Tuesday 22 September 2009

Going Down Like a Cup of Cold Sick in Berlin

The Saviour of the World and economic Colossus is proposing that:

'net exporters like Germany should introduce state stimulus programs to boost domestic demand. The idea is that increased public spending and higher wages will encourage consumers to buy more. This would raise imports while at the same time decreasing Germany's competitiveness on the international level, thus lowering the country's trade surplus. London has even made this a "key issue" for Pittsburgh, and put forward its own paper to this end. It wants the IMF to step in and provide countries with economic advice whenever a trade imbalance exceeds certain set parameters.' (Der Speigel)

4 comments:

Old BE said...

It's absolutely crazy! Does Brown really think that in order to somehow do him a favour, the Germans should stop saving and being competitive and start buying crap from us that they don't want?

hatfield girl said...

And the Chinese evidently, Blue - should there be anything we could even begin to produce. We all know our maufacturing capacity has shrunk considerably under the Labour regime and once closed down it is very difficult to start up again. So I suppose there will be no more mass production of cars in the West Midlands, ship building in the North East, nor steel production of highly specialised steels in Sheffield or anywhere else in the UK. Just to mention a few things.

The last dozen years' damage has been terminal, although it began before then. It was Labour's job to reverse the trend, to build up the infrastructure, to develop advanced manufacturing. That's the biggest betrayal of all, and by the party supposed to represent the interests of working people. And it's not just Germany; Italy's industrial and manufacturing strength is, shall we say, veiled from the official eye, but they still build ships, planes, do textiles, heavy and light engineering various, trains, cars, buses, steel, go about the world constructing dams and bridges, roads and buildings...so do the French as well as building our nuclear power stations.

What did Labour do with all the money? And why?

Sen. C.R.O'Blene said...

"What did Labour do with all the money? And why?"

EU contributions, Quangos (salaries and grossly bloated expenses)

And, to think that a prat like the old git who turned up on Al Beeb to complain about contractors tendering the way it should be done, is recognition of the farcical idiots who are paid in these sorry little sub-states., and hopeless wastage on inadequate schemes like the Dome.

Weekend Yachtsman said...

"What did Labour do with all the money? And why?"

What - public sector and hangers-on wages and pensions.

Why - to get re-elected.

What else did you expect?

And note also, the pension pledges are not covered by any kind of provision or investment. They are a charge on future taxation, and are largely kept off the visible books.

This will not end well.