Monday, 13 October 2008

Brown's crisis - meltdown halted - too early to say

Monday, 13 October, 2008 11:08 AM

Nail the lies!  Brown claims that this is a Global crisis that 
started in  America.  The banking crisis actually started right here 
with Northern Rock and its totally irresponsible acceptance of dodgy 
debts.  This was a result of a decade-long general jamboree in our 
banks who found that regulation in practice did not exist and they 
had no rules to act on.  Banks who tried to get guidance from Gordon 
Brown’s creation the FSA complained that it was impossible!

After Northern Rock,  Brown went into complete shut-down mode and for 
nearly a year did absolutely nothing, while the approaching hurricane 
gathered force.  Consequently he was completely unprepared for the 
events of the last month.

Meanwhile in country after country,  governments did act in time.   
Listed by Osborne and Kavanagh below are some of the most prominent 
prudent ones -  Spain,  Canada, Australia, Sweden.  It is Brown’s 
Britain that is worst prepared (per IMF).

Osborne finally gets round to saying the right things in a regional 
paper.  (It’s a pity he was so ineffectual on TV yesterday).  Cameron 
lurks out of sight giving general support to Brown for his measures 
now but forgetting the vital need to pin the responsibility for 
allowing the crisis to happen on our unelected prime minister, Gordon 
Brown.  This is no time to play patsy.  A myth is being created.   
Instead of an incompetent chancellor dropping us into terrible chaos 
and desperately cooking up solution after solution,  a picture is 
being painted of a resolute  defender of our nation.

There’s a letter I read today which quotes a report on an officer 
which seems very relevant to Brown - “This officer is very good at 
getting himself out of situations he should never have got into in 
the first place” .

This is Brown’s crisis - he created it and he along with a bank 
director or two should pay the price, not strut the stage pretending 
to be a statesman.

Let us hope that Cameron is listening to the growing chorus of 
disapproval of his silence and support for the architect of our 
troubles.

xxxxxxxxxxxx cs
At 11 am the FTSE is up 4.71% having slipped back from its earlier 
high of plus more than 6% , Germany is + 5,76.  Hardly a vote of 
confidence but better than nothing
=======================

CONSERVATIVE HOME  13.10.08
Brown's Britain behaved less responsibly than Bush's America, says 
George Osborne

George Osborne has written for today's London Evening Standard (not 
yet online).  Here are the key quotes:

This taxpayer-funded bailout became necessary: "Millions of Londoners 
earning salaries of £15,000 or £25,000 are using their tax money to 
bail out the bankers who were paid ten times or even a hundred times 
that. They had to; because if the banking system fails then 
everything fails."

Labour are wrong to attempt to profit politically from all of this: 
"To regard today as a triumph, as some in government seem to do, is 
bizarre.  And it misjudges the public mood.  For this is no triumph.   
It is a necessary but desperate last ditch attempt to prevent 
catastrophe."

Other nations' regulatory systems did not fail as badly: "Our banks 
could and should have behaved more responsibly and taken fewer 
risks.  Indeed, those that did, like HSBC, have been rewarded for 
their prudence by emerging relatively unscathed.  Our regulators 
could and should have spotted the risky bets many of the banks were 
taking and stopped them.  That's what some bank regulators around the 
world did, such as in Spain; but not here in Britain."

Brown's Britain is less prepared for these events than other nations: 
"Our government could and should have used the good years of global 
growth to set aside money for a rain day.  That's what many 
governments did by building up budget surpluses, such as they did in 
Australia and Sweden; but in Britain, Gordon Brown racked up the 
biggest budget deficit in the western world."

Brown's Britain is more fragile than Bush's America: "When I hear 
Gordon Brown claim that all the problems we face 'came from America' 
and the expensive solutions devised around the world were 'made in 
Britain', it makes me wonder whether he is prepared to learn anything 
from his own mistakes.  It was in Britain not America where families 
borrowed more than any in the world, and where we became so dependent 
on the success of financial services.  It was in Britain nor America 
that a government based its entire economic policy on the delusional 
belief that boom and bust had been abolished."

Taxpayers must benefit before bank executives if the recapitalisation 
works: "I want to make sure that everything is being done to keep the 
risk to the taxpayer to the minimum possible.  That means asking 
existing shareholders first to stump up the cash.  It means ensuring 
that taxpayer benefits if the value of the banks increase as a result 
of this deal. And I will want to know that the money we are providing 
is not going into the bonus packages of the bankers who helped get us 
into this mess, let alone the golden handshakes of those executives 
who now quit."

