Lord Mandelson: 'The banks are fucked, we're fucked, the country's fucked.'

[Subdivisions]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/jan/19/economy-banking">Labour stakes its reputation on second gamble

As the Treasury last night finalised its second sweeping banking revival package in three months, Downing Street was preparing to go on the offensive, justifying the package not as a bail-out for the banks, but an attempt to protect companies and families trying to secure a mortgage. The £200bn insurance scheme is not for the culpable banks, but for their innocent customers, ministers will say.

The tone towards the banks is becoming more aggressive. Gordon Brown and a phalanx of ministers will say they share the frustration of the public at the irresponsibility of past lending practices, the slowness with which they have revealed their debts and their stubborn refusal in the past few months to release credit

-snip-

Privately, something close to desperation is starting to develop inside government. After watching the slide in bank shares on Friday, one cabinet minister did not altogether joke when he said: "The banks are fucked, we're fucked, the country's fucked."

-snip-

Referring to the banks, he said: "What they've got themselves into is so complex technically, so challenging that nobody responsible would say that this is all that needs to be done in order to put right what has gone wrong. "It's going to take more time, it's going to take more ingenuity."

-snip-

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/jan/19/economy-banking">MORE »

More:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/iainmartin/4295219/Gordon-Brown-brings-Britain-to-the-edge-of-bankruptcy.html">Gordon Brown Brings Britain to the Edge of Bankruptcy

[arcadian]

1. Holy Jesus Fucking Christ! Lord Mandelson said that?!?!?

Who is Lord Mandelson? :D

Sorry, at least I kicked it. :evilgrin:

[Subdivisions]

2. Here's more on Lord Mandelson:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/oct/13/mandelson-lords1

Saw you were at the Washington Monument on Tuesday. I was also there. Did you have a good time?

[arcadian]

10. Yeah, I really did.

Went to the Lincoln Memorial on Sunday. Only stayed for Denzel and Bruce though. If I had known U2 was going to be playing I would have stayed longer, but I had to walk back to Virginia so... I also saw Obama at Blair house. Then on MLK Day went to Protests at Dupont Circle, Whitehouse and Union Station. Then Inauguration Day at the washington Monument again. I thought it was pretty awesome.
Where were you during the swearing in?

[Subdivisions]

13. I was also at the Washington Monument =)

[arcadian]

18. Dang. Wish we could have hooked up.

I was on the northwest side almost up against the rail. The side closest the Lincoln Memorial. I yelled for Bush to go back to Texas after Obama was sworn in.

[tjwash]

3. That's right pal...if lord manashevitz said it, then that settles it.

[arcadian]

8. I wish you had called me "pallie". Like they do on "The Young Ones"

:P

[Gregorian]

16. OMG now you've done it! I had to go find this. It's the greatest.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LBPiuq6EMU

And so very appropriate for the subject.

[tom_paine]

32. That reminds me of a funny story from when I was in the service

(this was long before "The Young Ones" came out)

My best friend in the USAF was a good ol' Southern Guy from Tennessee. He was VERY good-natured and useed to call almost everyone "pallie" in that down-home accent of his.

One day we were waiting in a particularly long Chow Hall line and chatting it up. In front of us, some guy was bitching about something

My friend (who shall remain nameless on a public forum), in his good-natured way said something like, "It's not as bad as you think, pallie. It's going to be OK."

Or something like that. It's been a long time.

The next exchange, though, is burned into my memory because I laughed my ass off.

The troop he was talking to turned back to him and said, "Don't call me 'pallie'. I'm not your pallie."

My friend flashed his a mischevous smile, and then emphasizing it humorously in a way that probably isn't possible with a Yankee accent, replied, "OK, buddy."

:rofl:

I laughed my ass of then, I am laughing just thinking about it.

My friend died way too young in an accident. So, when I hear the word "pallie", I always think of him, his good-natured amiability that was in no way soft-hearted gullibility, and what he would be like if he were alive today.

