This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
Scathing Assessment: "The UK Economy Is A Ticking Time Bomb"
Submitted by Simon Black via Sovereign Man blog,
Despite being an otherwise staid, traditional news service, the professional banking division of the Financial Times recently released an utterly scathing assessment of the British economy.
It was entitled, “The UK economy is a ticking time bomb,” and the editor didn’t pull any punches in completely shattering the conventional fantasy that ‘all is well’, and that advanced economies can simply print and indebt their way to prosperity.
I’ll quote below, emphasis mine:
“What is the problem? Quite simply, the key numbers are terrible. According to the OECD, after five years of ‘austerity’ the UK’s budget deficit is 5.3%, down from 11.2% in 2009.
“In other words, it has gone from being close to meltdown to a situation that is merely dreadful.
“Since the government is spending more than it earns, it is hardly surprising that it is borrowing more, and that the debt-to-GDP has risen from 68.95% in 2009 to 93.30% in 2013, again according to OECD figures.
“As the UK is currently growing it should really be running a budget surplus, providing it with the means to run deficit financing during the next downturn.
“This is one of the tenets of the Keynesian philosophy that underpins a lot of left-of-centre economic thinking.
“Unfortunately Europe’s political parties of all persuasions have bastardised Keynes’ ideas – running deficits in both good and bad times – so as to render them almost meaningless.
“To make matters worse the UK, again similar to most advanced economies, is an ageing society with pension, welfare and healthcare systems that are wrongly structured and financially unsustainable.”
“We can blame the politicians for failing to be honest with the electorate about the challenges ahead.
“Or we could blame the voters who punish at the ballot box any party that tells them anything other than good news and wants to hear that taxes can be cut, spending raised and the budget balanced all at the same time.”
* * *
But apart from that, everything is awesome...
»
- 33497 reads
- Printer-friendly version
- Send to friend
- advertisements -
The whole world is a ticking time bomb.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWyDgJlvbzE
Yep. Time for another major war.
What's the difference between philosophy and religion again?
Philosophy has better drugs and kinkier sex.
You don't know many Wiccans do you?
Gerald Celente - Everything Is About To Collapse - April 7th 2010
I'm making over $7k a month working part time. I kept hearing other people tell me how much money they can make online so I decided to look into it. Well, it was all true and has totally changed my life. This is what I do... http://goo.gl/9YqZBb
is onlinebusinesscompany (dot) biz just too obvious to post? is the Panama P.O. Box 0823-03411 domain registration just too much of a give away? I mean just search that P.O! Can you please buy an add on ZH and leave the comments alone.
Muzzie lovers...
Everything is Awesome!!!
But we can simply never ever raise Corporate Taxes dear boy. Maintain the global level playing field.
Repeat after me...There is no such thing as coporate taxes. God Damn people get it through your thick fucking skulls. pounding the table for higher corporate taxes is like getting punched in the nut sack by the right hand and asking for it again with the right foot. They don't pay taxes, they pass them onto the consumer.
If you want to punish them stop buying their shit old boy.
Totally agree. Fucking socialists...
As the poster above states.. corporate taxes either come from one of two components in the profit equation*.
Thus your corporate tax is passed on to the individual, either through lowering their wages (ie: reducing total costs), or through raising the price of goods (ie: raising revenues). As we are in a demand side slump in consumption, revenues have precious little wiggle room in most markets. Thus you are talking about eating into industrious individual's disposable income.
This could eat into CEO salaries. OR the company will more likely lay off their existing workers, and take some cash on the sidelines and find innovative ways to do jobs without human labor.
If you dipshits want to have a "living wage" why not go grab a molotov or a wrench and start trashing automated production lines. Just don't be surprised when the cost of most goods spike through the roof in real terms because it takes 15 hours of human labor (as opposed to 20 minutes via machine) to farm and get that can of beans. But hey, we can all sit around and clap each other on the back and say we did the ethical thing while we feed our starving kids tissue paper to keep their hunger pangs at bay. Maybe we can call Mugabe for some tips.
Talk about 'the road to hell being paved with good intentions.'
*Total Profit = Total Revenues - Total Costs
This needs to be said often. Only the end user actually pays tax
Who is the end user of all the weapons produced by the MIC? Is it the military that deliver the bombs or the civilian on the ground who receives the gifts of modern military science?
I too, am a body corporate and I will pass on the expences to my customer by way of higher wages.
Or not.
Heresy!
What's the point in raising something that is evaded anyway?
You don't hire smart lawyers and accountants to avoid paying taxes in Russia. Or you learn the hard way why that was a bad plan!
You pay your 20% (companies) or 15% individuals - or else!
