Posted by seumasach on April 9, 2013
Cailean Bochanan
9th April, 2013
The amazing thing about all the discussions about Margaret Thatcher’s legacy is the insistence of so many that Thatcher revived Britain. Yet we are living through the Thatcher legacy now and it looks very much like a nation falling apart: to the spectacle of de-industrialization, which she pioneered, we now have the dismal and depressing sight of the collapse of the high street and the return of begging as a livelihood. What can explain this contradiction?
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: bankrupt Britain, End of empire | 1 Comment »
Posted by seumasach on March 28, 2013
Britain resembles Cyprus in many ways. It is also dependent on its financial sector and its financial sector is also bankrupt and as what’s left of the real economy implodes the accumulation of bad debt accelerates. The solution is also similar: write down most of the debt and renegotiate Britain’s international status with a view to rebuilding the real economy through incoming investment.
Fasten your seat belts – a balance of payments crisis looms
Jeremy Warner
27th March, 2013
Whatever happened to the holy grail of a more balanced UK economy? Britain has been living substantially beyond its means for more than thirty years now. Spending more than we earn long pre-dated the Labour years. And it’s getting worse, not better.
Posted in UK economy | Tagged: bankrupt Britain | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on March 26, 2013
It’s either the banks or the real economy and Europe has just outlined a new approach completely divergent from that of the Anglosphere. In US/UK the survival of the banks is a categorical imperative and the means to achieve this is bailout without end via QE or money-printing. This statement from Europe signals that the banks are to allowed to go under or rather, implicitly, a new banking system, Euroland regulated and subordinate to general economic development is to created. This is a welcome development and any Anglo-Saxon schadenfreude regarding the inevitable pain accompanying it will prove to be misplaced. The QE approach is painless only to the banks: it has already seriously depleted deposits and can only lead to falls in both the pound and the dollar with devastating consequences for economies based on importing essential goods.
Cyprus bail-out: savers will be raided to save euro in future crises, says eurozone chief
25th March, 2013
The new policy will alarm hundreds of thousands of British expatriates who live and have transferred their savings, proceeds from house sales and other assets to eurozone bank accounts in countries such as France, Spain and Italy.
Posted in Battle for Europe, Financial crisis, UK economy | Tagged: bankrupt Britain, dollar collapse, failing banks, stop the bailout | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on February 24, 2013
The bankrupt banks continue to be a drain on the UK economy- bailout time is approaching. Any further bailout, overt or covert, must be resisted and the only other alternative, bankruptcy proceedings effected
24th February, 2013
The Royal Bank of Scotland is to reduce the size of its investment bank by as much as £30bn and cut hundreds more jobs as the taxpayer-backed lender attempts to head off growing government pressure to close down the controversial division.
The lender will announce that it will reduce the size of the investment bank’s balance sheet, as well as scaling back the amount of capital allocated to the business and continuing its redundancy programme.
Posted in UK economy | Tagged: bankrupt Britain | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on February 24, 2013
“For the market, the rating downgrade will underline that their earlier belief in the plan has proven wide of the mark. Part of the repricing of GBP that this reappraisal implies is already under way. There is more to come.”
The British people are already suffering the consequences of devastating inflation and not only rising prices but declining quality, witness the horsemeat scandal. There is no room for further inflation undermining spending power and increasing business costs and there is no up-side in a boost to exports given the destruction of Britain’s industrial base. The policies of the last 30 years will only be seen in retrospect as the wanton destruction of a nation. In fact, they were conceived within the context of Anglo-American hegemony, a dream of empire which is no more. What remains is a complete mess. The solution lies in national reconstruction within the context of complete abandonment of imperial pretension, demilitarisation and definancialization, and the acceptance of the new multipolar reality
24th February, 2013
Andrew Sentance, who served on the Bank’s rate-setting committee until May 2011, cautioned that the cut to the UK’s credit rating would add to the existing “downward pressures on sterling”.
Posted in WHO corruption | Tagged: bankrupt Britain | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on February 19, 2013
India is, not unnaturally, cautious in its dealings with the one-time great power
19th February, 2013
Manmohan Singh, the Indian prime minister, publicly challenged Mr Cameron to provide British help to a corruption investigation involving AgustaWestland helicopters.
Posted in UK economy | Tagged: bankrupt Britain | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on February 19, 2013
19th February, 2013
Britain will be holding an arms exhibition on a Royal Navy frigate it is sending to Tripoli shores in Libya amid an undeclared arms race among European war manufacturers.
Posted in Libya | Tagged: bankrupt Britain | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on February 13, 2013
“You can not go on indefinitely. It’s as if you are running up an ever steeper hill.”
Exactly, Britain is hopelessly bankrupt. This analysis makes things look good: it hugely underestimates inflation and hugely overestimates our capacity to benefit from a falling pound to boost exports.
Mervyn King warns George Osborne the BoE can’t do much more as he urges reforms
13th February, 2013
The Governor of the Bank of England has piled pressure on George Osborne to deliver radical economic reforms in his Budget next month as he warned that monetary policy would not be able to buy the Chancellor much more time.
Posted in UK economy | Tagged: bankrupt Britain | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on February 5, 2013
“I call the pound the dollar of Europe as we’re pretty much as bad as the Americans,”
2nd February, 2013
Of all the challenges facing Mark Carney when he swaps the keys of 234 Wellington Street, Ottawa, for the “Old Lady” of Threadneedle Street,the very real crisis facing sterling will be one of the things at the top of his agenda.
Posted in UK economy | Tagged: bankrupt Britain | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on January 22, 2013
23rd January, 2013
Britain’s coveted AAA credit status came under renewed pressure on Tuesday after official figures pointed to higher than expected public sector debts last month.
Posted in UK economy | Tagged: bankrupt Britain | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on January 18, 2013
18th January, 2013
On Friday the pound fell 0.2pc against the euro to hit a ten-month low of 1.192, while it fell for the six-consecutive day against the dollar, down 0.4pc to 1.592.
Posted in UK economy | Tagged: bankrupt Britain, run on pound | Leave a Comment »
In These New Times 