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waitingforthepain

Listed below are comments made by waitingforthepain between Monday, 29th June 2009 and Tuesday, 10th November 2009.

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The real debate has scarcely begun 2:53pm on 10 Nov 2009 The letter is overdone. The point about her son dying because there was a lack of medivac helicopters to get him out of there before he bled to death is heartrending. It is also an issue for which Brown must be responsible. When our troops were in the much less danagerous environment of South Armagh they went everywhere by helicopter. In Afghanistan they go by unarmoured jeeps. They lacked body armour for years before public upset forced this Government to move. The lies told by ministers who "hoped a shot would not be fired in anger" and the pretence that this was some sort of low grade police action barely worth talking about has got us and Brown where we are today. We are at war and our finest are dying. We either fight this war seriously or we get out. Guardsman Janes paid the penalty of trying to have it both ways. Enough.
First draft of UK economic history 12:09pm on 23 Oct 2009 This is a really bad number. QE is a disaster in the long run but it should have helped in the short run by boosting the money supply. That is what has been driving the stock market and top end property. It is frightening that none of that £175bn ( a truly huge sum of money equivalent to more than 12% of GDP) has apparently bled through to actual activity as opposed to market speculation.
The analogy with Japan gets ever closer: free money hot off the press is not having the desired effect. I am sure I saw that Government spending had increased by over 5% in the last year. This makes the private sector figures truly scary. Anyone who thinks that unemployment has peaked is in for a series of nasty shocks.
Moving in the right direction 5:51pm on 19 Oct 2009 Like almost all of the FSA's work this does not address the correct problem. If consumers want to borrow and lenders are prepared to lend they should not get in the way. Bluntly it is none of their business and it is absurd to think that some regulation knows better than those involved in the particular transaction.
On the other hand since we have extended the Government guarantee to absurd lengths we do have an interest in the systemic risks being run by the Institutions. The regulations should focus on what percentage of loans by that institution are in the higher risk category and the penalty should be additional capital retention by those institutions. Other that this the FSA should go forth and multiply!
Merkel's party hails dream result 11:22am on 28 Sep 2009 I think it is clear that both the CDU and the SPD suffered for some of the things the grand coalition had to do over the last year and for the recession. Angela Merkel has won because she suffered less but the comment that this result is a move away from the centre is on the money. The question is will the 2 main parties recover now that they have escaped each other's embrace or are we looking at greater instability in German politics going forward? I personally find the De Linge vote quite disturbing. It seems to have gone beyond even the continuing difficulties that arose from unification. Merkel is a serious and pragmatic organiser and will need all her skills to hold her country together over the next few years. We are not the only country that is going to suffer cuts in spending and increases in taxes.
Gotcha 2:44pm on 16 Sep 2009 Gotcha indeed. The Prime Minister is a liar. He cannot be trusted. He should resign. But then we did know that.
PM: 'We'll cut with Germany, France and the US' 10:05pm on 14 Sep 2009 Am I not right in thinking that the majority shareholder in RBS (G Brown esq) has approved an £10M pay packet for the chief executive Mr Hester for a single year's work, most of it in bonuses? How on earth does this accord with being "appalled"? Does he not know what is done in his name?
Hester: fast recovery "dangerous" 2:04pm on 14 Sep 2009 I am glad that someone has finally mentioned the balance of payments. It is clear evidence that Government borrowing and money printing mean that the country is still living beyond its means. We are consuming more than we are producing. It has to stop. Reduced Government borrowing and an end to QE would help but only when this country starts to pay its way can we be confident that we are on a sustainable path. Then we can start to think about how we start paying it all back...
No-one can rewrite political history 12:16pm on 14 Sep 2009 I have to say that those who accused DC of being a little boring at PMQs pressing the same point week after week and pushing Brown to come out with this rubbish in reply are not looking quite as clever now. I am hopeful that our next PM will be capable of strategic thinking as well as clever tactics.
'Riots on the streets' 5:29pm on 29 Jun 2009 407 staff at Glastonbury. No wonder the BBC is so twitchy about cuts of unsustainable public expenditure. Your bosses are starting to think about the implications of their sycophancy as shown by letting Evan Davis and Simon Mayo loose recently. Time you caught up Nick.
When to talk about spending? 5:12pm on 29 Jun 2009 I tend to agree with those who are sceptical about the value of forecasts by OECD and other International Organisations who just didn't see this coming! Nevertheless they can influence markets and, together with Mervyn King's comments, create an expectation that "consolidation" (interesting word for the pain to come) should be started now. The Government approach will not satisfy the markets. There is noone at the wheel and noone even admitting that there is a problem. I fear there may be a price to pay in the bond markets for this dishonesty. The risk of a lender strike will become very real once the market comes back to reality after being distorted by QE. That can't go on either...can it?

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