The Museum Of Modern Thinking

Thanks to James Fletcher, and no thanks to Gordon Brown

I have some non-mortgage debt, mostly for my car, and a kitchen and half a drive and patio. The latter should really go on the mortgage, and moves are afoot to put it there. I’m trying my best to reduce my debt, which is why I read sites like MoneySavingExpert and Get Rich Slowly. I have a budget, I’m making regular payments and following all that pay down your debt advice, e.g. debt snowballing / debt snowflakes / selling my body down the docks, that sort of thing.

That said, even though I have my needs covered, I still have wants:

• more memory for my computer
• Left 4 Dead
• Saints Row 2
• New clothes (I’m dressed like a Marshalsea inmate)
• Iron Man DVD
• etc.

For all this, I still don’t spend - I have a debt to pay off, and that’s my focus. I rely on my weekly budget for small things, trips out to the cinema, and try to keep spending to a minimum. Every now and again I slip, but through cutting down my spending, I make up for it.

So, it is with complete disgust that I read that Gordon Brown borrowing more is the “responsible” thing to do in this Recession. “Borrowing” is simply deferred taxation, and the bill will be paid by us, our children and probably their children as well. Hasn’t he spent enough? This is why we’re in the mess we’re in to start with! Spend, spend, spend, tax, tax, tax - that’s all Gordon Brown knows. He’s not been called the Credit Card Chancellor for a while, but the moniker is still applicable.

You don’t spend your way out of a recession - that Keynesian approach of will not work as it requires the government to have saved some money during the good times, and our government have pissed it away like drunken sailors on whore leave.

I’m amazed that Labour are narrowing the gap on the Tories, can’t people see that Gordon Brown has led this country to the state we are currently in? He should have saved more, as we all should. A general election cannot come soon enough to remove the whole shower.

…or so he’d have you think. The cartoon below is a little more indicative:

I just can’t beleive how he’s being lauded as the saviour of the banking world by our press, foreign press, etc. How dare he lecture the banks for not putting money aside to ride out the bad times when he’s done the same? How dare he reprimand the banks about their off-balance sheet practices when that’s where PPP, PFI and Northern Rock is?

And don’t get me started on him moaning about the £17 billion of City bonuses “swimming around” last year - if the FSA (which Brown set up) had been doing their job, maybe the banks would have been reined in a bit. And bonuses are a perfectly legitimate way of giving people an incentive to work. Ok, so the banks may have gone over the top a bit, but see the previous sentence.

The fact that Gordon Brown has used taxpayers money, my future grandson’s money, to prop up some banks that should be allowed to fail (it’s free market capitalism) is simply disgusting. There’s no such thing as part-nationalisation either, it’s like being “a little pregnant”.

What sickens me is that Gordon Brown is being seen as some sort of hero, he may well go on to win the Glenrothes by-election on the strength of him getting us out of a hole that he put is in - the mind boggles! Also, I’m very suspicious of Robert Peston’s announcements and timing thereof - some have suggested that the banks were talked down so they could be nationalised…

Finally, although the FTSE 100 closed up yesterday, the share prices of the nationalised banks tanked, with RBS losing 20% of its value - why aren’t the media reporting that?

What’s the capital of Iceland?

£2.57 !

Thank you, I’m here all week, try the veal

From The Telegraph about our the UK’s investment in the Icelandic banking industry:

“He vowed to go beyond the action already taken against Landsbanki, one of the Icelandic banks which had its UK assets seized on Wednesday under anti-terrorism laws meant to stop extremist groups laundering money.”

Anti-terrorism laws being used to freeze UK assets of a BANK? Nice one, Gordon. When these laws were passed, I’m sure many sensible people stood and said that they would be abused, and I’m equally sure our esteemed “leaders” said no they won’t. The proof is right there… I hate Labour’s Big Brother-style of Government, and it must end.

But it gets better:

Mr Brown told the BBC: “We are freezing the assets of Icelandic companies in the UK where we can. We will take further action against the Icelandic authorities wherever that is necessary to recover the money.” He has also called on the rest of the world to follow Britain’s “ground-breaking” move to save the banking system. Mr Brown urged other governments to put money into struggling banks and offer similar guarantees to persuade them to resume lending to each other.

Quick, spend your way out of recession! Use terrorism as an excuse to freeze assets!!! Christ, you couldn’t make it up. Gordon Brown is a broken man at the top of a broken party that has wholly ruined Britain.

Note for councils: interest rates offered by banks reflects the risk related with the account. Should have kept the money in the UK, but thanks to John Prescott, councils were allowed to invest where they liked - seeing as they can’t even sort out bin collections, how the hell were they meant to manage investment?

