Sorry for the break in blogging, we’re trying to up the ante this year
Probably the most pressing of all news items is the recent dismal growth figures. Over a year ago when Cameron and Osborne claimed we were “Out of the woods” and “Out of the danger zone”. How very wrong they were. With the final quarter of 2011 seeing a contraction of 0.2% this then means that in the last 15 months since Osborne’s Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) in October 2010, we’ve had a massive 0.3% of growth. Cameron then has the audacity to blame the recent growth figures on the Euro crisis. Well I’m sorry, the UK economy has been stagnating long before the crisis began to effect.
Cameron you said it yourself, “I take full responsibility for everything that happens in the economy.” then take responsibility and change course!
Max
Pub quiz time I think
question 1) which are the only two european countries to be paid by investors for borrowing money
question 2) who is going to have more growth in their economy in 2012 the UK or the eurozone economies
answers on the back of a postcard please
Rather than focusing on predictions about an entire zone that includes a number of economies that bear very little resemblance to our own, perhaps we should look at the (comparatively) solid data that we actually have. Growth in the last quarter was -0.2% in the UK, 0.5% in Germany and 0.3% in France. Over the last twelve months, growth for those countries has respectively been: 0.8%, 2.5% and 1.6%.
Considering the advantages that we’ve had with a separate currency, it is worrying that Britain’s economy has grown at half the rate of France’s growth and less than a third of Germany’s.
germany has benefited from the fact that the pound is hhigher then the euro due to the uk being more of a safe place meaning german exports are cheeper then ours, germany btw is predicted to have the same growth as us this year
And the Pope is Catholic (supposedly) Pete, your point is?
We were predicted to have growth better than ours this year.
what im saying max is probably what you would expect me to say. Which is that it mostly the euros fault we are in the trouble today. Boris johnson does a good job of telling it in todays telegraph.
What we want is an export led recovery. That is good and is to be welomed. However we will not get it while our main trading partner is the the eurozone. This is because it is cheaper to buy produces fro the eurozone countries then it is form british countries, this means we are at a disadvantage becuase german product are of at least the same qualitiy if not better then ours and as theya re chepaer people will buy them. Now if germany had the Mark back british exports would be higher because the pound would be lower.This same principle is why spain portugal italy greece etc are in trouble, yes their products are cheap becuase of the low euro but the germans can do it for cheaper and better. Now in the good old days of the lira etc the currencey would be devaluved so that italian cars for example would actually be cheaper for people to buy as opposed to german cars. So the best way for the crisis to be sloved is for the euro to be broken up. The other way for the Uk to recover wouold be to allow the pound to completelycollapse which would make our exports cheaper but would then bring about other probelms which we dont want.
And any eurozone growth will be downto germany, the latest prediction say that at best the eurozone will grow by 0.1% over the year though most reckon that it will actually decrease by 1-2% over the year. Our 0.6% growth suddenly sounds very good compared to this and the low figure is put down to lack of growth in the eurozone, if there is more growth in the eurozone our gdp will grow.
Now the other way is to concentrate all effortd not of selling to ethe eurozone but selling to india, china braizil russia etc etc and since direct air links seems important and it will be several years till we get either a new runway or airport near london we should think about cutting flight slots to europe and getting BA/Virgin etc etc to fly to the BRICs after all if we need to do business in france or germany we can travel by eurostar quickly and the general public going to spain for he sun can fly from local regonial airports