"IMF Praises UK Solid Growth" - Financial Times

[AlphaBravoHenryFoxtons]

www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d1ef6a62-e26c-11e4-ba33-00144feab7de.html#axzz3XHFlht1X

You don't get better praise than that.

Behind a paywall ha ha ha

Yep, solid growth, like a tumour made up of rich people.

The IMF, as those who think "the workers" did so well under 13-years of a Labour Party - with annual tax rises, 3-5 million new citizens competing for their jobs when 19,000 was the early forecast, 5 million needing social homes by 2010 etc - alas has a short memory and is rather fickle.

From 2010 with the IMF clearly totally oblivious to the incompetent structure of the UK economy full of government waste and still claiming a salary, they were of the opinion that similar to other countries in the recession - that piling bad debt upon bad debt, was the only way out of our huge problems.

In fact it wasn't until around August 2014, that the IMF stopped saying we were on the wrong path.

And then they though we were the 'blueprint' for other countries.

IMF chief's stunning endorsement of the British economy: Christine Lagarde says UK is setting an example to rest of the world during talks with Cameron
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2912493/IMF-chief-s-stunning-endorsement-British-economy-Christine-Lagarde-says-UK-setting-example-rest-world-talks-Cameron.html

• The IMF director delivered a glowing endorsement of the British economy

• Christine Lagarde has called on other countries to look to UK's example

• She cited its record of reducing the deficit and lowering unemployment

• Miss Lagarde said: 'This is exactly the sort of result we would like to see'

• It is an extraordinary volte face on her organisation's previous comments

• In 2013 the Government's austerity measures were criticised by the IMF

So based on that, I wouldn't give a tuppeny feck what the IMF says, as if when making assumptions on the UK economy 5-years forward, they can get the base line so wrong, they'd be better off spinning a bottle. IMO.

You mean the IMF which is responsible for sending Greece into a death spiral and responsible for destroying several economies with its 'restructuring' programs?

In many cases, I would say that governments should do the opposite of what the IMF says and recommends.

The IMF CAN BE USEFUL as it warned the UK Labour government at least 3-times, during a time our Brown/FSA deregulated banks from 1997 were multiplying the annual amounts of their mortgage loans to anyone with a pulse, that UK homes were overvalued by around 20% - but this was pooh poohed by both the Bank of England and Ed Balls in the link below.

Interesting, nay spooky, that when in economic technical terms ‘shit happened’ and there was as external ‘event’, UK home prices DID fall on average around 20%.

Sept 2004: ”Bank of England and IMF on a collision course over house prices”
www.independent.co.uk/news/business/bank-of-england-and-imf-on-a-collision-course-over-house-prices-6160936.html

So the IMF does have a pretty good record seeing when Labour is financially screwing up, and also being big enough to own up in admitting that they screwed up; in not understanding what a good job Osborne was doing in reducing the budget deficit, and at the same time lowering taxes, rebalancing an economy, creating 2 million jobs in 5-years (more than the whole of Europe put together), growing GDP at a higher rate than the other G7 countries – considering the economic/financial/social train-crash he inherited.

In any other country in Europe he’d be a national hero, as if there was a god of fairness, the opposition party that caused that train-crash would STILL be both apologizing and thanking him in for doing what he did, when they OPPOSED every move, so god knows where we’d be e.g. 2 million using food banks?

Also in yesterday's Telegraph (not behind a paywall) not only praise from the IMF but also from Germany's finance minister.

Hope they keep up the good work in the next five years.

Apr 28th 2015: UK Economic Growth slowed for the past quarter – the SAME quarter businesses have been saying they don’t want the massive uncertainties of a anti business Labour administration, whether in coalition or not.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-32493745

”The UK economy grew by 0.3% in the quarter, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said.”

”That compares with 0.6% in the last three months of 2014.”

”The figures, which come nine days before the general election, suggest a "temporary" slowdown in the economy, analysts said.”

”The ONS said the economy was 2.4% larger than the same period a year earlier, meaning it remains the fastest growing economy in the G7.”

”Growth of 0.5% in the services industry was offset by a 1.6% fall in the pace of economic output in construction.”

The first GDP release is called the Preliminary figure, as if memory serves, only around 70% of the data is in, so it is revised a few more times over the next year or so.

But why wouldn’t it reflect the huge political uncertainty of another 2015 UK coalition government, likely to be led by Labour, when businesses remember it was Labour’s 13-year ‘plan’ that unbalanced the economy and stuck in ‘big state’ ideology, were never going to have the answers to re plan.

By 2010 the UK economy under Labour had become significantly unbalanced, manufacturing had halved from 1997, and having the economy having LOST around 7% of GDP (output) from 2008 to early 2009, was seeing the ‘dead cat bounce’ Miliband/Balls were so proud of – helped by the unsustainable growth due to an extra million (mainly non front line) Public Sector jobs that weren’t there in 1997 consuming, and a £157 billion government deficit/overspend – as the Private sector funding them, were shedding hundreds of thousands of jobs.

Whether we could afford it or not, the UK can not go back to that economic model, where we say screw the Private Sector, let ‘the few’ as Labour refers to them suffer – we can create a honking big State where every job is 100% taxpayer funded - and pay all those employment bills and services like the NHS, without them.

That is economic incompetence and it was tried in France over the past 5-years and did not work, as their growth has flat lined and they have nearly twice our unemployment level because of that economic model.

To put a historical context on this, I believe the LAST TIME Labour left the UK economy in a better shape than the economy they inherited, John Wayne had just become a cowboy, ‘around’ 1930. Yee fucking haa!