The Last Ditch by Tom Paine

THE LAST DITCH

I find it amazing too

Published by Tom

on

Britain on the brink of an economic depression, say experts – Telegraph.

Albert Edwards, a strategist at Société Générale, likened the British economy to a Ponzi scheme — a fraudulent debt mountain like that allegedly used by the New York hedge fund manager Bernard Madoff.
“What I find amazing is that people aren’t really nailing Gordon Brown and [Bank of England Governor] Mervyn King for this,” he said. “At least in the US they had the excuse of the arrival of sub-prime — a new sector of the market. We didn’t really have anything similar but we ended up with a bigger national Ponzi scheme than the US.”

If the members of HM Opposition can't "nail" a government of such transparent uselessness what, pray, is the use of them?

5 responses to “I find it amazing too”

  1. Polaris Avatar
    Polaris

    David Cameron and his schoolchums are probably the most ineffective opposition any PM could pray for. Hold the government to account? They are more likely to pass every piece of paper they have to the Police without question…

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  2. Jock Avatar
    Jock

    And what did institutions like SocGen do about it? Not that I am excusing politicians, but the financial community took part in this scheme with gusto. Their rocket scientists continued to push the boundaries and pull at the elastic, presumably, like Albert Edwards, knowing full well that it was likely to snap at some point. Or maybe he only knows this with hindsight?

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  3. Guthrum Avatar
    Guthrum

    We might have to take the Icelandic solution, because the play acting at PMQ’s is getting us nowhere.

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  4. Mike Vine Avatar
    Mike Vine

    What’s the Icelandic solution? Sell your body to the EU because your racked up too much debt?
    Those who took extreme risks are having their day of reckoning. If the monetary system and banking system were deregulated, innocent bystanders would have had a place to park their wealth, but now they are being dragged down too (which is nominally ‘political’ problem in all this). For example, in a deregulated system investors could have their bank accounts denominated in gold at a full-reserve bank – then the only losses would be those reflecting the actual correction of an global speculative bubble.
    I can’t believe a state like Iceland, on its knees and ready to take it in the arse from the whole world, does not even consider free banking and repudiating their debts. I see time and again that politicians will bear any suffering and any ruin to maintain their hold on power.

    http://www.mikevine.com/

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  5. Guthrum Avatar
    Guthrum

    By that I mean throwing a useless PM and Governor of Central Bank out

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Your blogger

Tom is a retired international lawyer. He was a partner in a City of London law firm and spent almost twenty years abroad serving clients from all over the world.

Returning to London on retirement in 2011, he was dismayed to discover how much liberty had been lost in the UK while he was away.

He’s a classical liberal (libertarian, if you must) who, like his illustrious namesake, considers that

“…government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one.”

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