We now need help for the real economy: "Conservative plans to freeze 
council tax, abandon the new car tax, keep businesses facing 
bankruptcy afloat and help low income families with heating bills 
could all be put in place in the coming months."

George Osborne's concluding words (CH: emphasis added):
"I can promise you Prime Minister, we'll help you with the emergency 
action to save the economy but we will hold you to account for your 
failures.  You presided over the biggest economic disaster of our 
lifetime and we will not let you forget it."
===================
THE SUN   13.10.08
We're all paying for Gordon's inflated ego

    By TREVOR KAVANAGH


HAPPY Gordon Brown seems to believe this is the moment he was born for.

The Ditherer has disappeared. In his place, a new “Master of the 
Universe” showing the world how to get out of this awful mess.
As “novices” such as Tory leader David Cameron tremble on the 
sideline, Gordon is Getting On With The Job.

We must all wish him well. Our jobs, savings, pensions — and possibly 
even the food on our plates — depend on his success.

Other world leaders seem impressed, working through the weekend to 
turn Britain’s rescue package for stricken banks into a global 
operation.

By the time you read this, stock markets will have given their 
verdict — rebounding with optimism or plunging in panic.
Whichever way the dead cat bounces nothing can now stop the world 
sliding steeply into a recession for years to come.

They say every crisis brings opportunity.

Mr Brown, who only weeks ago was fighting for his political life, is 
not alone in seeing a silver lining.

Old Socialists and Labour MPs will have danced a jig at the death of 
capitalism — until they realised that, like John Prescott, we are all 
middle class now.

Heating
Green campaigners must be jubilant.

They can celebrate as cash-strapped motorists leave cars at home, 
turn off the heating, stop flying on holiday and start growing their 
own food.

There may also be emission cuts beyond the wildest dreams of Kyoto 
campaigners as factories stop belching CO2, giving us the chance to 
see for ourselves what impact that has on global warming.

The Islamic world will celebrate the comeuppance of the greedy West — 
and especially the American Satan.

China and Russia will be looking for ways to profit at our expense — 
even if their own economies take a knock for a while.

Here a silent majority will cheer, silently, as the bloated soccer 
bubble bursts.

Few will weep if spoiled soccer brats can no longer line their drives 
with Maseratis.

The same goes for the art market, where rich fools wasted millions on 
animal corpses.

What price a dead shark at tomorrow’s auctions?

Let’s look more closely at Gordon’s Bubble.

For the moment it floats gently aloft as worried taxpayers will it to 
stay up.

But the logic suggests this thing is a momentary phenomenon.

The favourable wind is just “irrational exuberance” — a term coined 
by his hero, the once-revered ex-US Federal Reserve chairman Alan 
Greenspan, who is himself being blamed for creating this Crunch.

Both men sat on their hands as borrowing and trade deficits ballooned 
dangerously.

Gordon is bustling with fresh authority and energy.

Blame
But we cannot forget who has been running Britain’s finances for the 
last 11 years.
However much blame our former Chancellor wants to lay on America, the 
UK bank crisis was NOT inevitable.

It hasn’t happened in Canada, Australia or Sweden because THEIR banks 
were properly regulated.

Sure, they face a slump like the rest of us. But when it’s over their 
banks will still be standing. Along with America and most of Europe, 
ours will be history.

That is Gordon’s fault. He failed to lock the stable door. Now the 
horses are trampling all over the economy.

As voters wake up to the economic landscape, these and other 
questions are likely to see the shine come off Number Ten.

Bust ... Icesave
For instance, why were councils encouraged not just to pour £1billion 
of our money into dodgy Iceland, but in an act of sheer lunacy to 
BORROW millions more for the purpose?

How will Whitehall cope when town halls run out of cash and start 
laying off garbage collectors?

How will police cope if ATM machines dry up and shops run out of food 
because cash-strapped truckers stop trucking?

If we really face soaring unemployment, what are the social 
implications for three million recently-arrived migrants?

In good times these questions raise no more than a murmur.

As times get much, much tougher we must pray the only explosion we 
hear is Gordon’s bubble bursting.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
IT is barely a week since Peter Mandelson came back to haunt us.
We have since learned he poured “poison” about the Prime Minister 
into the cupped ear of Tory George Osborne.

He has been perhaps too cosy with a Russian tycoon who may have 
benefited from his rulings as EU trade czar.

And now we learn his lordship is grabbing a £750K pay-off and pension 
package few can even dream of after only four years