Our blood for Saudis?

[terambulan]

Sky News - Brown in Saudi with begging bowl. Barclays bank being propped-up by Saudis.

Is this what Iraq is all about? Is it an extension of the Gulf war where we hit Saddam to stop his invasion of Kuwait, 1980s?

And I thought Iraq was to remove a despot who had WMD!

[Lonnie]

It doesn't surprise me one bit, in 97. he iherited a really strong economy, and wasted it, he now wants to spend our way out of the present crisis, but to do that, he has to borrow, because he's got nothing left.
Once you borrow, you have to pay it back.

Wonder whose going to do that?.

[derekpara]

I knew I should have stayed behind to protect Aden with my .303 !

[anotheoldgit]

Nothing wrong with us holding out the begging bowl, for a change.

There have been many who have brought their begging bowls to us, and had them filled.

[Kromovaracun]

Brown's failure to put any money aside in the boom years he inherited (in fact he was actively borrowing more during the prosperous times...) is without doubt a blot on his economic record. His management was careless.

However, that's useless now. He made numerous bungles at the treasury but complaining about them now really isn't going to fill the financial gap - which is what the country needs.

Thus it's either raise tax in recession (the only recent precedent for this in the UK is Thatcher's first term - which was done for quite different reasons and it nearly destroyed her) or borrow.

[Lonnie]

I agree with you krom, doesn't look like there's much choice, maybe though, it just might help if we stop giving money to countries like China and India, and spend it over here.

[sqad617]

How much money is left in the kitty? Question that has always confused me and the answer you get depends upon who you speak to. Labour says that we are well placed to deal with a recession ( money in kitty) Conservatives say the cupboard is bare. They both can�t be right and clearly one of them is fibbing. Surely a neutral economist would know the correctg answer?

[jake-the-peg]

A large amount of this good time money has been spent on foreign wars which I seem to recall the Tories voted for at the time!

Now apparently it's Brown's mis-management!!

There is also the rather foolish notion that a countries finances can be compared to an individuals - somehow running a countries economy is like running a family's

Sounds rather Thatcherian doesn't it? And complete rubbish!

When a country's going into recession keeping people employed keeps tax revenues up - That doesn't happen in personal finance

Spending money that you were going to spend later sooner keeps people in jobs it provides work - cutting taxes for businesses doesn't stop them from laying people off if there's no work

The Tory policy is thus totally flawed.

The opposition to spending is because the Government is bringing forward spending planned for later years to keep people in jobs now and tide over a recession.

Money that Osbourne had earmarked to give as tax breaks to his rich chums.

The idea that tax cuts to businesses will "trickle down" to British workers is, as ever, nonsense.

[sqad617]

So Jake, are we in a good financial postion or not to meet the recession?..........?

[ludwig]

They've given up on winning the next election, so the spending spree is basically a cynical act to defer the worst effects of the recession until the Tories come to power, and have to raise taxes to pay for it all.

[Gromit]

Brown in Saudi with begging bowl.
But he is not begging for Britain, he is begging for the world. He wants the wealthy oil nation to contribute money to the International Monetary Fund, so that small country's will be able to get help off the IMF to weather the recession.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,2 5197,24597419-15084,00.html

Barclays bank being propped-up by Saudis.
Sorry, but you have got your Arabs mixed up. Barclays have gained their new funds from Abu Dhabi and Qatar.
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business /industry_sectors/banking_and_finance/article5 053226.ece

[sqad617]

Are you in Politics, Jake?. You should be as you have not answered my question..........is the kitty empty or not? Are we better placed than other EU countries to cope with the reccesion. I am neither Tory nor New Labour.

[reffgt]

I have now to rethink about gardening. After reading Brown going begging as he has already spent everyones pension money ( not his own or MP's ) and given all this money to help these poor illegal imigrants etc,etc. I am going to have to dig up my lawn to feed myself. Thank you EU you are doing even better than Brown to kill us all off.

[sqad617]

Jake, you never did answer my question, but if this helps. Yesterday the IMF stated that the UK was the worst placed of all the G7 countries, to ride out this worls wide recession. I am not sure whether the IMF are neutral or not, but surely their opinion has to be taken seriously.

[Gromit]

The IMF did not state that sqad619, it was the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development).

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/new s/oecd-says-uk-is-worst-placed-in-g7-to-withst and-global-downturn-917276.html

[sqad617]

Thanks Gromit but the IMF also said that:

Daily Mail Page 7.Friday Nov 7th. BRITAIN WILL SUFFER THE WORST OF ALL, SAYS IMF.