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TGRWorzel-SirPercy

Listed below are comments made by TGRWorzel-SirPercy between Friday, 12th December 2008 and Sunday, 14th December 2008.

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The perfect time to ditch the pound? 11:40am on 14 Dec 2008 Before anyone accuses me of being anti-Labour or anything like that, when I heard Gordon Brown speaking about the perils of "assisted dying" earlier this week, I actually agreed with him. Completely...
The perfect time to ditch the pound? 11:13am on 14 Dec 2008 Re: 19 (again)

Have you also noticed the dodgy ecomic arguments rolled out every time the Bank of England is due to review interest rates... ?

Watch any news programme and you can guarantee that there'll be somebody from the world of business with a vested interested in borrowing other peoples "Money for Nothing" saying that rates should be slashed. There'll also be people with sob stories moaning about mortgage payments they can't afford...

Where else did we hear about "Money for Nothing" this week.... ?

Yes we can do things to help people stay in their homes, we can do things to keep businesses ticking over and we should certainly do that, but it doesn't have to be interest rates. Interest rates aren't the only tool. In fact, Interest rates are probably the worst possible tool to use at the moment...

Worzelnomics would keep Interest rates at a reasonable level (say 5%), it would actively discourage any further excessive borrowing/lending and any further lending to bad-risks. In time, things will stabilise again and confidence should return because Worzelnomics explicitly targets the problems that has sent Capitalism on the path to self-destruction....

At the moment, the Governments policy for recovery is speculative. It seems to be lets be "courageous" (another "Yes Minister" reference), do this and hope for the best; but there's a risk it could get even worse and then we'll be up yonder creek without a paddle, but it'll be somebody else's problem by then...

The current Government policy is a huge gamble...

Surely, we can all see that the City's "We want to borrow your "Money for Nothing" and take huge risks with it" culture that has existed for the last 30 years is one of the roots cause of the current crisis...?

It is a root that is tripping people up when they walk along the footpath to future.

Remember that endowment mortgage you took out all those years ago, the big returns that were promised that only seem to have gone into the financial sectors fat cat salaries and excessive bonuses... ?

Common-sense decrees that its now time for some serious root pruning, which is what Worzelnomics provides....

All that the Government are doing at the moment is feeding this troublesome root some very powerful growth hormones. Yes We might see some new leaves appear, but the root is going to get even bigger and will trip-up even more people in future...

Vote Worzel. It might seem looney but you know it makes (common) sense !
The perfect time to ditch the pound? 10:25am on 14 Dec 2008 Re: various above. Great discussion.

Re: 19 Mike-Jay "Nationalism... opposite of common sense" etc...

I know what you mean. I agree, but would add that the BNP and the SNP (in different ways) don't always help the "image" of the word nationalism....

Have you also noticed Mike, that the word "Cynical" is often bandied around, with the intention of killing the argument stone dead, by discrediting the person proposing a line of the debate that is getting uncomfortably near the truth... ?

Its one of the "Yes Minister" armoury of dirty tricks (see the marvellous Greasy Pole episode), which are usually deployed if you happen to say something isn't going to work and are actually getting a bit too close to the truth...

The trouble is, by the time you can prove you were right, in 2011 for instance when VAT goes up to 22.5%, because there was an underestimate in 2008 and we've actually incurred 750 billion quids worth of debt, it will be a bit too late in 2011 to say I told you so... !

We should perhaps bear mind when Politicians talk about us bloggers being "Professional cynics" (a phrase which I noticed was used on the DP show a few weeks ago), is that "Cynical" is the opposite of "Naive"...

Which of those two attributes is the more dangerous .... ?

I'd think I'd rather the country was run by a 'cynical blogger' than a 'naive politician' ...

Wouldn't you ?
The perfect time to ditch the pound? 1:38pm on 13 Dec 2008 By the way.
Regards the pound v Euro.

Parity might be a good time to switch to the euro. I can see the logic behind that argument, but I'm not sure how it would work with the current state of Britain and Europes economies. I suppose if everybody's in a 1930's style depression next year and the only way is up it might actually be a good time to merge, from an economic point of view.

But the big problem is that our national identity is important. We've let far too much go already. We should be proud of being British and what differentiates us from the rest of the world...

We ought to keep the pound really, for the sake of our national identity. It will always be important from the point of view, if for no other reason...

The EU seems to have let market traders continue to sell using the old weights and measures if they want to and I understand we can have bendy Cucumbers again (which will please the wife !), so the EU is being a bit more sensible now. Which is good. Long may it continue...

Actually, now would be a good time to have a referendum on joining the Euro, along with the many other questions that need to be asked on the same ballot paper.

Questions such as the EU constitution, the spend and tax-later strategy and should we pull out of Iraq/Afghanistan to name just a few .... !

One referendum, lots of issues = value for money !
The perfect time to ditch the pound? 1:23pm on 13 Dec 2008 Re: various, above. Particularly 13 !

Hang-on a moment. I don't necessarily object to road-charging actually.

So long as the motorist is treated fairly, and Road-Tax is scrapped and we're not taxed twice on fuel (which is scandalous), my view is that road-charging isn't necessarily a bad idea...

What's really bad though, is the UK Governments perrennial "lets rip-off the motorist again, they're an easy-target as they're locked into using their cars" attitude...

Clarkson for PM !
The perfect time to ditch the pound? 10:23am on 13 Dec 2008 Re: 11
That's actually a very good idea Mike. The best one I've seen on the blog for a long time. I like it !

The madatory referendum idea would solve a lot of arguments, including the big one we've been having about the national debt.

With a mandtory referendum we'd probably achieve a lot more as a country, because we could have the debate, vote, reach a decision then get on and do it, instead of talking about it and going round in circles all the time !

And it might even address my objections about Governments with large majorities being able to bully things through Parliament...
Another Black Friday 3:35pm on 12 Dec 2008 You know the best cure for Blogorrohea ?

Gas prices.

Having been sat around blogging all afternoon, with no heating on, the cold has got into me.

That's despite being sat at my computer with two pairs of socks (one thermal), a thermal-vest, a sweatshirt, two pullovers (one really thick from Army surplus) and a thermally-lined woolly hat.

I'm going to have to sign-off soon and run around a bit, before hypothermia sets in...
Another Black Friday 3:09pm on 12 Dec 2008 Re: 204
I agree with you on that.
It is very worrying actually...
Another Black Friday 3:01pm on 12 Dec 2008 Re: 132

About a million to one at the moment I would think, to occur this side of the next millenium...
Another Black Friday 2:59pm on 12 Dec 2008 Re: 194

Yup, I'm sufferring from that.
And there's more Blogorrohea to come I'm afraid, unless things get better....

The cure is to get me back into work, so that I've got some money to spend and I can single-handedly save the world, now that Gordon has decided he's not really doing that at the moment ...

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