it has been good that they were there, a bit like the European courts, but by and large a democracy cannot flourish with an unelected executive only there by grace and favour!

As long as it sells socks and knickers..............???????? Whenever someone writes into the NPL or gets on a soap box about the lack of shopping facilities in Bedders they ALWAYS say they can't even buy a pair of socks or knickers......I am beginning to wonder why the townsfolk have such a high turnover of their smalls.

That's the way it works Mr D. Thing is for you to be able to 'have your say' then Monsta has to be able to have his too, however objectionable anyone finds it. (Within the rules of the board anyway, and also irrespective of his standing.)

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/21/20100311/tuk-mps-and-peer-deny-expenses-fraud-6323e80.html

I think we might see some of the small discounted parties actually getting a seat or three in the forthcoming election. I think the main parties haven't quite realised how angry the electorate are with them and because of the smoozhing that has gone on with the economy in the run up, the financial consequences might well be ignored in favour of belting someone on the nose!

A sensible line doglover, hear, hear.

Back to the UK economy and following on from the balance of payment figures we now have the manufacturing and industrial production figures. Industrial production figure was -1.5% (Jan10/Jan09) and the manufacturing figure +0.2% year on year. Of the 13 sectors in the manufacturing figure 11 fell! The problem I have here is that the manufacturing sector represents such a low make up of UKPLC these days a fractional rise is meaningless. It is about 13-15% of the economy, if I remember correctly, and has almost exactly swapped with the service sector, including financials, which is now just under 30%, or was until all the bubbles started bursting! Why is this stuff important, because we have bankrupted the country trying to stabilise our situation and (like Greece) we now need to build our way back. Worryingly the figures show no such growth for the economy and considering the supposed financial stimulus HMG have made something is badly askew, either that or someone has their sums wrong for whatever (political)reason! Interesting speech made by Kate Barker on Monday evening, she is about to retire from the MPC, in which she made several references to her time in office, the last 9 years. Interesting because she said the MPC realised the asset price bubbles building up in the economy could have a detrimental effect on the well being of the economy as a whole......well why didn't you do something about it Kate? She did say she was less then satisfied with her performance regarding the financial crisis. We can agree on that one then! Also in a thinly veiled reference......... 'It may however also have been the period in which a large error was made in allowing the belief to become established that policymakers had solved the issue of economic instability.' Now who said they had abolished boom and bust? She goes on to say that she doesn't (and by association the MPC as a whole?) see the new asset bubbles building in the economy as yet endangering the economic prospects for UKPLC, however she does mention the debt associated with such peaks. So back to normal then Kate no lessons learnt! It is starting to look like our Central Bank is actually encouraging debt laden asset bubbles and for that read house prices and stock markets.

There is a VERY brief questions and answers session at the beginning of the meeting so come prepared. Which can be extended if the chairman sees fit! The problem here is that the powers of a parish/town council are pretty limited, certainly within the context of what we are talking about , which is essentially social/economic regeneration whose remit is essentially a County Council one. Much better to 'lobby' at the Area meetings where most if not all county councillors and a lot of officers attend. Having said that the town council do have a route to take their community's concerns further up the ladder and lets not forget the Mayor and vice Mayor are county councillors as well! There is another comparable community route and that is through the Partnership meetings, so if the politics puts anyone off you are still able to progress your cause in a non political environment.