Bubble bursts for UK Housing (worldwide): the biggest bubble ever
Consumption has been supported by house equity withdrawals and by Brown's public spending binge. Both are coming to the end of their availability, and consumption is likely to slow down brutally, as has been visible in recent months, with GPD growth correspondingly hit. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
I haven't gotten into the issue of deficits, and how their effects change as time passes, but you've touched on it here. Brown is, obviously, not going to be able to continue it much longer, nor do I think he should. (Then again, I thought Bush's deficits would surely bring about a collapse.) Deficit spending should always be a very short-term policy.
The outlook, even among those who are most pessimistic about the British economy, does seem to have improved somewhat. (Even the Item's Club agrees, though cautiously.)
But I do agree that Brown has probably reached a point where beginning a deficit reduction program would do more good than harm. If the BBC is correct, and job vacancies will open at strong rates next year, then there's really no point in hiring massive numbers of people in government.
I would certainly caution Brown against tax increases. Any idea what the savings rate is in Britain? Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. - George Carlin
The US housing market appears to be on a similar cycle, with peaks and troughs happening almost at the same time, but the oscillations are shallower.
Maybe in the last business cycle the Fed and the BoE have forced the machine a little bit. Will the next cycle be even longer and deeper? guaranteed to evoke a violent reaction from police is to challenge their right to "define the situation." --- David Graeber citing Marc Cooper
On some level, spending is spending is spending. But it's clearly more advisable to spend on, say, infrastructure rather than on massive military buildup. Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. - George Carlin
Over the long term, military assest purchase are negative-sum (it costs money each year to keep them in shape) investments while productive assets are positive-sum investments.
We're currently having a big fight in my hometown, Tallahassee, FL, over a coal plant that's being built in the neighboring county. Tallahassee in a very Democratic city in a very Republican area of the country, and so, naturally, we're not wild about funding a new power plant based on coal. Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. - George Carlin
