VAT cut, will it make any difference?

[Louis VI the Fat]

After getting a taste of it this morning, I am now very impressed by the firmness of Britain's balls. Very tough, will resist any amount of outside pressure, but still very responsive. Every continental should wish he had even one of them.



In a breach of diplomatic standards, Germany's finance minister Steinbrueck criticised the UK's decision to cut VAT and raise national debt levels.

Cracks emerged in the global effort to drag the world out of recession on Thursday with Germany attacking Britain ahead of an EU summit for rushing into debt to bail out industries and pump up growth.
In a move that suggested trouble ahead for concerted European and perhaps world efforts to end the financial crisis and restore global economic growth, Germany criticised countries for rushing into untested economic rescue packages.

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Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck urged governments to pause before pledging to spend billions of dollars to try to push their economies out of trouble."The speed at which proposals are put together under pressure that don't even pass an economic test is breathtaking and depressing," he said in an interview with Newsweek magazine, published on the magazine's website on Wednesday.
He singled out British Prime Minister Gordon Brown for particular criticism, accusing him of switching to economic policies that would saddle a generation with debt. "The switch from decades of supply-side politics all the way to a crass Keynesianism is breathtaking," he said.

Another German policymaker, European Central Bank Executive Board member Juergen Stark, also indicated concerns about responses to the crisis, saying on Wednesday that the ECB does not have a lot of room for manoeuvre after its interest rate cut last week. The comments came as European Union leaders were to meet in Brussels to discuss a 200-billion euro ($260-billion) stimulus package to wrench the bloc out of recession.

However, and not for the first time in modern history, Britain's balls proved to be much sturdier than the Germans expected.

Schools Secretary Ed Balls hit back, suggesting the comments had more to do with Germany's internal politics in its ruling coalition than the nature of the global response to the economic downturn.
Mr Steinbruck is a member of the Social Democratic Party which shares power with Angela Merkel's rival Christian Democrats.

Mr Balls said Mr Steinbruck was known for his "strong and robust views" but he defended the UK's course of action in cutting taxes and raising borrowing, saying it had widespread support across the world.
"It is the right thing to do to act now to keep jobs, to keep people in their homes and to keep the economy moving," he told Sky News. "We need to save the world from a deeper downturn and we will only do that by concerted international action together. Britain, and Gordon Brown, is leading that action."

On the eve of an EU summit, a row between Germany and the UK is not really what we need.
Apart from that, I think I must side with Brown's handling of th crisis.

[Husar]

After getting a taste of it this morning, I am now very impressed by the firmness of Britain's balls. Very tough, will resist any amount of outside pressure, but still very responsive. Every continental should wish he had even one of them.

In a breach of diplomatic standards, Germany's finance minister Steinbrueck criticised the UK's decision to cut VAT and raise national debt levels.

However, and not for the first time in modern history, Britain's balls proved to be much sturdier than the Germans expected.

On the eve of an EU summit, a row between Germany and the UK is not really what we need.
Apart from that, I think I must side with Brown's handling of th crisis.

Bunch of rubbish, if the guy was true to his name he wouldn't be afraid to let some companies fail, real men with balls do not need homes, they live in caves.
Steinbrück seems to handle this crisis very well IMO, he doesn't give bailouts to every shmuck who cannot manage a company and when he does, he may just tie them to certain restrictions, just like it should be. Like I've said before, managers get paid for their responsibility, if they do not want to be responsible they should get less money.

All these measures just fuel the recession anyway because people will think "Oh noes, the government is heavily responding, it must be really, really bad, let's stop investing and save some money(that will be worthless in a superinflation anyway)". We're all doomed if we go on like that, those high-payed managers should drag their companies out of the dirt themselves if they can, if they can't, we do not need their services anymore, that's a similar standard to the one they apply when hiring people.