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LostInBlues

Listed below are comments made by LostInBlues between Tuesday, 30th June 2009 and Wednesday, 14th October 2009.

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Map of the Week: Forgotten white working classes 9:13pm on 14 Oct 2009 ---"19. At 7:08pm on 14 Oct 2009, Graphis wrote:

This sounds really cold and heartless...
As much as I hate myself for saying it, we need the poor, thick, and ambitionless to keep the rest of us in comfort."---

You see, that's why the people Mark talks about in his post are only shouting at him through their letter boxes or doing some gardening because "thecouncil" hadn't done it. Because they've been told that if you are working in an unskilled (or low skilled) job, you're poor, thick or ambitionless.

Rather than being looked down on, these jobs should be the bedrock on which our economy is based. People take pride in doing these jobs. They give them security. They give them a reason to get out of bed. More to the point - they give an opportunity to pull yourself up to a job that you never knew you could do.

I've done (brief) stints as a hospital cleaner and a factory production line worker (spot welding). I've met people who would otherwise be claiming benefits getting a much better income and pride that comes from a job well done. And I've met people who started as cleaners and developed and grew to the point that they became supervisors; factory floor workers who became charge hands or foremen; receptionists who worked their way into jobs in the accounts departments of their company.

And, of course, I've met people who cleaned hospitals for nigh on 50 years. Not because they are lazy, or because they love their job - but it makes them content. Their families are fed and clothed, and maybe their kids will go on to better things.
Map of the Week: Forgotten white working classes 9:00pm on 14 Oct 2009 15. At 6:05pm on 14 Oct 2009, stanilic wrote:

---"Many years ago when I was a Liberal candidate "---

Nothing wrong with that!

You make so many good points in that piece it's hard to know where to start agreeing with you.

The loss of manufacturing and associated industry jobs in the UK, and therefore the loss of the only chance of getting a job that pays well (albeit after a shedload of overtime has been put in) has done more damage than our dear leaders are willing to accept. It has destroyed the community spirit that working brings; it has destroyed the sense of belonging that came with union membership and mutual political interest in the Labour party.

I can't see how these communities will ever recover.
House prices: Too good to be true? 5:09pm on 03 Oct 2009 154. At 4:50pm on 03 Oct 2009, armagediontimes wrote:
---"If they raise interest rates then they will struggle to make sovereign debt interest payments. Therefore they will keep rates low... but a consequence will be the destruction of the currency. An interesting side effect of destroying the currency will be that you cannot afford to import food. Therefore you can choose whether to starve or knock your oh so affordable housing down in order to grow food."---

You raise an interesting - if mildly apocolyptic - point. Maintaining extremely low interest rates for the long term can is not possible in the way Japan (and the USA, to a degree) got away with it through the 90's. Sooner or later the inability to pay debt interest payments is overridden by other, even more serious economic requirements to raise interest rates.

I'd also suggest that interest rates will rise long before the populace begins to starve. At the most basic level, all governments know that the UK is missing two meals away from anarchy!
House prices: Too good to be true? 4:06pm on 03 Oct 2009 We'll only ever know what will happen to the housing market when some sense of normality returns to economics. Sooner or later interest rates must go up; the government's 'assistance' (such as it is) will end, stamp duty will return to the £125,000 threshold. Then, and only then, can we call the 'bottom' of the market

(I'll declare that I'm of the belief that we are at the start of a very long term trend; we'll only know how well we are doing tomorrow when we look back 25 years from now...)

---"148. At 2:16pm on 03 Oct 2009, dazjvans wrote:
I have owned two houses in the past...never again, renting is much easier to cope with!, and before anybody mentions 'dead' money from rent payments, there are many people I know who will have to sell their house to stand any chance of clearing the loan!."---

Hmm. Do you think renting at full market values will be as easy when you are 80 and on a pension? Many people, oddly enough, aren't buying houses for speculative purposes, but because they want somewhere to live when they retire without having to fork out £800 a month for a two bedroom flat.
While the cat's away... 9:06pm on 05 Aug 2009 Various posters: When you are are logged in, YOUR OWN posts appear with the name "You".

Sign out then reload the page - they will appear under your usual log in name.

Laura: Further to my original post (35), Peter Mandelson - who has also faded into the background - probably isn't doing his powerbase any harm by keeping Harman's activities at arms reach. As his remit is "Do No Harm... to the Labour Party Election Prospects" he can afford to take the long view.

Harman is a divisive character as posts on here and 'discussions' between the Labour Party elite show. If Labour are defeated at the next election and Brown quits, Harman may well be in a powerful position when it comes to the next leadership election. If she damages her support here, then the path may be open for a more "acceptable" candidate for Labour's power-broker(s). And if, by some strange sequence of events, she strengthens her reputation amongst the party and the voters; then it works out well for everyone playing the Labour Party Politics game.
While the cat's away... 8:38pm on 05 Aug 2009 Welcome Laura. You may want to get the BlogMods to change the Nick Robinson pen pic from the Latest: Reporters Blogs panel - it's a disconcerting change.

