Today’s interview by Evan Davis of Ed Balls did neither of them any credit. Davis failed to get Balls to reveal what his actual plans are for the economy and how much they will cost in borrowing, and Balls ignored all the questions and ploughed on battering us over the head with his ‘Plan B’……or ‘Going For Broke’ as you might like to call it.
Nick Robinson @bbcnickrobinson
Think it’s time someone arranged for a re-match in which @edballsmp interviews @EvanHD. One for Children in Need if not @BBCr4?!
Davis became so frustrated that he almost lost his temper at one stage…though he did get a small ‘Grrrgh!’ out of Balls when Davis stated the obvious…that Balls’ plans for more borrowing would merely burden future generations with debt….so why not try monetary policy first?
David Smith @dsmitheconomics
‘I think Ed Balls might be advised to steer clear of Evan Davis for future Today interviews. And Ed needs to brush up on the 1930s’
Balls of course would have none of it…..he had his story and he was sticking to it….the Coalition’s ‘fiscal crunch’ had choked off the economy and growth, monetary policy and liquidity weren’t the answer……because they didn’t answer the fundamental problem…which is…lack of confidence in the future economy by the public and businesses.
Lack of confidence might be a problem…along with lack of cash….but you could ask who caused the confidence shortfall in the first place?
Apart from the BBC itself contributing to the atmosphere of doom and gloom (see also the recent survey on the NHS which bore little relation to the real state of the Service and claimed everyone was deeply worried about it….likely due to the BBC’s relentless doom mongering about the NHS) could it be one E. Balls Esq who likes to shout from the roof tops that we are ‘doomed, all doomed’……
“These are the darkest, most dangerous times for the global economy in my lifetime. Our country – the whole of the world – is facing a threat that most of us only have ever read about in the history books – a lost decade of economic stagnation.”
He said: “This is not a crisis of debt as the government claims, which can be solved country by country, by austerity, cuts and retrenchment, but truly a global growth crisis which is deepening and becoming more dangerous by the day.”
or this….
Ed Balls: ‘Lost decade’ for economy looms if George Osborne fails to act
Shadow chancellor warns of Japanese-style stagnation without plan for jobs and growth.
The British economy risks being plunged into a lost decade of Japanese-style stagnation unless the government tempers its austerity drive with a plan for jobs and growth, Ed Balls warns today.
Iain @Iain_31
Ed Balls really needs to stop smirking with saying the country is in recession
As well as using Japan as a ‘gold standard’ example of why austerity doesn’t work he harks back to the 1930’s to claim we spent our way out of the Depression.
Firstly Japan spent billions to try and dig its way out of recession and famously failed. Secondly Britain implemented far more swingeing ‘cuts’ in the 1930’s than we have now at present…and only began tax cuts when the economy was on a firmer footing.
‘Myths about the 1930s abound and not just among Labour politicians. Ed Miliband and Ed Balls join many historians, filmmakers, and novelists in wrongly painting Thirties Britain as a
universally hopeless, destitute place, rendered poor and miserable by a heartless, Conservative-dominated National Government. The mood was depressing indeed in 1931, but the economic data is decisive: by the middle of the decade, recovery had come and in much of the country an unrivalled boom was underway.’
‘The cuts of autumn 1931, which were far more immediately fierce than anything put through by the Coalition today. They were felt particularly harshly by ratings in the Royal Navy, some of whom were told they would receive pay cuts of 25%. A few days after the Budget, the North Atlantic Fleet anchored at Invergordon refused to muster.’
‘[The policies] enabled the Bank of England, the commercial banks and building societies to embark on a “cheap money” policy which would henceforth underpin the economic recovery.’
Some lessons from the 30’s…..
First, to stabilize the public finances.
Second, to ensure cheap money was available for
investment by households and businesses to underpin a
recovery.
Third, to reduce taxes, especially on those with low incomes
and families, once it was safe to do so.
‘This was a sort of proto-Thatcherism, ahead of its time.’
So first…Austerity and balancing the books, then cheap money….today Osborne announced just that, then when economy is recovering some tax cuts.
So pretty much as is occurring.
Now Evan Davis, and nearly all in the BBC who comment on finance also claim Japan was a ‘victim’ of Austerity…not only that but here you can hear Davis going along with Balls and his description of the 1930’s policy…..only trick they missed was to mention the USA and the ‘New Deal’…..but Americas massive spending programme didn’t work in reality…the war saved the US.
Both Balls and the BBC experts, such as Stephanie Flanders, like to say that Britain is not a safe haven, that we would not lose the valued triple A credit rating that allows us to borrow money cheaply if we decided to kick over the traces and start borrowing massively in the style of Gordon Brown again…..not so says….‘Senior German and EU officials [who] have expressed concern that the Socialist policies will bring market turbulence to France and increase French borrowing costs, threatening the country’s long-term credit rating.