Debt in Western economies can never be paid off. In the land of the free, debt of $18.176 trillion and unfunded liabilities of over $150 trillion work out to a debt burden of about $1,400,000 per taxpayer and rising at $70,000 per year per taxpayer.
So we have ZIRP to cope with this unpayable debt. Soon to be followed by NIRP (it's only in 14 Western economies now).
NIRP will be a permanent feature of Western economies until a final economic collapse.
Yep. And then's there's private debt.
Money = debt. If all debt were paid off, there would be no money left. I laugh at calculations how long it takes to pay off the debt. It will never be paid off.
We may have a big reset though.
Currency = debt. Fixed it.
On a similiar note, US focused...
http://econimica.blogspot.com/
Nice post, Hambone.
Could used a light edit.
Shorten your sentences to improve flow.
thanks - sorry for the poor writing...what I lack in talent, time, and resources I make-up for in...er...well...I'll get back to you on that one?!?
It's not poor writing. It's actually pretty good.
tick tock tick tock, the bell tolleth for thee
Now the Smiths
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YS3UMjNUqFM
Simon baby, you are stating the bleedin' obvious again.
That was one of the most poorly written articles I have read. It's nothing more than hyperbole with no data to back up any assertion. Yes the economy sucks, but for crying out loud back up your argument with some facts.
Edit: I see we have people who enjoy articles with zero substance. I know, thinking is hard.
Which part of the "zero" in ZeroHedge don't you understand?
Well, I think he will be right some day but it's nowhere near imminent.
“Unfortunately Europe’s political parties of all persuasions have bastardised Keynes’ ideas – running deficits in both good and bad times – so as to render them almost meaningless."
ehm... eurozone treaties? (with French grammar, currently)
ANYWAY: "economy"? why that in the title when it's about fiscal balance? poor article, I fear
"Unfortunately Europe’s bought and paid-for political parties of all persuasions simply comply with US corporate dictat."
TFTFY.
Heaven forbid; where will all the 3500+, million pound earning city bankers go if the UK does belly flop? Greece 2.0? It's tricky to gauge just what frequency this thing is ticking as most of the MSM is stocks up, housing up, gilts paying, equities dandy and nothing to see here move on. Not even mentioned the T.V., it's like the twilight zone, "we have control of the horizontal and vertical", you will watch the voice, phone up and join the party - mean while companys who have been borrowing more and more since 2008, rolling over, hoping for a pick up are just done.
oh, in such a case I'd expect Greater London and Scotland to exit the Union. wouldn't that be ironic?
it's like the twilight zone, "we have control of the horizontal and vertical"
Except that wasn't "The Twilight Zone". Might have been "Outer Limits". ??
The UK economy is a farce, I know because I live here! We should bulldoze London kick all the immigrants out and get back to farming. England was once the “bread basket” of Europe and with your help she can be again!
London is not something that a little sea level rise won't cure.
Give it 25 years.
"England was once the “bread basket” of Europe"
ehm... Repeal of the Corn Law Act? The Very Beginning Of Globalization?
Hey Ghordius,
Have you ever heard anything to the effect that Flemish farmers were deliberately being crushed by corn imports from the USA ? ( there was no Corn Law in Belgium as far as I know ).
thanks,
add manufacturing as in making very nice cars.
yes, because London clearly has a comparative advantage in farming...:-)
Or is it a perfidious plan to go after European agricultural subsidies ?
With UKIP slipping I suspect another minority Tory government. More of the same.
I wonder whether SNP might embarce the name "Old Labour".
"Old Labour" would be an actual alternative to the Tories.
Despite being an otherwise staid, traditional news service...
http://ftalphaville.ft.com/ is pretty good actually. A little over the moon at times about the promise of superior central planning perhaps but they do dig into complex trades and financial high jinx with as much brio and sharp pencial analysis as ZH on a good day.
I hope it keeps up!
The more they mis-spend, the faster Nigel Farage & UKIP will be running the show.
That guy will get nailgunned for writing this.
England never learns from war.It's continally bankrupted this nation for centuries.The latest episodes of idiodic behaviour in Iraq,Afghanistan,Libya...you name it,those corrupt politicians were in Washington's pocket.They'd rather foolishly spend money this way than on productive economic activities at home.Keep the poor poor,the rich rich and the military-industrial complex with jobs,serving a bunch of F'n lunatics.
Seriously, war has "continually bankrupted this nation for centuries"?
In the 19th century the UK, based on a small plot of land, was the world's richest nation. That was a consequence of the British Empire which was built with war both invading new territories around the world and using the British Navy to defeat European rivals for those territories. The purpose of those wars was commerce, and that commerce made Great Britain rich.
