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Politics : Liberalism: Do You Agree We've Had Enough of It? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (83539)	5/6/2010 3:33:36 PM
From: FJB	Respond to of 224749

UK budget deficit 'to surpass Greece's as worst in EU' European commission's spring forecasts put UK budget deficit this year at 12% of GDP – the highest in the European Union and worse than Treasury estimates Katie Allen guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 5 May 2010 16.26 BST guardian.co.uk Whoever wins the election must make sorting out the public finances the top priority, the European commission warned on the eve of the poll, as it predicted the British budget deficit would swell this year to become the biggest in the European Union, overtaking even Greece. The commission's spring economic forecasts put the UK deficit for this calendar year at 12% of GDP, the highest of all 27 EU nations and worse than the Treasury's own forecasts. The country's budget shortfall was the third largest in the EU last year but will overtake both Greece and Ireland this year, according to the forecasts. Greece's measures to tackle its public finances problems are projected to cut its deficit to 9.3% of GDP. Worries about Britain's public finances – in their worst state since the end of the second world war – continue to unnerve financial markets and analysts are divided over whether a hung parliament will have the clout to rapidly reduce the deficit. "The first thing for the new government to do is to agree on a convincing, ambitious programme of fiscal consolidation in order to start to reduce the very high deficit and stabilise the high debt level of the UK," said European economic and monetary affairs commissioner Olli Rehn. "That's by far the first and foremost challenge of the new government. I trust whatever the colour of the government, I hope it will take this measure." The deficit forecasts are an improvement on the commission's last outlook for Britain but they still paint a gloomier picture than the government itself. In financial year terms, the commission's forecasts are for a worse deficit than predicted by Alistair Darling at his March budget. In 2010/11 the commission puts the deficit at 11.5% of GDP, compared with Darling's forecast for an 11.1% ratio of public sector net borrowing – the gap between tax and spending – to GDP. The EU's executive did double its forecast for British growth this year to 1.2% from 0.6%, in line with a March budget forecast for 1-1.5%. But in 2011 it warns growth will only pick up to 2.1%, significantly below a Treasury forecast of 3-3.5%. It described "a slow start to a protracted recovery", highlighting pressures on private consumption, a key growth driver, from employment worries and stagnant wages. Darling pointed out that the commission expected the UK to grow more quickly than other major European countries next year – including Germany, France, Italy, and the Netherlands. "The European commission's report shows again that our judgment call to support the economy was right. Yet again George Osborne's flaky judgment is exposed. The Tories cannot be allowed to derail the recovery," he said. But opposition politicians seized upon the outlook as evidence that a new government was needed to get the economy back on track. "The day before the election the European commission has issued a damning indictment of Gordon Brown's economic record," said shadow chancellor George Osborne, claiming only the Conservatives would start dealing with Britain's debts on Friday. "He has left this country with the largest budget deficit in Europe – larger even than Greece – and projections for future growth well below his own forecasts." Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman Lord Oakeshott said the EU report laid bare government overconfidence. "This shows the government has been far too optimistic," he said. "What matters now is a credible deficit reduction plan backed by the nation. If the Conservatives scrape home with barely a third of the vote and indulge in butchery behind closed doors, that just won't work. That's why the Liberal Democrats call for a council of fiscal stability with all three economic spokesmen, whoever they are, and the governor of the Bank of England to agree a credible deficit reduction plan." Economists warn that if the next UK government drags its feet in reducing the deficit it could spark a downgrade from one or more of the ratings agencies that have been so swift to reassess Greece and Spain's creditworthiness. The commission's forecasts fanned those fears. "From such a large deficit, we suspect that it will be hard for a hung parliament to establish a credible path back to fiscal sustainability," said Michael Saunders, an economist at Citigroup. London-based economists at BNP Paribas, have warned that the City is grossly underestimating the chance of a downgrade from the UK's current top-notch AAA status. They warn that an undecided Britain is heading towards a coalition government that would create distractions from repairing the public finances - something that would raise the chance of a downgrade to almost 50%, compared with a consensus estimate of 10% risk . That, they say, could cost the taxpayer at least £10bn because of higher interest costs on government borrowing.

