Rage!
I have been listening to PMQ’s. I am raging. I don’t do good rage normally.
Today I do.
We are told today that in the first quarter of this year the economy slipped into recession. This is bad news, of course.
Here is my situation.
I am nearly 50. I have a mortgage on a house I did not want to buy and which I could not really afford (thanks, ex wife – note the emphasis on the “ex” there), in a place I do not want to live.
There is no equity in the house. I got into debt and mortgage arrears for the same reason.
My former step son vandalized the house as an act of vengeance.
I am self employed. I have to work my way out of these problems, but there is not a lot of work about sometimes.
I am paying off my debts, bit by bit.
I do not have much of a pension, if any at all. Like many in the private sector.
I face the prospect of being poor and perhaps destitute in my old age.
I am frightened.
I am not an economist.
I think there is great force in the claim that Cameron and Osborne are indeed a pair of stuck up “Posh Boys” who have no idea what the real world is like. It is not for nothing that iDave’s own backbenchers gave him the nickname “Flashman.”
I follow a character on Twitter who has lost her job in the public sector. She faces eviction from her flat. If she is made homeless she can move into a hostel but they will not let her have her pet, a rescue dog that she has saved from cruelty. I follow her desperate search for a new job with a breaking heart.
I am far, far from averse to the implications of recession.
But when I hear Miliband and Balls frothing with excitement at the alleged failure of the Government’s economic policies I seethe with fury. Miliband’s self righteous glottal tones rile me. Balls, perhaps the most odious man in British politics, advances the simple policy of spending more with the curiously evangelical fervour of ruthless Bolshevik Commissar.
Both strike me as every bit as much out of touch Posh Boys as Cameron and Osborne.
Whilst I am no economist, whilst I need economy to prosper, this Government inherited and economy and Government finances which were little short of wrecked by a combination of utterly ruthless but incompetent bank lending and utterly unsustainable and profligate State spending.
If nothing is done to address the deficit, the cost of borrowing from the money markets goes up. The Government will suck in yet more and more money. Interest rates will rise. My mortgage, which is already crippling, will become unsustainable. I will face repossession.
The ultimate expression of Balls’ philosophy is Greece. Teetering on the brink of collapse, beholden to its lenders, its economy in tatters.
I am not averse to a bit of pump priming. But the Government must hold the line and bring State spending under control. Given the State of the near collapse of the grossly bloated financial sector and parlous mismanagement of State spending recession was inevitable. What form it took or takes is more uncertain.
For my part, with all the reservations I have outlined above, it seems to me that the imposition of proper fiscal control of State spending is necessary.
The Government may trim and adjust, but it must hold the line.
Reduce the deficit.
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1
April 25, 2012 at 14:11 -
Here in the lovely Kingdom of Northumbria, we’re very happy despite the straitened and corrupt times; the Blessed King Alhfrith has launched his new flagship. I love the name it’s been launched with…
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April 25, 2012 at 14:17 -
Read all about it here, peeps:
http://caedmonscat.blogspot.com/2012/04/barging-in.html?spref=tw
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April 25, 2012 at 14:47 -
The whole house of cards seems to have been built on the assumption that growth is a) inevitable and b) infinitely sustainable.
The ex-husband of a friend, a firm adherent of these twin myths working in the financial sector, repeatedly remortgaged the family home for 1oo% of its market value and ran his credit cards to the limit, telling everyone that ‘unused borrowing capacity is a wasted asset’. When his wife finally left, he announced he would take the contents of their meagre savings account and she and the children could have an equal amount in unused overdraft capacity (interest to be paid by her, of course); that, he said, made it an equal settlement.
We all thought he was an idiot – unfortunately, it looks like there are a whole bunch just like him in banking and government.
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April 25, 2012 at 15:00 -
So let’s, for the sake of argument, assume that I’ve borrowed a hundred quid off the said ex-husband of a friend. Then he’s got an asset worth a hundred quid, right?
Now let’s say that arrives and asks for his hundred quid back. I say, “Sorry old chap, spent it. Fact is, I’m skint, and I’ve no intention of paying you back. Still, at least you’ve still got the asset, right?”
You’re absolutely right. He’s an idiot.