The wars that were financially destructive for it were in Europe. In the last 300 years they were not wars Britain started, they were wars in which Britain intervened defensively or on behalf of European allies. The Napoleanic wars were started by (surprise) Napolean of France, attempting to bring all Europe under the control of France, including his attempted invasion of Russia. Britain, with Spain, Portugal and northern European states fought to block that expansion, knowing that if Napolean succeeded in continental Europe he would invade Britain.
WWI and WWII were both disastrous for Britain financially and in people killed and maimed. Both were started by Germany invading neighbours and Britain had mutual defence treaties with European nations (ironically principally France) which it honoured.
While Britain was expanding the British Empire, it also started the industrial revolution, which not only enriched the country but enormously raised the living standard of ordinary people and became the template and inspiration for development around the world.
It is certainly the case that its wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya have been a financial drain, but nothing compared to the cost of its socialist policies post WWII, including the NHS and the flood of immigrants with no wish to become British but to bludge on its social welfare systems while colonising Britain.
The problem for Britain, aside from socialism and its financial centre (Britain was once the world's greatest manufacturer, now a shadow of that and its main industry is financial scams) is that it has allied with the US in wars that the US was not prepared to fight to win. The last war the US was prepared to fight to win was WWII. Since then it has fought limited wars without clarity of purpose and withdrawn when the going got tough (Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan), leaving the field to its enemies and Britain, among many allies, has been dragged along with the US's failed strategies.
Incidentally, one of the insane UK policies is foreign aid, equal to 0.7% of Britain's GDP, which certainly provides no benefit for ordinary citizens who pay for it, and which has been "ring fenced" by the UK government while spending on defence declines.
Heavens sake, do not let the Queen Mother or her offspring read that confounded article. Would put a fright in their life style of superior opulence. The Queen's solution to a ticking time bomb is simple------turn the clock back !
The Queen Mother is dead so she probably can't read anyway.
I've been saying this for a while but what really matters is critical goods (water, food, shelter, clothing & energy, etc) & services (healthcare, law enforcement, fire, etc). "money" has been turned into a video game accelerating away from whatever connection to the former it ever had. eventually all those suppliers whose consumers think are as (if not more) dependant on a market into which to sell are going to realize that a bunch of wimpie's kiting checks is actually worse in the long run than no customers as you've allowed scarce input goods & labor to be traded for glass beads. if we (us) think china is not our friends now just wait till they stumble across the term "sunk cost" in an accounting textbook...
I blame the Canadian
Give Canada back to the natives!!!!1!!!11!1!11!!!!
The average UK household is set to owe close to £10,000 in unsecured debt by the end of 2016, more than ever before in cash terms, according to PwC.
Simon Westcott, a director in PwC’s financial services practice, commented:
“Underlying this significant growth in overall unsecured borrowing, we also saw changes in the way people borrow.
Old favourites such as credit cards are staging something of a revival, while newer forms of borrowing such as peer-to-peer lending are starting to gain ground
“Despite our survey revealing a relatively high degree of confidence among consumers about their ability to stay on top of their debts, affordability of the UK’s household debt pile may come under pressure in the coming years.
GBP is on the slide, the long gilt future too. Just wait until the election and we get a 3-party coalition with Labour, the SNP and Plaid Cymru and then you'll see some action!
This is what you get when you let socialists run the educational system. Nothing will change until they are all fired.
The English shouldn't be allowed to learn anything ever again.
How will they earn their pudding?
blame the banking mafia. they bought the media and the politicians to protect their parasitic niche and the rot started there.
Aren't we all neo Keynesian monetarists now?
You can't have capitalism without capital. Bubbles made of rising asset prices caused by cheap money isn't productive capacity or capital. Keep taxing, printing and spending at the current rate and watch the spiral of deflation destroy our economy as surely as a forest fire doused with petrol.
Britain will turn into one big ATM and anyone who is too far away from the money spigot will be left in the gutter.........oh yeah already being left in the gutter.
One could be forgiven for thinking this is all deliberate.
filed under the "no shit, sherlock" category... but i clicked on it anyway just because the author used the words "ticking bomb" That really got all the fear and negative emotions swirling around inside me, and I just couldn't help myself.
USA is just an offshoot of the British empire
a wild, drugged out, narcissstic multi-cultural offshoot thats going to fail, very hard.
You hit the nail on the head, "You could blame the voters who punish at the ballot box any party that tells them anything other than good news".
It's the weak, dependent, sick public that has been chemically dumbed down and can't take care of themselves and are are dependent on Big Government.
Same is true for the US and EU. Due to a poisoning program to disable and handicap the public with poisons like fluoridated water, GMO food and vaccines. The Western public has been systematically handicapped.
The last thing the ruling Black Nobility want is a society of independent, healthy, courageous and indignant people interested in investigating and removing this parasitic banking scourge from our midst.
See JFK to 911 Everything Is A Rich Man's Trick
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1Qt6a-vaNM