29 Replies to “Tender Cuts”

  1. Yeah well, I just got off BBC News and there was no story about this, just more mea culpas about the racial injustice in South Africa and how the white races keep getting richer and the coloureds, poorer.

  3. Larben, are you serious? The beeb is still playing the race card about SA! What about the crime, much of directed against whites? What about black empowerment policy which has caused 1,000s of white to move to slums because they can’t get jobs? What about the genocide against white farmers? 3,000 of some 8,000 brutally murdered since 1994. What about land reform? What about the leader of the ANC youth league singing “kill the boer”?

  5. It certainly gets the message across.
    And yet if they are truly cutting the debt (and I presume they mean debt, not deficit) then it is a great victory, for they are going in the right direction.

  7. They cut just over 6 billion pounds.
    Coincidentally that is how much they send to Brussels as their share of Euro Operations.
    Up from 4 Billion pounds last year.

  8. Phil – I was being facetious! But good of you to clear the air for those naive enough to believe anything I say.

  9. http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=277
    “In the calendar year 2009 the UK recorded a general government deficit of £159.2 billion, which was equivalent to 11.4 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP).
    At the end of December 2009 general government debt was £950.4 billion, equivalent to 68.1 per cent of GDP.”
    The bad news is that Canada’s debt is even higher than the UK as a percentage of GDP. No you say? You’re forgetting about provincial debts too.
    We’re just behind Germany and Portugual and just ahead of the UK and Jordan on the list of highest debt as % of GDP. America’s debt is far down the list, mostly because their GDP is so high.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_public_debt

  10. It would be a good idea for the federal government
    to take the position that it will not be responsible
    for provincial debts. That is not likely to
    happen, of course.

  12. Eldon, I’m calling B.S. on you. USA gdp was 14t, 2010 will be between 13-14trillion, and that is where their debt level sit at, thanks to “THE ONE”. (or as some say, “The Big Owe”
    The USA debt is now 100% of GDP! BTW that does not include State Debt!

  13. It would be a good idea for the federal government
    to take the position that it will not be responsible
    for provincial debts.
    ~John Lewis
    It better be the position of the Alberta government, or better be as soon as Wildrose is elected, that the Federal government is not responsible for provincial debts.
    The people of Alberta went through their austerity program when Ralph Klein was Premier.
    Which other province went through a belt tightening regime ever?

  14. so now the chickens are coming home to roost….
    it will be interesting watching the Eeroopyan intelligentsia steering us through the shoals and shallows..through the shark infested waters of reconstruction on conservative terms…..
    i have friends from Spain arriving in a day or so….it’s grim they say but i dessay they have no real idea of how grim it will become before their collective houses are in good order..
    i always think on the lovely Lady Black of Crossharbour who wrote a decade ago on this coming debacle……

  15. “Eldon, I’m calling B.S. on you.”
    Well how can my use of sourced data possibly compete with Carl’s use of ALLCAPS and exclamation points!!!!?
    I double checked at the CIA website: nope, you’re still wrong, they list public debt at 57% of GDP. You’re adding intra-governmental debt, which is separate from public debt.
    https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/us.html
    The federal government is not responsible for provincial debts. What’s up with everyone being wrong about everything today?

  16. Actually, the UK debt isn’t being cut at all. The UK is only planning to cut the deficit by 6 billion, which means the debt will continue to accumulate.
    So it’s even worse than the somewhat erroneous Independent front page.

  17. UK debt and the immeadiate deficit are real and present dangers.
    The 6 Billion cut is an ok number, it buys them some time. HAd Labour won then we would be seeing markets falling and discussions of the UK defaulting on its debt.
    The US has bought some time. What might save Obama is the smae thing that saved Clinton in 96 was a mid term flip of the House to GOP control. It forces more discussion and it will force cuts or control in spending. Obama doesnt seem to “grok” the amount of debt is a problem. I think he intellectually acknoweldges it but his actions, or lack thereof, indicate he doesnt feel there is a problem.
    Ideally the US develops the same consensus to deal with the deficit and debt that Canada as, and the UK has now developed.
    We will see

