=> The threat of rising interest rates is a Greek tragedy we must avoid
We need free market interest rates and we need them now, to clear out all of the malinvestments of the last 15 years. Yes, it will be a hard and painful time, but the sooner we stop trying to prop up unwanted businesses with artificially low credit, the sooner this Depression will end.
What will these free market interest rates be? I have no idea, because I do not possess the knowledge in my single head of six billion investors, but using an educated guess, I would reckon that this rate is currently in the 8% to 9% range, and is slowly rising with each passing month of the British government artificially holding them down with the counterfeit confetti money pouring out of the Bank of England.
I hate Fisking as much as the next man, so I'll leave you to read the article yourself (if you can be bothered), but let's just check out a single quote from the article:
Already investors are demanding higher interest rates on our national debt – heading towards a whole percentage point above the equivalent rates on German debt. If the Bank of England stops buying government bonds next year, as is expected, it believes market interest rates will rise almost another percentage point on top of that.First of all ignoring the point that it is 'our' debt, when it is in fact the British government's debt, which I totally repudiate and only pay off because the alternative is kidnap and incarceration, just look at the disingenuousness of that last line.
Either Osborne is a simpleton, and he doesn't understand that when the Bank of England buys anything, it does so with counterfeit money out of thin air, or he knows the full score of this purchasing action, which makes him a shystering snake.
Take your pick, George. I'll be generous and offer you simpleton.
But in the meantime, if you want to know what will really work, here is the plan:
1. Cut taxes in half.
2. These tax cuts are to be funded by government spending cuts, and government spending cuts only. No inflation. No borrowing.
That's it.
Too bold, Sir Osborne? Then just privatise every government 'service' that there is, until you have the necessary savings. Cut all government 'aid' to overseas dictators. Get out of Iraq. Get out of Afghanistan. Limit the top government salary to £100,000 for anyone. If people don't like it, tough. They'll find no tears outside of their privileged group. Cut all MP salaries to £25,000 a year. If they don't like it, let them resign and get a proper job elsewhere, to be replaced by people who are willing to do it for this. Where they haven't been cut already, cut all other government 'worker' salaries by 10%. No exceptions. If they don't like it, let them resign and offer their job to someone unemployed who can take on the job if it's necessary (such as being a nurse), however, don't replace any Guardian non-jobbers. Appoint me as the Guardian non-job Czar. I will decide what is a proper job and what is a non-job. I will do this for FREE (and believe me, not much will get through). Cut government departments. Remove at least half of them. Just as a special bonus, Sir George, I'll give you a special £10,000 pound bonus for every billion you cut from government spending. OK, let's be super-generous. I'll offer this to every member of the Cabinet, limited to 20 places. For each Cabinet minister whose department you can axe, I'll offer each minister a £10 million pound bonus to sod off, disappear, and die of too much sex in Thailand (or whatever else takes their fancy).
All of this is possible, though I'll be happy if you just do what the Irish finance minister did. Let's take a look at what he said, again:
“Some have argued we should continue to borrow and wait for the economy to grow again before tackling the budget deficit. There are three reasons why this is not a viable proposition.Show some similar backbone, Sir Simpleton.
First, we know from the 1980s how large deficits, left unchecked, can lead to a dangerous spiral of mounting debt and ever increasing interest payments. Never again should we return to a position where all of our income taxes go to pay interest on the national debt.
Second, international debt markets have become more crowded and more fragile. If lenders were to lose faith in our ability to restore order to the public finances, the consequences for our economic well being would be profound.
Third, only decisive action will restore confidence. Consumers will only start to spend and business owners will only invest and create jobs if they believe we are tackling our deficit problem now.”
Sorry. I was confusing you there with someone with a backbone.
6 comments:
Well said Jack!
It would be good to see you as head of another Government Quango!
