When Labour came to power on the 2nd of May 1997, the FTSE 100 London share index stood at 4455.60. Today, eleven and a half years later, it closed at 3874.99. In July the £ stood at 2$, today it closed at $1.47. Just over a year ago the £ stood at 242 Yen, today it closed at 137 Yen.
This is not surprising as Gordon Brown is in the process of bankrupting UK PLC and has made no secret of it. He is going to borrow borrow borrow like there is no tomorrow because he knows it will be a Conservative Government that will pick up the bill in 2010. The markets are acting accordingly and the Country will sufer even more because of this man and his economic incompetence.
This is the man who sold off our gold reserves at a rock bottom price, announcing it to the world causing the price to fall further at the prospect of gold flooding the market before it was sold.
This is the man who said no more boom and bust and gave us exactly that.
This is the man who made great play of prudence and fiscal rules and then broke every one in the book.
This is the man who said only borrow to invest and is doing exactly the opposite.
This is the man who has led the UK to record levels of government and personal debt.
This is the man who took away the Bank of England's ability to regulate the High Street Banks which could have stopped the banking crisis.
This is the man who has raised the level of taxation to record levels and has drowned small businesses in red tape.
This is the man who has turned a nation of entrepreneurs into a nation of benefit claimants.
This is the man who put nothing aside during the economic good times.
This is the man whose answer to his maxing out the UK's Credit Card is to open up a new one.
This is the man who claims he is an economic expert and is the right person to lead us through a recession, which thanks to him the UK is worst placed to deal with than any other major industrialised nation.
This is the man who refuses to reap what he has sown by continually deferring the difficult decisions that need to be made to put the Country on the economic straight and narrow with his mantra of borrow more and spend more.
This is the man who next week will give us unaffordable tax cuts by adding to the debt for future generations.
This is the man who refuses to accept an iota of responsibility for the mess we are in but took all the credit during the better years.
This is Gordon Brown. He can fool the public and the media some of the time, but he can not fool the markets and he will never fool me!
The chart at the top is the average annual stock market performance during the terms of all British Prime Ministers since 1902. Mr Brown is truely in a league of his own.
6 comments:
The chart is probably being kind to Gordon Brown. There has been a 10% drop in the FTSE since it was compiled including over a 2% drop today.
The FTSE closed at 3780.96 today.
It closed at 4171.25 today. Can't think why it's about 400 points (10%) up since Friday, got any ideas?
The FTSE100 is a single measure with a couple of flaws as some kind of absolute mark of a PM's performance anyway. Firstly, it only shows the price of the 100 largest companies that are public. That means it says nothing on its own about the state of SMEs or privately owned companies.
It also includes as a major component some major international commodity-based companies - Shell, BP, Rio Tinto, AngloAmerica, Xstrata... As they are all larger by market cap than the average FTSE company, they have a larger effect on the FTSE100 figure, and so a fall in the price of oil combined with a global reduction in demand for raw materials would have a wider effect.
Finally, the stockmarket does not exist in a national bubble - the UK economy is interlinked fast to that of Europe and the USA. The Dow has lost about 5,000 points on it's position a year ago - about 35% down. The CAC has lost about 35% in a year. The Dax is 40% down. Similarly, the Hang Seng, Nikkei and Bombay BSE have all lost around half of their values in 12 months.
In context, the FTSE has dropped the same amount or less than most major stock indices. If the FTSE was falling on its own, or harder, you may have a point.
And as for the currency? All currencies are falling against the yen and the dollar. The Australian Dollar is falling just as fast as the Pound, and yet they have a budget surplus, so perhaps it's not simply about government finance...
Anyways, I can see that you are very good at telling us what you think is wrong. But what is the solution then? If it's simply 'get rid of Brown', I think that it's missing some vital details...
Owen, I typed a long reply and Blogger would not publish it. I may try later but the gist was Obama's Treasury team being announced which rallied the Dow on Friday and the rest followed on Monday, the Pound being at it's lowest trade index rating since 95, deflation not the issue but inflation and the £ falling against the HK$/RMB/Euro where most of our imports come from, and short term pre-election bribes from Labour which may cause a prolonged and W recession as well as a £1 trillion debt bombshell as opposed to long term stability and living within our means under the Conservatites.
So what is the actual solution then? If it is not to reduce taxes in the short term to provide a boost to the economy, giving some relief to small businesses and putting more money in the pockets of the low-medium income households, what is it? I've seen nothing from you, and little from Cameron and Osborne that is an actual realistic alternative.
Yes, we will probably have debt to pay off - mind you, we've been in a far worse position in terms of debt/GDP than we are now. The question is whether it is better to act now, in concert with the USA and other nations, to mitigate the global recession or whether it is better to take a laissez-faire path and just watch from the sidelines.
Besides, it's odd that the usually more proudly patriotic Tories are doing their best to talk up the chances of a worse time for the UK. It's almost as if you guys are wishing for a really bad depression.
Is there a limit as to how many words one can post in these comments on Blogger? I just wrote a Budget for Owen and it wouldn't publish!
I will do an article on what I would do another time.
You could always make it an actual post.
Perhaps also write it out on notepad or Word first so it doesn't get lost.
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