Well - if there was any remaining doubt that Harriet Harman is one ambitious politico, it's been wiped away quite vigorously. One wonders what kind of vote she is trying to shore up: militant equalitists belong in the old Labour union movement and Harman is all New Labour.

Now she wasn't allowed this much slack off the leash last summer. What's happened since then? Gordon Brown is off healing the world, one voluntary work task at a time...

...of course. Brown is off demonstrating his hair shirt wearing tendencies. Whilst Harriet throws her weight around making enemies and alienating people whilst attempting to get HER policies adapted in a very limited space of time, Gordon's stock within the labour party (and their supporters) increases so that he comes back from his holiday with freshly buffed Karma and a stronger remit. And another pretender to the throne falls by the the wayside.

For equality - TRUE equality - to happen, I'd like to believe we live in a society that is mature enough to eliminate the obstacles, not move them into somebody elses path or give someone a head start they may not deserve. Then you see the best rise to where they deserve to be.
What was HBOS doing? 5:58pm on 05 Aug 2009 175. At 5:20pm on 05 Aug 2009, stanilic wrote:

--"To those who prophesy riots, these will only come when things are starting to get better."--

An interesting post that was well worth reading. Unfortunately I cannot forsee the kinds of rioting that lead to a change of governance that some on here foresee (or even hope for). There will be festering (good word, btw) resentment that may manifest itself in small skirmishes and local unrest (think race riots, think miners strike) but they won't be on a huge scale.

In the same way that there won't be a massive change to our banking system or a 'new capitalism', we won't see massive changes to how our country is run. Britain (and the English) are a conservative (small 'c') people who, regardless of how big they dream, really only want two things from life:

1) For tomorrow to be pretty much the same as today.
2) For somebody to collect the rubbish on a weekly basis.
What was HBOS doing? 5:48pm on 05 Aug 2009 156. At 4:28pm on 05 Aug 2009, rbs_temp wrote:
--"The vast majority of people in this country are not unemployed."--

No. But a significant proportion know that that their long-to-medium term job security is very low. Many will will be working under the threat of short-term cost cutting (ahem - efficiency savings) in both the private and public sectors. And those that wish to maintain their jobs are having to accept what they hope are short term disadvantages (short working, no overtime, loss of benefits). Pay rises will be a dim and distant dream for many staff (private and public sector again).

--"The vast majority do not consider the fact that their savings are earning only 3% p.a. as the end of the world (especially as their mortgage rate is just as low, if not lower)."--

Savings earning 3%? Only if they are prepared to jump through extreme hoops or kiss goodbye to their capital for a long, long time. The 'vast majority' would be lucky to see 1%. And I was unaware the 'vast majority' of the UK populace owns a house with a mortgage on a BoE base rate +0.5% tracker. By the way, fixes for first time buyers are above 6% for 85% LTV; variable rates are BoE BR+4.3%.

--"And the fact that house prices have declined means nothing unless you are desperate to move."--

Or if you are on a short term fix and suddenly you find you 80% LTV has become 90%. Or even 115%. Then you find yourself beholden to interest rates remaining low and your bank not raising it's SVR. Because you can't move to a new provider because they won't touch you with a 20ft bargepole.

--"Far from being stupid, most people have the intelligence to realise that the enjoyment of life does not depend upon financial indicators."--

It does affect enjoyment when financial indicators mean that you'll get to spend much more leisure time... whilst brushing up your CV at the local library inbetween visits to the 'local' JobCentre Plus.

--"And they also realise that this recession, like all others, will end."--

Can't disagree with that statement.
Government not defeated 9:08pm on 07 Jul 2009 I assume the same mental calculations that kyboshed the attempt to push forward an opponent to Gordon Brown when Tony Blair resigned, and when Gordon Brown was most recently under threat, have caused yet another communal loss of bottle amongst the backbench Awkward Squad:

Successful Rebellion = Election in two months time followed by eternity in the wilderness;
or
Maintain status quo with weak leader = Election at the very last moment followed by eternity in the wilderness
A note of caution 2:03pm on 30 Jun 2009 4. At 1:18pm on 30 Jun 2009, e2toe4 wrote:
--" I know it's a bit 'Taliban' to bang on with the same theme...but 'the official figures' never seem to match common sense and everyday experience UNTIL they get revised down....

Instead of leading the debate as evidence one wonders whether sometimes the 'figures' aren't simply another class of opinion.

Simply listening to lots of people's anecdotes from the real world sounds hopelessly naive, but it works better than relying on 'economic data'. "--

Micahel Blastland, in his exceptionally good book "The Tiger That Isn't" (which is excellent except the point where he completely failed to foresee the scale and pace of the housing price drop) reminds us that most early GDP figures have a very large uncertainty attached to them, as most of the time they are using incomplete or inadequate data. The public are never told of this uncertainty, lest it frighten them (or make our leaders look like they don't know what they are talking about). Of course, it is politically desirable to use the most 'positive' looking statistics.

3 months data the data has all been collected and analysed rigorously, and almost inevitably the initial figure is revised. Which is understandable, becase an an extreme value at either end of the uncertainty is usually a statistical outlier value.

The moral of this story? You can trust statistics. You just can't trust the people who tell you what the statistics mean.

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