So is Ed Balls.
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April 25, 2012 at 16:16 -
The economics was mad in the private and public sector. Big shopping chains sold the freeholds in their shops and rented them back. Apparently it gave them a better return on capital or some such.
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April 25, 2012 at 14:58 -
Gildas, I feel for you. Sadly, many of us are in similar positions, or facing uncertain times. The last thirteen years of labour mis-rule and cynical social engineering to bolster their perceived advantages has been an utter betrayal of trust by the political classes.
At least Murdoch’s statements today about gordon brown being unballanced, has highlighted again the sheer criminality of the ball’s, milibands , watsons and co, who knew the same but were prepared to let him go on running our economy into the ground in their own self interest.
The one interesting thing about the London Mayoral race, is the revelation that Paddick, by all accounts a pretty mediocre copper, can retire aged 49 on a pension of £68,000 per annum. What does it take to earn that in the real non-taxpayer funded world !-
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April 26, 2012 at 09:51 -
Whatever one thinks of Paddick, his mediocrity or otherwise, it is a fact that his pension (and commuted lump sum) is, just like for many in the public sector, calculated according to a formula over which he, and others in his position have no influence or control.
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April 25, 2012 at 15:57 -
This is the real outrage that came out of the London Mayor Candidates debate – Paddick has a massive taxpayer funded pension (this is after he took £300K+ as a tax free lump sum). Far more than virtually anyone in theprivate sector will be entitled to. Why has there been so little discussion about this in the MSM
Gildas – I too feel for you and you are quite correct to direct your anger at Labour. When they came to power the UK had the best pensions provision in the Western world. Gordon Brown just couldn’t resist raiding it to fund the massive expansion in public sector non jobs. I so hate that man!
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April 25, 2012 at 16:06 -
Thank you all. Good to be back.
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April 25, 2012 at 19:28 -
Good to have you back!
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April 25, 2012 at 17:17 -
You have my unbridled sympathy……been there, done that & got the T-shirt the first time round. This rat left the s(t)inking wreck in ’74 in time to save my sanity & maybe my life.
Be of good heart, Gildas & fellow victims….I had just turned 50 when I rescued myself. -
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April 25, 2012 at 17:32 -
I too have suffered financially desperate times over the last few years, the hardest times of my life.
I agree that the Tory toffs have no idea what struggle is or how hard life can be for normal working class people.
I also have no doubt the elite socialist politicians of the labour party have no idea what they have done to us nor do they seem to care.
Watching PMQ’s I dispair at the circus that is supposed to be our constituent representatives. Laughing, joking, shouting and generally fucking about is not how to fix the economic mess.
Public finances need to be slashed, jobs need to be cut and services need to prioritised for the safety of the next generations. But I would prefer it if the cuts started at the top and worked their way down rather than the other way about it.
Slashing the cozy employment of top civil servants, SPADs, councillors, etc, etc would make more savings than screwing over pensioners and single mums.
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April 25, 2012 at 18:48 -
Absolutely right Gildas. While the government might be a bunch of incompetent, out of touch posh boys, the opposition are equall out of touch, almost as posh and a bunch of blinkered ideologues. Reducing the deficit will be rough on us all but to do as Mr. Bollocks suggests will just take us into the situation Grece is prrsently in.
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April 25, 2012 at 18:52 -
Gildas, you seem to be a thoroughly decent fellow, and therein perhaps lies your problem. Modern politicians and the economy they have built regard you (and all taxpayers) as nothing more than a muggins. You have correctly defined the problem, profligate waste of hard earned taxes, but you are incorrect to think that the present coalition has any reasonable solution, their spending increases the debt daily. I urge you to give serious consideration of permanentexpat’s comment, nothing has improved since 1974, what makes you think it could in the remainder of your lifetime?
Europe is done, nothing but a lifetime of high taxation and low expectations will solve it’s problems.
You still have options but you need to give your head a shake and live differently, living by the rules has not served you (and a large majority) well. Work for cash only, slowly build a survival fund, get a passport and walk away, leave the whole stinking mess to the politicians and banks. If immigration is a problem to the country of your choice then just enter as a tourist, works for a lot of people.
