The post you are reporting:
howard, really!
Marek - You prove my point really. I dont doubt Brown tries his best, but his best is not good enough to run a whelk stall let alone a country.
Who said this:
""""The Chancellor is first and foremost the guardian of the people's money. But during the 1990s the national debt has doubled. This year alone the taxpayer will pay out 25 billion in interest payments on debt, more than we spend on schools. Public finances must be sustainable over the long term. If they are not then it is the poor, the elderly, and those on fixed incomes who depend on public services that will suffer most. So, as with our approach to monetary policy, so in fiscal policy: we will now establish clear rules, a new discipline, openness, and accountability.
My first rule - the golden rule - ensures that over the economic cycle the Government will borrow only to invest and that current spending will be met from taxation. My second rule is that, as a proportion of national income, public debt will be held at a prudent and stable level over the economic cycle. And to implement these rules, I am announcing today a five year deficit reduction plan.
......... As with our monetary policy, our fiscal policy will be all the more credible for being open and accountable.
Any Budget seeking to achieve high and stable levels of growth and employment must be guided by the true state of the public finances, but also by a clear assessment of the state of the economy. And to that I will now turn........
........ some of my predecessors have ignored these signs while others have deluded themselves into believing that growth, however unbalanced, was evidence of their success. I will not ignore the warning signs and I will not repeat past mistakes.""""
Gordon Brown, in his first budget speech and what he said was up to a point reasonable. It helped establish his reputation of 'prudence'. He said it though and did the opposite. It makes interesting reading, does it not, seeing what he said and comparing it to what he actually did. You have to wonder who wrote the speech for him and whether he actually understood what he said.
Incidentally - I read so many economic commentaries every day I can say that no-one really knows. But yes, I do expect the US economy to pull itself out of recession, perhaps this year, but the UK economy is not likely to follow too quickly and will be well behind the US and well into 2010 before it does. We will then find the debt hangover reallly starting to bite, inflation will start to take off (driven by recovery and the 'quantative easing'), interest rates will need to rise, the impact of that plus rising taxes will keep the recovery fragile and a double dip recession will become increasingly likely.