Obviously, I spoke too soon about US Congress rejecting the bailout bill, they went ahead and passed a heavily-amended version, placing the US taxpayer in hock for $700 billion dollars.

As I feared, the UK has followed suit with a £50 billion taxpayer-backed bailout plan. Oh, did I say £50 billion, like Gordon Brown did yesterday? I meant £500 billion, silly me. That bears repeating: £500 BILLION OF TAXPAYER’S MONEY, or £19,320 for each taxpayer in the country - obviously the idle layabouts and scroungers that I’m already paying for don’t have to contribute. It is more than the US bailout; so much for the UK being perfectly placed to weather the storm, according to the useless pair Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling.

What makes it even worse is there was absolutely no debate or discussion as there was in America, it was just announced, dictatorially, yesterday morning after thrashing out a plan through the night. I find I always make my best decisions at 4am in the morning, total genius.

What’s even worse than that is in the first PMQs since the summer, David Cameron and George Osborne failed to land a blow. The government’s decision was not the right one, and it is a waste of taxpayers money, who won’t see anything for their “investment”. When Paulson’s plan was passed in the US, the banks still fell and now he’s going cap in hand for more money! You can’t spend your way out of a recession… Where’s the opposition? Where’s the outrage? Where are the people who should be marching in the street? What the hell is wrong with the British populace? Why the hell are the Conservatives backing this plan? Seriously, I’m not impressed at all with the Conservatives at the moment, and it takes a lot for me to say that.

And on the impottant note: why the hell should the banks be assisted with taxpayer’s money - they’re a business. The last time I looked, that generally meant you took the rough with the smooth, and if you can’t run your business, you go under. And don’t give me that “too big to fail” crap, there’s always someone bigger who can come along, hoover up your assets and carry on your business. It’s free market capitalism, and should be allowed to progress without government interference, but with some sort of watchdog - but not the toothless FSA, who have been completely asleep at the wheel.

I must admit I find some of the stories about bonuses, pay and pay-offs distasteful (apparently there was $34 billion in bonuses sloshing about last year), but I’m sure that’s jealousy in most parts. If I could negotiate a £1 million payoff, I would. That said, AIG’s trip to a spa for a weekend after receving part of $85 billion bailout is equally bad, but it only goes to show that throwing money at a problem is likely to be misused.

Nah, I say let them fail. With the government guaranteeing up to £50,000 of deposits per person (thanks again, taxpayers!), it covers 98% of the money in deposit accounts in the UK. However, the last 2% hold about 50% of all the money, which is an eye-opener. Yet I’m still not jealous of the rich, as one day I wish to be one of them

We’re in a recession, folks. Batten the hatches, cut your expenditures, shop at Aldi, put your all into your job and ride it out - and hope it doesn’t turn into a depression.

Amazingly, the US bail-out “plan” has been rejected. I say amazingly, as I was expecting it to be blindly voted through and then copied over here. I hope the rejection of the plan by Congress will give the government here pause for thought. It’s very pleasing to see Congress act on behalf of the taxpayer, although I do wonder of the representatives would have voted differently if they had not been in an election year.

And obviously, since my last post touching on Northen Rock, us British taxpayers are now going to be saddled with the toxic debt of Bradford and Bingley, at a cost of roughly £50billion - cheers, Gordon

And don’t even get me started on Gordon Brown’s “age of irresponsibilty” comment - he was in charge of the treasury for the last ten years! Admittedly he did not cause the global credit crunch, but he could have practised some of that prudence he always talked about and put some money inside instead of using my great-grandson’s money (nb great-grandson not born yet) to pay us out of this mess!

For a better definition of this mess that Gordon Brown has got us in, the excellent Taxpayers’ Alliance has published a report on Gordon Brown’s economic failure, which makes for sobering (and blood-boiling) reading - can we not have a general election and chuck this bankrupt party out?

Now, courtesy of the Tax Payer’s Alliance, you can find out how much Gordon Brown has screwed over the British tax payer:

Enjoy! Or, like me, be depressed.

Ok, latest update:

Total Savings: 53.25% of monthly income - increase of 19.19% (!)

Total Debt: 9.64 x monthly income - not much of a drop, but my monthly income has reduced slightly

I’m getting a warm glow from having some savings, and it’s led to spending cash as opposed to putting everything on a card - although it does get paid off at the end of the month, I’m weaning myself off the credit

Just a quick heads-up, I’ve added a PayDate Calculator page from which you can download a futility that calculates the number of weeks in a month for budgeting purposes - go and try it!

PS: It’s called a futility because it’s a 68k application that requires a 22mb Microsoft .Net 2.0 Framework installed Still, not a reason to not try it