Fiscal Turmoil - A UK Perspective

[Sukerkin]

It would seem that the American experience of the global recession is about to get a whole lot harsher unless the two major parties over there can stop behaving like squabbling children and come up with a realistic solution to their problems.

Things are no more rosy over here in the United Kingdom. We might not have an artificial Fiscal Cliff to face like the Americans as we have been taking the pain for a few years already but we are still not doing well and the faltering Coalition government is not doing itself any favours in how some of it's senior members are doing their jobs ... the Chancellor being a prime example of someone being in a role for which he is utterly unsuited:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-20571621

 

[Tez3]

Have you seen the quote from the Iceland going around on FB? It's about the quick Icelandic recovery from the recession etc, it says that they bailed out the people and imprisoned the bankers and rogue politicians rather than the otherway around everywhere else.

 

[Scott T]

Well, poaching Mark Carney as the next head of the Bank of England is a good start. The credit for Canada's not going so deep into the recession can be laid at his feet.

 

[billc]

Sorry to tell you, obama wants the fiscal cliff to happen and he wants the economy to tank. Rahm Emanuel, his former chief of staff notably said that you never let a crisis go to waste. That is why the democrats over here don't mind the mess that is about to happen.

 

[Scott T]

Sorry to tell you, obama wants the fiscal cliff to happen and he wants the economy to tank. Rahm Emanuel, his former chief of staff notably said that you never let a crisis go to waste. That is why the democrats over here don't mind the mess that is about to happen.

Hate to be the one to tell you, but a lot of us want your economy to tank (even though it will drag ours down with it.) Maybe, in time, lessons will be learned and something better will rise from the ashes.

 

[rickster]

Tank the politicians

 

[WC_lun]

Sorry to tell you, obama wants the fiscal cliff to happen and he wants the economy to tank. Rahm Emanuel, his former chief of staff notably said that you never let a crisis go to waste. That is why the democrats over here don't mind the mess that is about to happen.

Wow, you have been viewing the world through those increasingly tinted glasses for so long you've become blinded to even common sense. Why would Obama want the economy to tank? Why would anyone want the economy to tank, Republican or Democrat? Truly anything you say from this point forward should just be viewed as noise.

 

[crushing]

Have you seen the quote from the Iceland going around on FB? It's about the quick Icelandic recovery from the recession etc, it says that they bailed out the people and imprisoned the bankers and rogue politicians rather than the otherway around everywhere else.

Iceland must not have the revolving door between the big banks and big government that the US does. The former Goldman Sachs employees that now help run the executive branch aren't going to go after themselves.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/20/goldman-sachs-revolving-d_n_580740.html
http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/contrib.php?cycle=2008&cid=N00009638

 

[Big Don]

Iceland must not have the revolving door between the big banks and big government that the US does. The former Goldman Sachs employees that now help run the executive branch aren't going to go after themselves.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/20/goldman-sachs-revolving-d_n_580740.html
http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/contrib.php?cycle=2008&cid=N00009638

Yep, because Obama lived up to his 2008 campaign promise to keep lobbyists and corporate bigwigs out of government.

 

[Tez3]

http://www.greenewave.com/other-countries-bailout-bankers-iceland-jails-them/

http://www.english.plaidcymru.org/t...and-pm-faces-charges-can-iceland-happen-here/

http://www.icenews.is/2012/03/08/another-former-icelandic-banker-sent-to-jail/


You've got to laugh at bankers and politicians being sent to jail!

 

[billc]

One take on why obama wants the cliff...

http://www.hughhewitt.com/blog/g/5aae3748-7433-4381-86ce-ef92e5d220fd

Why is President Obama so unmovable on about tax rates increases on high earners?

Oh, I know what he says. Fairness. The rich – whoever they are – must pay their fair share (I’m not going to get into whether they already do or maybe even pay more than their fair share).

But that’s no longer the question.

House Republicans have already conceded the point. They have offered up reduced deductions that will raise as much as the administration claims increased tax rates will raise. They are clear. They want to keep tax rates low so as not stifle new business creation and growth, which is for a variety of reasons is highly sensitive to personal tax rates. These products of the entrepreneurial renaissance that started in the last 1970s or early 1980s have created all the net new jobs in the U.S. over the past three decades.

