Neshant wrote:I question whether GDP, inflation and a bunch of other government manufactured statistics are even real to begin with.
The biggest suspect statistic is the BLS (Bureau of Labor Statistics) issued Unemployment rates - U3, U6 and so on. Based on a suspect birth/death model whose assumptions no longer apply as cleanly past the sept 2008 'structural break' point.
Anyway, herez an article that I found highly unsettling. The Great Britain we all know and love so much may not be so great at all, after all (Gasp!).
Forget the Great In Britain
Its fall was inevitable, but the economic crisis will shrink the last pretenses of empire faster than anyone expected.
Anyone else shedding copious tears? Pls join the
shok-manch (shock-munch?)
Read on and weep.....
Even in the decades after it lost its empire, Britain strode the world like a pocket superpower. Its economic strength and cultural heft, its nuclear-backed military might, its
extraordinary relationship with America—all these things
helped this small island nation to punch well above its weight class.
{Letz start with the extraordinary relationship to Amerika bit.....it was poodledom. Unmitigated grin-and-bear GUBO. The IRA was fundraising in usa and ukstan despite teeth-gnashing could do zilch about it. Sure, ukstan did the same to Dilli by sheltering our thugs n terrorists and facilitating their ops. The sharp slap unkil delivered london in the suez crisis was instructive too.}
Now all that is changing as the bills come due on Britain's role in last year's financial meltdown, the rescue of the banks, and the ensuing recession. Suddenly, the sun that once never set on the British Empire is casting long shadows over
what's left of Britain's imperial ambitions, {quaint, eh? Who knew, $hitain still had imperial ambitions left. No, I mean, really.}and the country is having to rethink its role in the world—
perhaps as Little Britain, certainly as a lesser Britain.
This is a watershed moment for the United Kingdom.
{From waterloo to watershed in the twinkling of an eye, eh?}
The country's public debt is soaring, possibly doubling to a record high of 100 percent of GDP over the next five years, according to the International Monetary Fund. The National Institute for Economic and Social Research forecasts that it will
take six years for per capita income to reach early-2008 levels again.
{same per capita in real terms, I surmise. Thats saying something within an overall deflationary scenario when the inflation rate is net negative only}
The effects will cascade across government. Budgets will be slashed at the Ministry of Defense and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, affecting Britain's ability to project power, hard and soft.
{Why not cost-cutting at the BBC? Now, I am disappointed}
And there's little that can be done to reverse the trend,
{Haye! Gimme a fresh fresh towel please..... } either by Prime Minister Gordon Brown or by the incoming government of David Cameron's Conservatives, assuming they win a general election that must be held within the next 10 months.
As William Hague, Cameron's deputy and shadow foreign secretary, said in a recent speech: "It will become more difficult over time for Britain to exert on world affairs the influence which we are used to."
{Hurrah. Not all is lost. The classic Brit art of understatement survives!}
Abbo, so much more to delve in and write about. So many more towels in the artikel. Plz read and weep onlee.....
On the flip side, expect the psy-ops against us to shed its velvet gloves. Slumdawg was the tip of the tip of the iceberg only. UKstan can only maintain its pretenses by showing us third worlders as so much worse off than their 'continuously improving living standards' bit.
Admittedly have little or sympathy/empathy/ganapathy for UKstan. Zero goodwill onlee. Care though must be exercised lest the lack of goodwill slip over into 'bad will' territory. Not because of any concern for UKstan but because having illwill even for one as deserving as UKstan is ultimately self-damaging. TSP hatred towards Yindia is a great case in the point. Apathy is better than antipathy, I reckon. Must always retain the ability to do business with UKstan when it suits us.
Added later: Herez the point I was making about the biased BBC and the creation and maintenance of ancient feuds along ethnic, tribal or religious lines the $hitish broadcasters (broadsiders?) can boast of in what is now the commonweath.
Britain, having paid a steep political price for the hard power it wielded in Iraq and recognizing the limits to the money it can pour into weapons systems and the like, is keen to project soft power. But the government is seemingly weakening what should be a chief instrument of soft power, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. The legacy of Iraq and Afghanistan is "strategic incoherence" and has left the FCO adrift, says Christopher Meyer, a former British ambassador to Washington. FCO cuts suggest that the diplomatic corps, once the envy of the entire world, is losing the bureaucratic wars. In 2004, the FCO closed 19 overseas missions out of about 300. In Australia, New Zealand, Germany, France, Spain, and the United States, some consulates were downgraded, leaving only local personnel in place. Since then, the FCO has cut staff from 6,000 to 4,000. This year's FCO budget of £2 billion is widely expected to be pared to £1.6 billion in the next fiscal year.
Cry me a bucket. The waning of UK influence needen't always be good for us but going by their recent actions (the opposition to including known anti-India terrorists in the UN watchlist) UKstan seems to be OK with going overt in its opposition to Indian interests.
