“It's not their money, they don't give a ****!

I bet there's a backhander in it for the conservative ****”

“Nowhere Dave, unlike the EU it's a book keeping loan not a payment nor gift and has a zero effect on the nation's balance sheet. On the one side the IMF could remind us of the support we needed when on our knees in the 1970's; on the other, if a wise old'un like you doesn't understand it, hardly surprising that most of the country doesn't either, ie yet another own goal.”

“I think it's a mistake to prop up the euro further whether its via the IMF or not. It will be real money once its swallowed by Greece as is likely. I don't understand the logic or reason Osborne is doing this. As always with this government, there's got to be a self serving method in his madness.”

“I sort of understood it William. It's a bit like our Cabinet LibDems putting £1.8 million in this years budget knowing damn well they won't have to spend it cos they can't firm up any sites until next year. But wow! Don't we look good.

Osborne's announcements a bit different though. We know it's just a paper transaction, but not to those who have lost their jobs, can't get a job, about to have their home repossessed, have just had final reminders for the electric and gas bills, and the bailiffs are marching up the path to take away the tele. Those having to ask the question, should we put on the boiler or shall I pop down the butcher and get a scrag end.

That's the bit that confuses a silly old $od like me William.”

“Oh and by the way deniro2010 I'm a conservative and if you were to refer to me in such a manner as ****! then that's exactly what you'd get, a backhander.”

“It's a bit more than an attempt to look good Dave. Speculators have demonstrated their ability to bring down any currency and this is a desire to show an international determination to support, if necessary, the European Central Bank. If Greece does go under,VV , the consequence in itself would be fairly small, but the knock on realistion that Spain, Portugal and Ireland are fair game would be catastrophic. And i do not use that word lightly, the whole international monetary mechanism with consequent inflation, unemployment, freezing of trade would collapse. It was to avoid this that the IMF was set up in 1944/46.
And the UK with minimal reserves and independent of any other support other than the IMF is not immune.

The Tories seem totally oblivious to the problems of ordinary people, and irrespective of the economic justification together with an insensitive budget and other factors VV, they seem determined to pursue the Thatcher approach. Their salvation seems be a neutered opposition supported by a strident union. What is certain is that the Big Society is a disjointed everyman for himself bigger joke than the deferral of expenditure you referred to Dave.

I am breaking two self imposed rules VV. One is not to get involved in party politics. The other, is to try to stick to the subject. My second relates to your other thread, but brought up by Dave ie that other source of a schism, the poorly handled, little understood ( including by me ) Health Bill. The phrase NHS has the same reaction as the monarchy. However, most European countries have an insurance based system instead of our taxation led system and in my experience it works. Like the NHS you do not pay at the point of delivery, and like the NHS all you do is give your insurance details; the lower paid and those on benefits, unlike the US, are protected. Perhaps when the emotion has settled i may contribute further (i am becoming very irritated with the mindless carping of a few), but in the meantime i am pleased with the progress of the BANES sponsored, non profit making social contract Sirona.”

“On the one hand we're told that we have to cut costs left, right and centre in order to compete with our European neighbours, but on the other we're handing them vast sums of cash to bail out their economies so they can continue to compete with us.

I'm probably being hopelessly naiive here - but wouldn't be it better for everyone if we just eased back on the competition so that our respective economies could recover without the need for the kind of state intervention that the neoliberals so despise?

It is similar to the current obsession with privatisation. The free market, we are told, must always yield the optimal solution. Except when it doesn't, in which event our governments *always* resort to throwing billions of pounds of taxpayers' money at it. It's a dog-eat-dog world - until we run out of dogs, at which point the state inevitably steps in with a centrally-funded welfare programme to feed the few remaining dogs until there's enough of them to start eating each other again. Umm.

Is this capitalism or socialism? I reckon it's capitalism on the good days and socialism when it gets a bit rough.

Our leaders (and I include all three main parties in this) are so ideologically-wedded to the free-market ideas they learned on their Oxford PPE courses that they simply cannot see the complete failure of neoliberalism. They just stick their fingers in their ears and spend more and more of our money trying to resurrect a dead horse.”

“@MoeXXX: "but on the other we're handing them vast sums of cash to bail out their economies so they can continue to compete with us" - or buy from us.”

“Point. Made. Whilst the idea of giving someone money on the offchance they might use it to buy something from me seems to defy all common sense, I often forget money is like an electron - it needs to be moved about constantly to do anything useful.”

“There is a confusion. Increasing the money supply is the monetarist approach to stimulate the economy and is a function of the quantity of money and the velocity of circulation. One of the purposes of the loans to the IMF is to protect the currency against speculation.”