No doubt within two weeks I would be upping my pay to £175k a year, getting a limousine, and taking 8 junkets a year to the Caribbean and other 'developing' parts of the world where I could learn to do my job properly and 'share' my knowledge.
All business class and 5-star hotels, natch.
Haha, awesome stuff. Please give my compliments to the writing and editorial staff down there at Maturin Towers!
"Already investors are demanding higher interest rates on our national debt – heading towards a whole percentage point above the equivalent rates on German debt. If the Bank of England stops buying government bonds next year, as is expected, it believes market interest rates will rise almost another percentage point on top of that."
This analysis is correct surely. If the BoE stops buying govt bonds the market for them will collapse with investors demanding higher interest rates to tempt them to buy them instead. Ossy isn't saying the BoE should continue to buy the bonds. Rather he states clearly that the govt should "eliminate much of the ... deficit".
By all means please do beat up on Ossy but do try to make sense when you do.
Alright Anonymous, it's a vaguely fair point, so let's just make this easier for you, as you don't appear to be giving me much leeway or good cheer at Christmas:
George Osborne thinks that we need to hold down interest rates.
As it is low interest rates that got us into this mess in the first place, then what he is proposing is going to make things even worse than they already are, though for a short time it will appear to be OK, in the same way that apparently cold-turkey heroin addicts appear OK if they're sneaking round the back of the house for the occasional smack of opium juice.
If George Osborne is too stupid to realise that more cheap credit is the cure to a disaster brought on by too much cheap credit, to the tune where the average net worth of 61 million people is a debt greater than £120 thousand pounds each, then I want to know where he's getting his gear from so I can get some myself.
What we need are free market interest rates and for the Bank of England to stop producing money out of thin air to prop up artificially low interest rates, which are destroying the value of all cash in this country. This recession will not end until this cold turkey treatment is applied. It is going to go on, and on, and on, getting worse, and worse, and worse, until the rough medicine of turning off the printing press is applied.
What we need are people intelligent enough to know what has caused this mess, strong enough to admit that it is entirely due to government meddling in the natural free market of money, and brave enough to propose and then implement the extremely painful cure of getting the government out of the money printing business.
George Osborne is neither intelligent, nor strong, nor brave. Which is why voting in the Conservatives at the next General Election will make absolutely no difference to our predicament. They will paint the deckchairs blue, perhaps, or possibly change the tune of the band to 'Rule Britannia'. But that's about it.
Oh, and perhaps argue with the Labour party about how many angels there are dancing on the head of a pin.
The Conservative party is dead. It is an ex-party. It has ceased to be. To put any faith into it at all, is to know the true meaning of pointlessness.
It's only real job is to fool the British people that there is a point to politics, rather than it just being a revolving game where the same criminal gang known as the state keep robbing us blind and sinking our stolen money into their own pockets.
George Osborne will cut, at the very outside, about 2% of government spending, as opposed to the 1.99% cut which Gordon Brown will apply (after the election). For this, Cameron will suffer endless parasite sector strikes and be accused of bringing the world to an end. This pathetic 2% will be nothing more than noise, against a background of a collapsing economy. What we need are cuts with zeroes on the end, like 10%, 20%, and 50%. I will make an exception for 99%. I will be happy to temporarily accept a government on 1% of its current revenues, until we can figure out how to successfully close down the government land management office.
All government borrowing and all government money printing must end. All George Osborne will do is bring down the acceleration rate on the upward growth of government borrowing and government money printing. Slightly. Perhaps.
The man is clot.
Now if Cameron were brave enough to make Daniel Hannan shadow Chancellor, or invite over the Irish finance minister to do the job, then we might stand a gnat's chance in hell.
But otherwise, we're going down. It's time to find a lifeboat and get out. Does that make it clearer?
Thanks for the Christmas cheer.
Happy New Year.
I just stopped by to thank you for your preliminary suggestions. Hope you will be keeping up the good work! Moreover, with the help of any free proofreading services, your life will be much simplified!
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