[hay rick]

11. man o man o

manischewitz

[Boudica the Lyoness]

4. I was talking to my dad in the UK today.

He said pretty much the same thing. Then he joked that he had more money now than the banks have.

[whistle]

5. Does this mark the end of the British Empire?

[Deja Q]

17. Their empire ended by the end of the 19th century...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Empire

Ours is unraveling and the US Empire may end within the next decade.

Now, since the UK Empire's demise, had it thrown them back into the dark ages? No.

Doesn't mean that gloomy concept will happen to the US.

[Art_from_Ark]

23. Are you sure "their empire ended by the end of the 19th century"?

Are you REALLY sure about that?

[LeftishBrit]

30. No, the British Empire mostly ended just after WW2.

It was at its height at the end of the 19th century.

[seemslikeadream]

6. 'The banks are fucked, we're fucked, the country's fucked.'

That's correct

[leftstreet]

7. RIP Capitalism

Buh-bye

[OnceUponTimeOnTheNet]

15. Cannibalistic Capitalism gone Global.

[Kaleko]

9. Recommended for strong language.

:)

[Rosa Luxemburg]

12. it is not Gordon Brown's fault

B-liar

[Ex Lurker]

22. Brown was Chancellor of The Exchequer, the British equivalent of

our Treasury Secretary. This happened on his watch.

[Name removed]

14. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[depakid]

19. Thank you- quoting the Torygraph blaming Gordon Brown is parochial

He's trying hard to contain and fix other peoples' messes.

If he succeeds, Labor retains control.

If he doesn't, conservatives take control in 2010. Now there's a beauty prospect.

[muriel_volestrangler]

24. You call it 'parochial', but it's just what Engdahl says too

"Notably, the man who personally implemented Thatcherite financial market reforms and deregulation during the era of Tony Blair in Britain was Gordon Brown, then Treasury Secretary."

That was for 10 years - 1997 to 2007. And then he became PM. A lot of the mess did happen during the past 12 years. To say he spent the 12 years trying to fix the previous 'mess' would be wrong.

For instance, here he is in 2005, with a description of what he likes about the financial markets in Britain:

Like you I want a Britain that is a leader in the world's fastest growing, most wealth-creating sectors at the cutting edge of global advance – in capital markets and financial services; in science and innovation; in creativity and enterprise; in skills and education.

More than ever, as we have discovered, in one of the most challenging years for the global economy, the foundation for growth is economic stability. We know that in a global economy investment flows to the stable economies and away from the volatile. So when I present my Pre-Budget Report on Monday, I will show how Britain has taken long-term decisions on monetary and fiscal policy and moved from being one of the stop-go economies of the world to one of the most stable.

Under our monetary and fiscal regime we will maintain low inflation, low public debt and a long-term commitment to strong fiscal discipline. And nothing we do will endanger that position.

Upon our foundation of stability, Britain can become the location of choice and the place to do business. Take financial services and capital markets: today Britain exports twice as much in business services as we import and four times as much in financial services.

And I want to congratulate businesses here on their drive, global competitiveness and innovation which have made the City of London alongside New York the leading financial centres of the world - London, the world’s largest foreign exchange market, the largest foreign equity market, the largest bond market - London's success born not out of serving a large domestic economy, but on winning the lion’s share of international business.

I want us to build on our advantages - your talent for innovation, the critical mass of skills now in London, our openness to the world including our deepening links with China and India, a unique combination of language, time zone and a legal system that makes English law the law of choice for international contracts. And now the determination of the financial services authority to extend their risk-based approach of financial regulation that is both a light touch and a limited touch.

All strengths that we wish to develop so that we become the preferred international marketplace not just for European companies but also for growing Chinese, Indian and other companies and the multinational headquarters of choice.

http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/speech_chex_021205.htm

So in 2005 he was praising to the skies the 'innovation' in financial markets, that was increasing all the trade in the City of London. That's all those default swaps and debt bundles. And he wanted regulation with a lighter, more limited touch than there was in 2005. And as far as he was concerned. all that was 'wealth-creating'.

