Is He Right ?

[youngmafbog]

http://news.sky.com/story/1064812/economic-recovery-in-sight-says-mervyn-king

or will it be scuppered when labour get in?

[Old_Geezer]

After managing to stretch the bad times out this long a recovery had better be in sight. Is it a triple dip still, or are we trying for a quadruple yet ?

Since the most painful way to cope with a recession is to batten down the hatches and just let the pubic feel the pain until confidence emerges, I can't see anything any other future government can do will make recovery any slower. It's taking it's own sweet time I have faith it'll pull out of the mire eventually.

[jake-the-peg]

Who knows? He's certainly better qualified than most of us but you know what they say - get 5 economists together you'll get 6 opinions.

What is crucial is the unemployment rate - people in work pay tax and buy goods, people out of work draw benefits.

That's certainly now in the worst position it's been since on 1997

That date rings some sort of bell - escapes me for the moment!

https://www.google.co.uk/publicdata/explore?ds=z8o7pt6rd5uqa6_&met_y=unemployment_rate&idim=country:uk&fdim_y=seasonality:sa&;dl=en&hl=en&q=uk%20unemployment

[pdq1]

The trouble with Mervyn King he knows he's on the way out and coming up with all these positive ideas hopes it will reflect on his stewardship. He achieved almost nothing for the British economy and his use of QE only helped the banks improve their balance sheets.

When the economy does pick up, which it must do eventually, Mervyn King should take none of the plaudits.

[boxtops]

He can hardly say he's leaving the BoE in a disastrous state, can he?

[bazwillrun]

Theres a fair chance that at some point it will improve with or without these peoples interference and meddling, its called market forces.

Its like saying summer is coming...

[jake-the-peg]

As I recall it was market forces that screwed the economy in the first place!

[Gromit]

I doubt it, his predictions on almost anything have been woefully wrong over the past 3 years. Remember that phrase 'the green shoots of recovery'? That came from King at the BoE in 2011. Since then, things have got a whole lot worse.

Osborne will eventually do a U-Turn and abandon or slacken the austerity measures that have crippled growth. Though it is getting rather late in the day to have any major effect on the economy before the Conservatives face the electorate and what looks at the moment like a resounding thrashing.

Osborne will resort to plan B and some money will trickle into intrastructure and building projects but as his heart isn't really in it, it will be half-arsed and not be very successful.

Far from Labour squandering the proceeds of a recovery, there won't be one. The Conservatives do not have the political will to it. They have been joyfully printing money so they can claim to be paying off the bankers mess.

The sooner they are out the better.

[jim360]

I'd thought that an economic recovery has been "in sight" for a while now, but its arrival keeps getting pushed back. I don't hold out too much hope that he's right this time.

[Mick-Talbot]

Merv the indecisive...it is difficult to take his views seriously.

2011 Recovery is on it's way
2012 We will be in this Sugar another 5 years at least
2013 Recovery in sight.

Hedging his bets somewhat.

[bazwillrun]

@JTP

"As I recall it was market forces that screwed the economy in the first place!"

Oh dear, like most things you recall, about as wrong as anybody could be !

[New Judge]

Yes Jake, the figures you provided make interesting reading. If you strip out the estimated 600,000 public sector jobs created between 1997 and 2010 the figure may be different. Many of these jobs contributed little or nothing towards the economy, provided little or nothing for the taxpayer and in fact simply leeched money from the exchequer. It's quite true that people in work pay tax but it's not a particularly good deal to pay somebody £25k a year to do nothing useful just because you might get £3k or £4k back.