  18. Drunken sailors with permanent unlimited access to your money. Sorry, I realize I just insulted drunken sailors.

  19. As long as there will be ink to print on something, the game will carry on. For now anyway. There are still lots of millionaires and higher middle class people with lots of “real” money (Not derivatives or worthless junk like that) that needs to be brough down to size yet. These “people” still have some influence in the power corridors so are considered a nuisance to the world high tech social engineer multi billionaires currently on their final phase for world dominance.
    Britain is now officially it’s own prisoner. It has joined the rest of the captives in Europe. Very ironic in a sense because the English empire was the embryo for the new world order in the first place.
    North America, Australia and a few other hot spots in Asia are the final conquests to be had before they can orchestrate to stop the money printing presses and come out from behind the curtain to “save us all”.
    China and India are totally dependent on their exports to the very countries that are systematically being taken prisoner so they will be easy to deal with later.
    In a bizarro way, Russia might be the odd man out for a while. The freer zone in a sense. They have lots of energy and nukes you see.
    “Get in line right here folks…The chip implant takes 1 second and is painless…”

  20. Headline: “LESS HYPE, LESS SPIN, AND JUST THE (GRAPHIC) FACTS, BABY”
    Well they missed quite a few facts by omission in this limp ‘exposé’.
    Fact: Post WWII Bretton woods signator nations have used up, then over extended, the fractional reserves of the international pool of money once used to float their debt.
    Fact: With post war productivity came post war inflation in the form of currency expansion beyond sustainable reserves. This was the direct result of decadent socialist governments buying votes with lush unsustainable welfare programs financed with national debt.
    Fact: The IMF and its sub banking interests have been the primary entity wealthy enough (through unlimited fiat credit creation) to buy the debt of the debtor Bretton Woods nations to keep their currency/economy afloat. To date the IMF itself has lent more than it can ever hope to recover.
    Fact: Most G8 nations with debt loads over 60% of GDP, and 2nd and 3rd world nations with debt over 20% of GDP no longer have the productivity to pay a compounded/accrued interest debt off. This debt is, at best, perpetual, IF we stop borrowing now.
    Fact: Most debtor nations only manage to pay the interest on their debt each year, without having enough to reduce the principle debt.
    Fact: because of this vast international un recoverable debt load (which was promoted by rapacious international lenders and irresponsible governments)the global economy and its fiat currencies will always be just one critical disaster away from collapse – in perpetuity.
    Fact: The global total in derivatives is 1.14 quadrillion dollars. this looming unsecured debt is more than total global assets and is the ticking time bomb that will crash the fragile global debt management structure and obliterate paper currency systems.
    Fact: all the above doom can be avoided if the G20 agree to write down national debts as un recoverable and pass a law to never debt finance beyond 10% of GDP again.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_external_debt

  21. We need more editors like Simon Kelner.
    And less art directors.
    Less decorators.
    Less designers.
    Less cosmetic journalism.
    Less infographic artists.
    Shouldn’t that be FEWER?
    We also need more literate reporting for god sakes.

  23. I have also noted the replacement of the word ‘number’ with the word ‘amount’.
    EG “The amount of people who” …. etc … I hear it in news casting on radio and TV … This is the canary in the mine of our educational system. We aren’t even learning the language. I can understand it from the idiot kids who think sounding illiterate is rad, but the folks whose job it is to speak the language on public airways and in newspapers is unforgivable.

  24. Abe- You hit on one of my biggest bug-bears: number/amount; less/fewer. The misuse is really astonishing.
    Almost as bad: I/me (as in- our cousin stopped in to visit Donna and I). Grrr! But don’t get me started….

  26. Nice front page. Makes the point well.
    Funny how nobody ever ran a front page like that when Labor formed the government. Tories get in and SHAZAM! The Independent discovers fiscal reality.
    How interesting.

  27. Abe and Snagglepuss:
    Your comments reminded me of the member of the French Academy who, when caught in bed with another women, interrupted his wife’s tirade by saying: “No, Madam. It is I who am surprised. You are astonished.”
    Nevertheless, I do sympathize with your concern over “less/fewer” and “number/amount”. I won’t make too much of it, though, since I myself have been a bit perplexed in certain grammatical situations.

  28. Abe Froman: the poor, misunderstood, underused fewer.
    There seem to be fewer and fewer people these days, let alone journalists, who have any idea of the existence of this very fine and appropriate word, much less how to use it properly.

  29. “’Show, don’t tell’ at its best.”
    And it even gets the particular part of the pyramid to be cut correct — Independent update —
    “The Prime Minister and George Osborne this week showed the first flick of their knife, marking out the areas they intend to cut much more deeply into over the next five years.”

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