I sincerely wish you well.
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April 26, 2012 at 10:51 -
That is a hell of a plan…..
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April 26, 2012 at 17:45 -
And it is achievable.
The average reasonably healthy male lives to be approx 80 years old (part of the governments problem). You probably have 30 years plus to enjoy yourself, you owe it to yourself to do so. You played by their rules and got screwed out of 35 years of productive labour.
Governments, the banks (and a lot of women) have overplayed their hands, they have plucked the golden goose beyond endurance.
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April 26, 2012 at 16:15 -
My consistent advice to my son, is just that. But I call it an FU Fund.
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April 25, 2012 at 19:38 -
Agree with it all.
But, having my hair cut this morning by an Italian who’s lived a long time in Worthing, and he said: ‘You know England is the best place to live in the world’
We’d been talking about Berlusconi, the euro and the rest, and corruption.
I’ve been around a bit, and had some very rough times but I agree with Elio.
I just don’t know how much time we’ve got left though. -
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April 25, 2012 at 19:46 -
Gildas , I share your anger and frustration, and as much as my contempt for all politicians grows by the day, the damage done by the ‘party opposite’ during their 13 year tenure of breathtaking incompetence, greed and enrichment of themselves and their acolytes will take a generation to fix.
They now gloat as if problems are nothing to do with them. A more odious bunch of lying, selfish, hypocrites wrapping themselves in fairness and common normalcy you could not conceive.
None of the outcomes of this mess will be pretty, lives of decent people ruined; all likely they will end in tears, yours and mine!
Everything seems rather surreal in an upside down sort of way. Stop The World.
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April 25, 2012 at 19:48 -
Don’t look back beyond the Nulab years with any rose tint glasses.
During the tory years of plenty, manufacturing was decimated, service industries (a joke, you pay me and i pay you and govt taxes both) and the finacial sector were the future.
They are all to blame its just apportioning what to whom isn’t yet clear.
I’m still waiting for the present shower to start making cuts, has anyone got a clue which year they intend to start.
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April 26, 2012 at 18:05 -
Manufacturing employment declined more in New Labour’s 13 years than in the previous 18 (and even more as a percentage) check the ONS website for figures produced by New Labour.
Real median income rose faster under Thatcher than under any Labour government.
PS I am not a Thatcherite, just a mathematician
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April 25, 2012 at 20:01 -
FUBAR as the Americans say. We’re scraping along, simply because the mortgage has been paid off, and just trying to survive.
Speaking of Greece, the depth of corruption in the EU is appalling.
http://hat4uk.wordpress.com/2012/04/25/greece-why-would-it-be-missed-by-the-eurozone-12/
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April 25, 2012 at 20:01 -
Gildas, my sympathy. But life can start at 50. I’ve worked in the private sector for all of 46 years now, at the mucky end in engineering making stuff. It’s been a struggle and I doubt I’ll be able to retire until I’m 70 having put in 54 years.
I was made redundant for the second time at 50. It turned out to be my lucky break. With four kids I did the unthinkable and started my own company with my redundancy money. The first five or six years were dreadful, but it’s got better and better. Okay I’m not making a fortune, but I can’t be sacked.
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April 25, 2012 at 21:13 -
What fantastic and helpful comments. I am no master of economics and can only go by what my instincts tell me. I am informed, enlightened and encouraged.
Thanks to all wjo have taken the time.
G the M -
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April 25, 2012 at 22:04 -
Gildas said: “But the Government must hold the line and bring State spending under control.”
I wish they were but borrowing is increasing. We are borrowing more than Brown did. The debt is growing and will continue to grow.
We need competent and experienced people in charge not these children who are grateful to Brussels and the Mandarins for their instruction and for letting them pretend they are in charge.
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April 25, 2012 at 23:00 -
There is a problem in most developed countries. Once we have roads and railways and every home has 2 cars, a TV and a fridge theres nothing much left to make. Germany exports lots of infrastructure, we used to make trains and ships for everyone. Eventually the Chinese will saturate the world with washing machines and laptops. Mankind hasn’t been here before, where most people have everything. So its really that dream we were peddaled as kids of a world freed from work where we all have lots of leisure time. Only its a nightmare really, because it only works if you have money.