To: TimF who wrote (83539)	5/25/2010 3:15:30 PM
From: TimF	1 Recommendation Respond to of 224749

Obama's planned remarks at Quincy just as telling By: David Limbaugh Examiner Columnist May 5, 2010 Pundits are making a great deal out of Obama's ad-lib statement during his speech on financial reform in Quincy, Ill., about profits and earnings. But his prepared remarks are just as revealing, even if not obviously so, of his profit aversion and his belief in government control over the private economy. In his prepared remarks, Obama said: "Now, we're not doing this (financial reform) to punish these firms or begrudge success that's fairly earned. We don't want to stop them from fulfilling their responsibility to help grow our economy." But live, he added, among other things, "I do think at a certain point you've made enough money." Let me first address his prepared comments, about which I haven't heard much criticism. He assured us he wasn't pushing the financial reform bill -- his latest socialist (actually, it's closer to fascist, but why pick nits?) monstrosity -- to punish success that's fairly earned. Well, why do you suppose he needs to assure us he's not intending to "punish"? A little subconscious admission perchance? Remember, he protests that he's a fierce advocate of the free market. Remember also that he is allowing the Bush tax cuts -- because they are "tax cuts for the wealthy," who don't pay "their fair share" -- to expire, not to mention the host of other taxes he is imposing on the "rich" -- and many on the rest of Americans, too, despite his pledge not to. Please put aside for now the outrageousness of this ongoing lie designed to divide America by income groups and to win Democratic votes through propaganda and demagoguery. Of course the rich -- especially the top 1 percent, 5 percent and 10 percent -- pay a higher percentage of income taxes than the poor and also pay more in actual taxes, while the bottom half of income earners pay a negligible amount. The point for now is that Obama says he wants to rectify the tax code to make the "wealthy" start paying their fair share, as if they don't already. And you don't need to be Freud to realize his prepared remarks reveal that his true motives include punishment. You just need to have paid attention to his statements and behavior since he bopped onto the national stage. The next noteworthy phrase from his prepared declaration is "fairly earned." Fairly earned? Who is he to say what is fairly earned, unless he's talking about legally earned? But it's obvious he is not. He's talking about his own value judgments. It wouldn't matter so much what he or any other socialist-leaning pol thought about what is fairly earned if he didn't think he had a right, nay, duty to assert some kind of regulatory control over what is fair. But he does think that and is attempting to act on it -- actually has acted on it with TARP companies and beyond. So though it's big of him to assure us that he'll keep his big-government hands off "fairly earned" income, what about what he doesn't think is fairly earned -- according to his values? I can guarantee you that Obama and free marketers will never agree as to what is and isn't fairly earned or when, if ever, it is government's business to insinuate itself into the issue at all. Next, it is doubtful a free marketer would talk about a financial institution's fulfillment of its "responsibility to help grow our economy." Banks are obviously indispensable to economic growth, but they are for-profit institutions that have no duty to operate at losses any more than insurance companies -- though Obama begrudges their profits, too, as he proved in his slanderous onslaught against the entire industry and his distortions about their profitability. Obama's characterization of banks' role in terms of a duty to the collective economy is just more of the same -- an affirmation of his belief that if banks or other businesses are not contributing enough to the economy or whatever else, in his view, it's government's place to step in. Of course it's none of his business as president to pass on whether someone has made too much. But nor is it any president's business to punish the wealthy or to involve himself in whether private-sector firms "fairly earn" their keep. There is one other peculiar thing about Obama's inclusion of all of these remarks in the context of his speech on financial reform -- again, an unintended revelation. Obama has not been promoting this bill as having anything to do with profits, but instead as authorization for the government to step in to superintend the orderly dissolution of firms that are "too big to fail" in order to prevent a cascading effect on the entire financial sector. It is enormously significant that on the stump, he spontaneously talked about profits in a bill that is supposed to have nothing to do with that subject. Obama just can't help himself, whether on or off the teleprompter. washingtonexaminer.com