: Mon Jun 08, 2009 10:19 pm
anarkik wrote:
Blimey a conservative accountant, who'd have thought it...
(P.S. Don't mention the Thatcherite de-regulation of the City, derivative markets, hedge funds, private equity, arbitrage and speculative bubble blowing and a financial regulation system that happily exchanged its elites with investment banks, with Tory and Labour politicians cheering them on from the sidelines and celebrating their 'wealth generation'. Leading to a financial disaster where despite the principle of 'moral hazard' those ideologues of the free market happily took billions of tax payers money to shore up their ruined institutions and at once illustrated the symbiotic relationship between state and capital. Still i suppose we all have to earn a living somehow...)
Too easy to jump to conclusions, my friend. Just because I damn Brown and Blair for the long-term damage they have done to this country, and Blair for his utter and complete self-interest (you'd never accuse Brown of that) it does not follow that I am an out-and-out Tory. You'd know that if you regularly frequented the Sin Bin, where - inter alia - I have stated I am no fan of Cameron - and I've been at a dinner where he was the principal speaker so I've seen the guy in action - and would be comfortable with a government of all talents containing the likes of e.g. Field, Hoey, Cable, Hague...
You'd also know that I agree entirely with your opinions of those financial "masters of the universe" scumbags who brought disaster on us all. And maybe this did all start with "Big Bang"; but Labour have had twelve years to remedy whatever was deemed to be wrong with the system, yet all Brown & co did was make it far far worse! they ALLOWED those scumbags the freedom to operate; "light touch"? Nice one, Gordon.
And starting with stripping the BoE of its powers to supervise the banking system in 1997 and transferring those powers to one of its many unelected unaccountable and utterly useless quangos - the FSA who completely and utterly failed to understand the very system they were supposed to be "regulating". And that's before they tried to outdo the Tories in cosying up to the financial sector, whose massive tax takes they were happy to trouser even though we can now see much of that tax was paid on illusory profits.
In short, Labour have had over a decade to fix all the things they told us in 1997 were wrong with the system that were all the fault of the big bad Tories. And their track record speaks for itself.
Including creating the environment where the hedge funds and the property companies and the derivatives traders and the banks and everyone else who created the huge speculative bubble were able to borrow and borrow and borrow - and run up the huge debts that our grandchildren and beyond will still be paying off.
Including allowing most of our infrastructure and industrial base to be sold off overseas - could you see the French or Germans, or the Americans, allowing that without a huge fight?
Including replacing common sense experienced supervision of the financial sector with useless useless bureaucratic w@nkers who did not have a clue what they were doing?
Including pouring more and more public money into ever-widening black holes for little if any visible return?
I could go on and on. And yes, I could lay a different raft of charges at the previous Tory administration's door - and have been seen to do just that.
So do me a favour and don't automatically ascribe to me views that I may well not hold?