“France needs its AAA or else the euro cannot bear the debt burden. Germany cannot do it alone,” said a eurozone official.’
And: John Cridland, the CBI director general, said: “Labour has form spending money it does not really have.”
Just how much is Balls really against the Coalition cuts?
“No matter how much we dislike particular Tory sending cuts or tax rises we cannot make promises now to reverse them.” He added: “I won’t do that and neither will any of my shadow cabinet colleagues.”
Perhaps his attitude informs the Public when they come to assess his character as a ‘untrustworthy opportunist’
or indeed what the Boss of Biased BBC says about Balls:
David Vance @DVATW
Ed Balls praising Eurozone growth and damning UK economy. He has no shame and demonstrates why Labour are unfit to EVER govern our country
And it would seem that even inside the Labour Party ‘machine’ austerity is order of the day:
From: Iain_McNicol
Subject: *Confidential: Message from General Secretary
Date: 14 June 2012 14:17:58 GMT+01:00
To: All_Staff
14th June 2012
In November, I announced a new structure designed to modernise our organisation and address the issues raised through the review. Each of the Executive Directors reporting to me has been asked to work on plans to optimise our organisation, in order to make us more efficient, refocus and re-energise our work in critical areas and to strengthen and professionalise our operations.
All of this must, however, be achieved against a backdrop of the financial challenge we are all familiar with.
The objective of all of us is that the Party should be a “one term opposition”.
To achieve this we need to make changes which are sometimes painful but necessary like those I’ve described above. I know this is not easy, but if we are to show people we are serious about cutting the debts of the country then we must also cut the debts of The Labour Party.
However Balls does have at least one fan….
@ElliottClarkson @ElliottClarkson
Ed Balls is right. Throwing money at banks doesn’t work. I stood outside Natwest throwing 2p coins at the window and now I have an ASBO.
But what to make of this?…..
‘A female contemporary of Mr Balls at Keble said: ‘Eddie was always very ambitious, and he was hardly a sex magnet so I can’t remember him having any interesting girlfriends.‘
Ouch…bit rough on poor old Steph Flanders!
Shame the BBC can’t find the time or inclination to ‘fisk’ Balls properly…however as Guido says of their Leveson coverage….‘If you have been watching BBC news or reading the Guardian you would think that Brown’s testimony was proven and Rupert Murdoch had made up the whole claim about Brown “declaring war”.’ They clearly have their own little agenda which doesn’t include a Coalition Government lasting any longer than necessary.
Epic post in both senses 😉
Nice to see that you pointed out the so called “austerity” measures being carried out by the Labour party. Obviously they cannot trust themselves to borrow their way out of debt for their own members. Ergo we have to cut jobs.
Funny how Labour is prudent with its own money!
Aint it.
Great post Alan.
Why the hell don`t the BBC ever do any background on Balls and his years of malevolent bluster?
Or is being Labours monkey enough-as if he and Broon had nothing whatsoever to do withe the omnishambles of an economy that the (admittedly useless Tories) inherited?
Why do I bother to ask-1997-2010 would be Thatchers second Reich I suppose?
To be fair to Davis, he provided a little more carpet burn for Balls….he wasn`t the Axminster weave for New Labour that he usually is.
Hardly Robin Day…but let`s be grateful for small mercies.
Anyway-Balls is a clapped out liar, who reveals himself to the intelligent remnant that persist with Radio4, as the man who makes Labour unelectable…surely to Allah!
‘A clapped out liar’. Xlnt. A worthy epitaph to an utter failure of a politician who has only been kept alive by regular BBC transfusions, & even some beeboid doctors are wondering if it might be kinder to withdraw treatment. Neuroscientists are in agreement as to the source of Balls’s illness, undoubtedly it stems from his exposure to the Ox/PPE superbug. Sadly, he’s not alone. Or in a shack on South Georgia with nothing to play with but an abacus.
Doesn’t the beeb ever admit that borrowing is still going up? How much more fiscal stimulus is needed before total collapse takes over?
‘Balls and the BBC experts, such as Stephanie Flanders
Helen Baoden’s next ‘The Editor’s’ outing, and her oral for the DG interview near writes itself.
I would make Boaden favourite for top job. Her constant refusal and denial of any political bias makes her an ideal stonewall defender of the party.
I say party because that’s what it is, a politicised beast that will never be out of power.
The problem is in part, that Ed is right. Austerity doesn’t work. The problem is that spend spend spend doesn’t work either.