So what more is behind the president’s demand?

Some believe it is political. They contend the president wants to take the government over the cliff, which, thanks to media protection, he can get away. He can blame Republicans for the financial chaos and universal tax hikes that follow, force a complete GOP surrender and take back the House at the next election.

How about this as an explanation though? He wants exactly the opposite of what Republicans want – and does so not out of pride or economic ignorance, but for the simplest and most direct of political motives – a key constituency wants it.

The constituency I have in mind is organized labor and the motive would be to put a break on the very entrepreneurial renaissance that Republicans so prize.

To my surprise he responded that he had wondered why the unions had weighed in aggressively on an issue before his commission on which they had no apparent interest. Desire to slowdown new business creation and expansion would explain it, he said.

But why? Why should labor go after the major source of American job creation? It has to do with the simple, classic approach of unions to all competition: stop it.

Here is the business problem, if you will, of the U.S. labor movement. They are losing market share. They talk a lot about jobs – meaning union jobs – moving overseas. But at least as big an issue for them is the American entrepreneurial renaissance. By an large, its workers have rejected the movement’s attempts to organize them. And in industry after industry, these new and energetic non-union firms have been expanding at the expense of old unionized ones. In other words, one of the president’s major sources of support sees America’s entrepreneurial renaissance as competition and wants to, if not stop it, slow it drastically down.

Just to be clear, I am NOT saying this is the president’s motivation. I am suggesting it is the motive of key parts of the union movement. Mr. Obama is just, as they say in this town, dancing with the one that brung him.

Besides the above piece, you guys haven't really studied obama's background in any detail.

What does obama get...increased taxes on everyone while being able to blame it on Republicans, massive cuts to the military, and the ability to "save," any cuts to social programs and once again bludgeon the republicans for those cuts. The philosophy of obama as expressed by Rahm Emanuel, never let a crises go to waste, why? Because you can get things from the American people that you can't get when times are good.

 

[rickster]

One take on why obama wants the cliff...

http://www.hughhewitt.com/blog/g/5aae3748-7433-4381-86ce-ef92e5d220fd







Besides the above piece, you guys haven't really studied obama's background in any detail.

What does obama get...increased taxes on everyone while being able to blame it on Republicans, massive cuts to the military, and the ability to "save," any cuts to social programs and once again bludgeon the republicans for those cuts. The philosophy of obama as expressed by Rahm Emanuel, never let a crises go to waste, why? Because you can get things from the American people that you can't get when times are good.

Almost agree. But I dont think he alone can tank the economy

 

[Touch Of Death]

Sorry to tell you, obama wants the fiscal cliff to happen and he wants the economy to tank. Rahm Emanuel, his former chief of staff notably said that you never let a crisis go to waste. That is why the democrats over here don't mind the mess that is about to happen.

You are right. They don't like watching the rich get richer and the poor getting poorer; so, they have no problem pushing it over the cliff.

 

[billc]

And here is David Gergan commenting on the democrat's willingness to let things crash...

http://hotair.com/archives/2012/12/04/gergen-democrats-would-rather-humiliate-gop-than-solve-fiscal-cliff/

Via Eliana Johnson at NRO, David Gergen comes to the same conclusion that most of us did after the election — that Barack Obama and the Democrats aren’t really interested in solving the massive number of problems in the fiscal cliff coming in less than four weeks. Their priority is to inflict as much damage on House Republicans as possible, and if that inflicts damage on America, well, you gotta break a few eggs to make omelettes, too.

But since this election, there’s been — I think it’s the Democrats are the ones who are really trying to rub it in and almost humiliate the Republicans, and that’s not going to get to a bargain. Again, I think it has to be win-win. … You hear among some Democrats right now, and it’s disturbing, that maybe we ought to just take it over the cliff, that’ll, we’ll score political points against the Republicans, that will force their hands in the new year. That is a very, very, dangerous risk.
​

Is it? Only if the media reports on it. So far, though, the media seems more focused on Republicans and their supposed intransigence, even though John Boehner’s opening offer put the supposed “grand bargain” of August 2011 back on the table — and Obama demanded twice as much revenue with half the cuts in some gauzy point in the future. At least for now, the media is making brinksmanship a relatively risk-free strategy while Obama campaigns rather than negotiates in good faith.