Are the govts excuses really up re: recession?

[Bugz]

BBC NEWS | Business | France and Germany exit recession

We have 'perhaps' hit our down peak - France & Germany are firmly riding the road back to growth.

I attribute this, as does the article, to the fact we have a massive banking sector that is more intense & 'inclusive' to our economy than both F & G. But the poor regulation of this banking sector and the stupidity of the banks themselves shows now more clearly than ever.

This comes in the same weak as unemployment reaches an 16-18 year high. Interestingly, the eurozone as a whole is still struggling, which says to me that F&G have simply managed themselves better than other countries in this recession (a cue to shoot our p.m?)

Thoughts & opinions?

 

[Bahumat]

Asked about why the UK seemed to be lagging behind, Business Secretary Lord Mandelson said: "Different economies will show different patterns of behaviour."

"But the key point is all these economies rely on each other; 55 to 56% of our trade is with the rest of Europe. So when [they are] recovering that is good news for our manufacturers and our exports here."

 

[ECA]

This comes in the same weak as unemployment reaches an 16-18 year high. Interestingly, the eurozone as a whole is still struggling, which says to me that F&G have simply managed themselves better than other countries in this recession (a cue to shoot our p.m?)

Thoughts & opinions?

The welfare state can be thought of as recession cushioning.
When people get laid off they get xxx amount of money and can still buy some services/products.

Germany has even worse debt issues than we do and france has very generous welfare entitlements as a whole.

It's not really surprising, more of a balancing act, and also why the US has been hit the worst because it likes the big ups and downs as opposed to a more stable economy.

 

[Bugz]

It cushions a recession but it will rarely spur a country onto such a quick upturn as F&G have experience in a global recession.

 

[Tom]

It presumes that we entered a recession at the same time as other countries - I don't think that is the case.

 

[ECA]

It cushions a recession but it will rarely spur a country onto such a quick upturn as F&G have experience in a global recession.

It also slows economic growth because it's extra %tax.

They suffer worse growth but also get hit less hard in a recession because less jobs are already filled so less to lose and more money already taken by the govt.

 

[Bugz]

The point is though - this is a global financial-based recession.

Financial induced problems cripple everything; regardless of % of labour force in work or amount of taxation in a country.

The fact two countries have pulled off agendas to get them out of the recession, albeit their growth was minimal before hand, is a extraordinary feat considering we have not met this type of recession before.

 

[ECA]

The point is though - this is a global financial-based recession.

Financial induced problems cripple everything; regardless of % of labour force in work or amount of taxation in a country.

The fact two countries have pulled off agendas to get them out of the recession, albeit their growth was minimal before hand, is a extraordinary feat considering we have not met this type of recession before.

Not really.
You're clueless about the cause of the problem, why it crashed why it got fixed and why certain countries were more/less affected.

 

[Bugz]

I study economics lol.

But if all you can say is 'you're clueless' then you're probably better off out of this thread anyway chum.

 

[leviathane]

i wouldn't really call a growth of 0.3% anything to shout home about, especially in the current condition. Stocks can sway either way. Also the fact that France & Germany aren't so heavily reliant on the US buisness markets really doesn't mean anything in context to UK.

 

[DaGaffer]

Germany and France have a different home ownership culture than the UK as well, far more rental, far less opportunity for bad debt and sub-prime lending. But just because they've had a bit of positive growth doesn't mean France and Germany are out of the woods yet, they've got different structural problems to the UK which may be worse in the long run, particularly France.

The problem the EU has, or rather the Eurozone countries, is that the structure of each indivdual country varies but the flexibility to control interest rates doesn't. So the countries with the largest housing and banking problems, Spain and Ireland, will see interest rates rise because of the larger German and French economies' requirements, even though their economies need long-term low interest rates to stimulate their key engine of growth, construction and property. At least the UK is in charge of its own destiny from that perspective.

 

[Wij]

BBC NEWS | Business | France and Germany exit recession

We have 'perhaps' hit our down peak - France & Germany are firmly riding the road back to growth.

I attribute this, as does the article, to the fact we have a massive banking sector that is more intense & 'inclusive' to our economy than both F & G. But the poor regulation of this banking sector and the stupidity of the banks themselves shows now more clearly than ever.

This comes in the same weak as unemployment reaches an 16-18 year high. Interestingly, the eurozone as a whole is still struggling, which says to me that F&G have simply managed themselves better than other countries in this recession (a cue to shoot our p.m?)

Thoughts & opinions?

If you start to count the hundreds of thousands of paid-for Labour voters on incapacity to get them off the unemployment figures then we reached a 16-18 year high in unemployment a long time ago.

 

[Bugz]

Haha. Probably true.

The thing is - we have 2.3 mill unemployed & apparently 500,000 jobs on offer with initiatives to create more jobs soon.

A large amount of the unemployed are graduates/young school-leavers - I'm guessing companies simply want experience etc. in these hard times. But if they were to be a little less unforgiving and a bit more open with recruitment, if only temporary contracts, we could knock 20% of the unemployed back into employed.

 

[Raven]

That would depend entirely on the scheme. Most are low wage jobs for school leavers and people seeking/being forced to retrain. Most graduates seem to think they have the god given right to walk into a 30k+ starting salary, if they were a little more realistic then they could find work just as easy/hard as anyone else.

Companies themselves do it because they get someone who wants to learn on the cheap, they get contributions towards the training costs and can pay them minimum (or less) wage. From a companies point of view there is no difference between a graduate and a school leaver, if anything the school leaver would be preferential because he can be shaped as they want. Obviously this depends on the degree and the job. For example a social studies degree is only really good for flipping burgers where as something in IT or engineering etc are still useful.

 

[Calaen]

See what Dagaffer said.

The UK still has a problem because every week hundreds of peopel are having hundreds of thousands of pounds written off in a 10 minute sit down, houses are still be lost daily across the coutnry, and the majority of first time buys don't have the 10-20% deposit to take advantage of the cheap houses, which means the banks are not getting alot through the doors.

 

[Aoami]

Conservative Future

 

[taB]

Asked about anything, Business Secretary Lord Mandelson said: "I'm a useless **** and should be shot."

Just making that a little more accurate Bahu

 

[Bahumat]

Thanks Miss
Can I go to toilet now please? *squirms in chair*

 

[Ormorof]

as has been said the rental culture means people have been hit a lot less regarding negative equity etc in those economies and i know france especially has extremely strict lending policies anyway (basically if you dont have money they not going to lend you any)

the idea of spend big tax less is a pretty basic economic principle for a recession but it only works if it filters through the economy, this crisis' spending has been mainly focused on bailing out banks and they arent playing ball (well they are starting to now that their bonuses have been paid) cos basically they were greedy and stupid, and they still are!