I have no idea how all this is going to pan out. I am 51 and have now put up with 5 years of recession with no obvious end. I wish the Tories had got a majority last time to brutally fix this mess, or that Labour had got in to make sure they never got back in again when they had to sacrifice their client state to fix their mess. But the public dont know what they want so they elected nobody. We seem mostly unwilling to take our share of the pain. Ultimate Nimbyism.
I am sympathetic to your plight Gildas. I know a lot of people who work but in their hearts know they are wasting their time. I fear most of all being cold when I am old. I cannot stand the cold. But thats where they have us enslaved. We save up worthlesss money out of fear. Que sera.
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April 26, 2012 at 00:10 -
“davidb April 25, 2012 at 23:00
There is a problem in most developed countries. Once we have roads and railways and every home has 2 cars, a TV and a fridge………………”
I get your drift but a very large number of folk who have these goodies could not & cannot afford them….there is simply no money…. reposessions & foreclosures are the order of the day among the I-want-it-now crowd. We live in the Age of Entitlement, funded by successive gumments, where the workshy & foreign countries…yes, including China would you believe, receive largesse extorted with menaces from the overtaxed-payer.
China has well over a billion people, of whom only a tiny fraction enjoy the fruits of Commie-capitalism. Do not think that the majority, who are little better off than Indian villagers, do not have eyes & ears. There must be changes or there will be tears.
We have nothing to fear from China….we should rather fear ourselves should we ever wake up. -
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April 26, 2012 at 06:30 -
By far the most frustrating aspect of the coverage on deficit reduction for me is the assumption that it should be possible to turnaround the nuclear armed supertanker that is public spending and re-align half our economy without anyone feeling any difficulties.
It is pure fairy land. Such a fundamental restructuring of the economy moving who knows how many jobs from the public sector to the private sector is going to hurt.
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April 26, 2012 at 07:56 -
You are not alone in your despair Gildas, and I understand your rage and agree that we’re gradually being stuffed by politicians and banks/institutions to the probable point of no return, and/or violence.
I’m sorry you’re having a bad time of it; I’ve posted on limilar lines as well, and luckily or hopefully, as we have this huge forum so immediately recognisable, there are those who will eventually take notice.
Keep going though, there are lots of us going to beat this, and that includes you!
Kind regards!
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April 26, 2012 at 07:58 -
This was wholly expected, the recession never actually ended and recovery never even began. They are now running out of levers and the REAL recession will begin. House prices MUST fall and will fall back to a sustainable level. EVERYTHING hinges on housing and it’s associated costs. The real trouble was the house price inflation allowed to let rip and put the economy at risk. This is going to take a long time. Buckle your seat belts!
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April 26, 2012 at 09:30 -
I understand where you’re coming from, and in one sense I agree – up to a point. However, the last thing Gildas (and many others) needs on top of his current problems is negative equity. To give the current gummint some credit, they have stated that the best thing would be if house prices stayed stable for a long period, whilst wage levels rose. That’s the right way, I think, but it’s a very difficult thing to achieve – wages haven’t started rising yet, for a start, and may not for several years.
Turning the economic mess around will take a decade, recovering from it a generation or more. We may still have to withstand the storms of the Euro collapsing, if it does – and that won’t be pretty. If the idiots who caused so much of it get back into power, we will in all probability go backwards again. Rebalancing the economy back to a larger private and smaller public sectors is essential, but I think the government is right to do so slowly, and not to cut savagely and fast – that would create hardship for many, as well.
Meanwhile, each of us must survive as best we can. I suspect that many of us have had dark times of one sort or another during our lives, and have a fair idea of just how Gildas feels at the moment (dread, fear, hopelessness – even days of depression – yep, been there, and it’s no fun) but the darkest hour is often just before the dawn. Gildas – live simply, if you can, do all you can to keep your true friends, and above all – never, ever EVER give up. Things will improve.
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April 26, 2012 at 08:53 -
Here in Spain we have Rubalcaba and his acolytes (Browen and Balls rolled into one) talking as though they had no responsibility in the 7 years of Zapatero’s gumments (the current lot took over at Christmas) that left us totally fu**ed. They even lied about the deficit and tried to balme the new government. Now they are arguing for more of the same.