In prices adjusted for overall inflation, the average UK house price in Q3 1997 was £82,590. 10 years later, that peaked at £191,490 (+132%; 8.8% growth above inflation every year Brown was Chancellor); in the next 32 quarters that has dropped to £174,514 (down 8.9%; that's the latest figure, for Q2 2008, and they've continued dropping after that). In absolute terms, house prices more than tripled in that time. That was a huge bubble. He did nothing about it.

[depakid]

27. Yeah, you're right about that

Yet is David Cameron any better?

Or are the Tories likely to make matters worse?

David Cameron blames Gordon Brown and big government for recession

David Cameron will declare this afternoon that the recession has "hammered the final nail in the coffin" of big government as he blames Gordon Brown for helping create the financial crisis by running up too much public debt.

More: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/jan/22/davidcameron-gordonbrown

To me, this sounds an awful lot like a retread of Bush's "compassionate" conservatism.

With the Liberal Dems being the much more powerful and representative equivalent of the American Greens.

Am I off base here?

[muriel_volestrangler]

28. You're pretty much right about that

No, I don't think Cameron would be likely to be any better, and he probably would have been just as enthusiastically hands-off from the financial markets had the Tories been in power.

The Lib Dems are traditionally a centre party - but the New Labour leadership leapfrogged over them from the left to the right, while the Lib Dems stayed roughly where they were, so their leadership is now more left than either of the big 2 parties (though some backbench Labour MPs are still to the left of them). They've also tended to be sensible and realistic recently - they didn't want to attack Iraq, and their finance spokesman, Vince Cable (who use to be Shell's chief economist) has spotted the problems in the economy earlier than either of his equivalents in Labour or the Conservatives.

But while he has a fairly good approval rating in polls, the Lib Dems overall aren't taken seriously enough by the electorate. We (I count myself as a supporter) live in hope of a hung Parliament, which would force one of the parties to form a coalition government with the Lib Dems. Though that may involve selling the party's soul.

[KoKo]

20. Tony Blair and BUSH II brought Great Britain to Bankruptcy! Let's let the blame go where it Should!

Blaming Brown for his Complicity with Blair might seem fair on one hand...but we still know it was Bush/Blair who held hands and JUMPED us into this Cess Pool. Great Britain like America doesn't have Manufacturing...they let it all go to the "Third World" while they hoped "GB" and America would become the Worlds Banking Capitols using internet technology and breaking Labor to achieve this...and they crashed and burned in their Globalist FREE TRADE IDEAS! They depended on China, Saudi Arabia, Dubai to prop them up...and look at what it got them. WORLD MELT DOWN! Yet...they go free? :shrug:

[Johonny]

21. You imagine in Queen II

The Queen will take him in the back room and beat the crap out of him.

[sammym3]

25. Still, no one here or in the UK is asking or answering this question:

Where the hell did the money go? If the banks don't have it, the people don't have it, businesses don't have it and the government doesn't have it...who the hell has it? Follow the dots to the folks who controlled the money banking systems. The money has to be somewhere. Find out who is NOT complaining and we probably find out where the monoey went.

[leftstreet]

26. So who's not complaining?

:shrug:

[Greyhound]

29. Who runs and owns most of the central banks, including ours? n/t

[tom_paine]

33. But...but...don't you know? American Toady M$M told us that money "vanished".

And if the American M$M says it, it HAS to be true!

:rofl:

[Odin2005]

34. The money simply disappears if debt is defaulted on.

That is the essence of Deflation, the shrinkage of the money supply. The banks were trading around trillions of dollars worth of what turned out to be little more then hallucinated wealth that didn't really exist.

Read up on some economics before you start BS conspiracy theories.

[LeftishBrit]

31. Don't take the second article seriously; it's from the 'Torygraph'

30 years of Thatcherite economic policies, continued by New Labour, have led to a lot of this mess: of course, it's a world problem, but building up Big Money at the expense of industry; letting the banks and big business run roughshod over the country; and excessive privatization have all made us much more vulnerable.