The reason comes back to the major problem. Debt. The BBC still pushes, on occasions, debt = deficit.
However, their ‘debt’ is just borrowing. All the other debts such as PFI, pensions nuclear decommissioning are left off. Paid for up front, for the payments later, or part of a contract of employment by any accounting standard they are debts.
So your pro rata share of the lot is 230,000 pounds, if you are a tax payer. Others aren’t paying anyway.
So with median wage at 26,000, you can tell that neither austerity or spending is going to work.
That leaves one thing only, defaulting, in full or part on the debts.
Well explained Nick…and a correct analysis I`m sure.
That the BBC seems to think that nothing Labour did between 1997 and 2010 is what gets me so angry-their selective amnesia on behalf of their liberal leftie friends is so bleeding obvious these days that many of us feel like the boy in the Emperors Parade.
He`s got no clothes…mo mind, no brain, no memory, no idea of what to ask, no history-and getting puce in the face as they pick my pockets and tell me I`m a deluded nutter.
The BBC not only insist on making up their own history for us, despite us being there(Punk Britannia-the pioneering Slits-really?…bottled off for not being able to play supporting the Clash every night more like!)…but are busy making it now( the brilliant hilarity of Tony Banks and Stephen Pound…both Labour creeps and creatures).
Utterly transparent in their agenda the BBC. and the scorn and contempt for this obvious Socialist State in exile, and its mouthpiece and ciphers; gets bigger, more threatening to them by the day…
Which is why I’d like to have seen them win the last election. They didn’t want to win the last election because they knew there was no cash left. They absolutely had to drop it on someone else.
Had they won it they would have been left holding the baby and then we’d have seen them really have to walk their own walk because there would have been nowhere for them to hide.
‘[The policies] enabled the Bank of England, the commercial banks and building societies to embark on a “cheap money” policy which would henceforth underpin the economic recovery.’
==============
Now to paraphrase this statement.
We’ve put in place policies that mean the banks are forced to loan to the government at low rates, to keep the ponzi going.
Actually…He meant…and said…do read it….that with cheap money private businesses built houses and infrastructure whilst the public could afford the cheap mortgages to buy cheap housing…and fill them with modern applianaces and comforts using cheap credit….which was more regulated and controlled in the 1930’s unlike the Brownian free for all that Labour unleashed.
If you can’t be bothered to read the report look at Guido’s who sums it up in one graph:
http://order-order.com/2012/06/16/gdp-growth-was-higher-in-the-1930s/?tw_p=twt
It’s as if Greece was a figment.
It’s a photo finish as to who is more deluded, Ballsed up Balls or the Ballsed up BBC.
The BBC and our rulers have their heads in the sand about whats happening. If there not careful they will have their throats cut.
The BBC is like the UK in miniature except their income stream is guaranteed and is thus not a Ponzi scheme.
And like the country they have an enormous pension scheme deficit which they address by 20% cuts in programming.
This enables them this year to discreetly divert £1b of licence fee money into the struggling scheme.
Top notch report, Alan. Great stuff!
Reckon the IMF’s Christine Lagarde recently craftily said it all about Ballsup’s brain and where another Liebour win in 2010 would’ve left the UK by now….”It makes me shudder”.
You know how the BBC (particularly Newsnight) are usually ‘all over’ reports from independent universities that provide and insight into the economy and employment – you know, the sort of thing that would have Paul Mason or Allegra Stratton all of a lather, pontificating and displaying their towering intellect.
Well here’s one (from the LSE of all people) that you won’t be seeing on the BBC anytime soon. This report, which has probably already been filed in Newsnight’s WPB, shows the effect that large scale Public Sector employment has on local labour markets and how it eventually crowds out and suffocates wealth and job creation.
Click to access sercdp0111.pdf
It’s nicely summed up by the Speccie’s Fraser Nelson, below, if you would like to read a brief analysis. No doubt, Ed (Mr Denial) Balls won’t be bothering.
http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/politics/2012/june/how-not-to-create-jobs
Yes, I well remember an interview with businessmen in the ‘North’ who said that they could not get the best people as they were being snapped up by the Public Sector….which might indicate that all the talk about how badly off the Public Sector employees are is somewhat misleading if they choose to work there rather than in manufacturing or other commercial sectors.
UK’s political class, inc BBC-NUJ, is very reluctant to indicate case for reductions in spending by E.U.
“Now the EU is wasting your money on propaganda for suicide bombers. Slash its bloated budget NOW.”
By James Slack
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2159211/Now-EU-wasting-money-propaganda-suicide-bombers-Slash-bloated-budget-NOW.html#ixzz1y2VyZCfg
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