The cuts here are going to be real not like there, the deficit is dropping but I cannot understand why the current lot don’t come out and say that it is going to get worse before getting better. Cuts do not generate economic activity. They are the starting point. The collectivist side still think they can borrow more money and ‘create’ more (public sector) jobs. They too want us to become Greece.
We need a brutal reduction in the obstacles to economic activity. I run a small company in which I am the largest (but minority) shareholder. The resources we waste complying with unnecessary regulations, the time wasted trying to circumvent the obstacles that crappy labour laws put in our way, the cost of restructuring. I don’t blame people for not going into business, and yet that is the only answer.
There is a profound distaste (until they retire) among socialists for business. I think it is a sort of snobbery. They look down on it and from power, piss on it.
They are all out of touch, they don’t care and they do not have the final answer. Meanwhile, in what is still a rich society we have people tossed out. Can’t reduce the minimum wage, can’t allow less than 33 or 20 days compensation per year worked if you have to down-size despite the fact the company hasn’t got two pennies to rub together, can’t do this, can’t do that and on and on.
Here we have 3 new airports that are closed. We have more airports than Germany, almost all run at a loss. Petty kingdom builders. We are peeing away the money on renewables and ignoring shale (as if other sources don’t have problems).
Rant finished. I need to get out and sell to make sure our year finishes by breaking even. What ambition! But taxes paid during the years of losses. Loads.
Gildas, is your work creative? Can you relocate? Can you walk away? Think brutally and go for whatever you decide.
There will be a lot of people rooting for you. Keep us up-to-date
All the best
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April 26, 2012 at 09:09 -
I am extremely moved and inspired by these comments. Thank you all.
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April 26, 2012 at 10:12 -
Balls is today, what Leon Brittan was in the 1980′s, utterly despised by everyone I know regardless of political conviction.
And the idea that borrowing more will somehow lead to borrowing less is like saying…..
“In order not to end up like Greece, we need to be more like Greece”
Fundamentally, this is the opposition position.
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April 26, 2012 at 16:32 -
The horse is dead.
Options? Walk; steal someone else’s; ride a bike; or find a nice spot in the sunshine and say, “Eff It”. The last is what I did, thank goodness for my sanity.
Like you GtM, I lost it all to a rapacious ex, at 57. A bit earlier and maybe one could recover. A bit. But the later it happens the less time is left.
There is little point in building back up again (my second time around – I managed it the first time but then I was quite younger than you now). Some bastard, Official or otherwise is only likely to take it all away again.
I simply stopped putting in a Tax return ten years ago. I kept all of the little money I earned and started building MY FU Fund. I think the tax woman thinks I have carked it, and if – or when – she gets around to finding out I am still here, basking on the beach like all the bronzed boys and girls on the dole, I will just say ‘sod off’. I will be quite happy to take my daily walks around an exercise yard with some colourful characters and let the tax woman’s colleagues feed me three times a day and pay for the rising electricity costs for my TV.
Look to yourself, Sir. Bugger the country that has buggered you.
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April 26, 2012 at 18:47 -
@ Gildas
You have my considerable sympathy.
Our common factors are that we are self-employed, with not enough work about. and that our wives chose the house for which we overpaid (but I could afford it). However, as my pension from my former employer cut in when my self-employed income slumped, my financial suffering is insignificant and my long-suffering wife* is a major bonus.
Why I am posting is the alleged contrast between “posh boys” Cameron and Osborne and, they try to suggest “not posh” Miliband and Balls. Miliband is the son of a Communist millionaire (David and Ed conspired to create a deed of alteration to their father’s will to reduce the IHT and increase their take), Balls was educated at a fee-paying school (it opted into fee-paying after a previous Labour government destroyed independent grammar schools). David Miliband clearly got into Oxford by the back door with Ds in his ‘A’ levels because his father was a left-wing intellectual and it looks as if Ed did the same (though he did get better ‘A’ levels), while I and all my family were educated on scholarships.
* Our son periodically makes clear that he considers that he is long-suffering with the comment “Parents!!”
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