UK economy today doing worse than during Great Depression

[UnderAGreySky]

The British Economy Is Now Doing Worse than it Did in the Great Depression - Brad DeLong

Yep. This many months after the start of the Great Depression, the British economy was rapidly converging back to its pre-depression level of production under Chancellor of the Exchequer Neville Chamberlain's policy of using stimulative policies to restore the price level to its pre-Great Depression trajectory.

By contrast, the Cameron-Osborne policies of expansion-through-austerity have produced a flatline for real GDP, and the odds are high that British real GDP is headed down again.

In less than a year, if current forecasts come true, the Cameron-Osborne Depression will not be the worst depression in Britain since the Great Depression, but the worst depression in Britain… probably ever.

The chart resolution is crap, you may need to click here to see it in full.

[ComradeClaus]

Wow, doing worse than Chamberlain?

He must be in the afterlife.

[spaceviking]

Wow, doing worse than Chamberlain?

He must be in the afterlife.

What are you talking about? Chamberlain being known as a shitty leader has nothing to do with his economic policies. Or are you posting just to find a way to use emoticons?

[D.Turtle]

Well, this is slightly misleading. The UK economy is not doing worse than during the Great Depression (though it got extremely close a year into this). It is recovering more slowly than during the Great Depression.

And even that is mostly because of the recovery having paused for roughly a year - before that the situation was improving steadily - and a lot faster than during the Great Depression.

[bobalot]

Well, this is slightly misleading. The UK economy is not doing worse than during the Great Depression (though it got extremely close a year into this). It is recovering more slowly than during the Great Depression.

And even that is mostly because of the recovery having paused for roughly a year - before that the situation was improving steadily - and a lot faster than during the Great Depression.

Is that when Cameron's austerity policies starting kicking in?

[ComradeClaus]

Wow, doing worse than Chamberlain?

He must be in the afterlife.

What are you talking about? Chamberlain being known as a shitty leader has nothing to do with his economic policies. Or are you posting just to find a way to use emoticons?

pay attention to the OP, wise guy!

Yep. This many months after the start of the Great Depression, the British economy was rapidly converging back to its pre-depression level of production under Chancellor of the Exchequer Neville Chamberlain's policy of using stimulative policies to restore the price level to its pre-Great Depression trajectory.

The Bolds point out that the Depression-Era UK was RECOVERING as a RESULT of mr. Chamberlain's policies, ie, he was an effective leader.

At least, in some respects. Besides, Chamberlain can never compare to the appaling level of failure as the Bush II presidency.

Chamberlain at least had the excuse of dealing with the ambitions & intrigues of several superpowers, if anyone else was in his shoes, they would have fared just as badly in preventing the war.

[spaceviking]

Ya I did read it. Your comment makes no sense because people don't think of Chamberlain was a failure because of his economic policies. People don't like him because he had no spine, but he is not regarded as some moron who fucked up everything he touched.

Wow, doing worse than Chamberlain?

He must be in the afterlife.

Your comment seems to be based on the idea that Chamberlain was incompetent, so doing worse than him in is especially bad. When the OP indicates he was was in fact a pretty capable leader.

[D.Turtle]

Is that when Cameron's austerity policies starting kicking in?

To be honest, I have no idea, but it could be possible. It is also somewhat concurrent with the Euro crisis, so that could have affected things too.

[Simon_Jester]

Wow, doing worse than Chamberlain?

He must be [inane symbol] in the afterlife. [inane symbol]

What are you talking about? Chamberlain being known as a shitty leader has nothing to do with his economic policies. Or are you posting just to find a way to use emoticons?

To make matters worse, I doubt Claus knows anything about Chamberlain except that the man signed the Munich agreement.

Looking at the support for war in Britain at the time, and the state of British and French war mobilization, it would have been a very chancy proposition to go to war against Germany over Czechoslovakia at that time, especially with the Italians thrown into the balance.

The situation in mid-1939 was totally different, with most of the bricks-and-mortar work of mobilization done, and popular opinion turned firmly against Germany after their treacherous annexation of the Czechoslovak rump state in January 1939. I don't think it's a coincidence that after that, Chamberlain extended his famous guarantee to Poland, the one that did kick off World War II.

Anyone who condemns Chamberlain for signing the Munich agreement without knowing why he signed it doesn't have a right to an opinion.

[ComradeClaus]

Ah, I didn't mean that Chamberlain was particularly bad, just that he's rather infamous & not looked at fondly. Especially compared to the likes of Churchill (who upon siding w/ Stalin remarked that if Hitler invaded Hell, he'd consider siding w/ the Devil himself)

Chamberlain got dealt a pretty poor hand & sadly died when the war was at it's bleakest. He at least promised to protect Poland (While Churchill, Attlee & Truman let Stalin take a huge bite out of eastern europe)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_betrayal#Yalta

Basically Neville was in a catch-22.

[Simon_Jester]

Then your first post is gibberish- if Chamberlain didn't do badly at handling the Depression in Britain, it doesn't make sense.

[ComradeClaus]

Ah, sorry, I see that the earlier post was too vague.

Though I'm sure future generations will look upon Tony Blair's association w/ Bush 2.0 as a dark period as well.

[Zaune]

Though I'm sure future generations will look upon Tony Blair's association w/ Bush 2.0 as a dark period as well.

Just future generations? Not, just for an example, the million-odd people who marched through central London all but begging him on bended knee to keep us out of the Iraq war?

[bobalot]

Ah, I didn't mean that Chamberlain was particularly bad, just that he's rather infamous & not looked at fondly. Especially compared to the likes of Churchill (who upon siding w/ Stalin remarked that if Hitler invaded Hell, he'd consider siding w/ the Devil himself)

Chamberlain got dealt a pretty poor hand & sadly died when the war was at it's bleakest. He at least promised to protect Poland (While Churchill, Attlee & Truman let Stalin take a huge bite out of eastern europe)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_betrayal#Yalta

Basically Neville was in a catch-22.

They "let" Stalin take Eastern Europe? How exactly were they going to stop him? There were fucking 7 million Soviet soldiers in Eastern Europe by the end of WWII.

[Simon_Jester]

It is remotely possible that 'something could have been done-' not in 1945, but a few years later, when there was a brief window of extreme Soviet vulnerability to air-nuclear bombardment.

But it would take that- the effective dismemberment of the Soviet Union by nuclear attack. And it would have to be a pre-emptive strike, a bolt out of the blue in violation of peace accords, carried through to the death of- what, another twenty million Soviets? Thirty? Fifty? A hundred?

After the war they'd just fought, after the burden of defeating the Nazis had fallen so heavily on Russian soldiers...

That might be the blackest act of treacherous cruelty in the history of mankind.

I'd argue that anyone who says "the Western Allies should have kept going" is either so ignorant of the realities that they should keep their mouths shut, or has been so twisted by the idea of "communism evil!" that they've stopped thinking about the matter like decent people. Boasting Internet toughs often manage to fall into both categories at once.

[spaceviking]

Regardless, while Churchill could have pushed for protecting Poland from the Soviets It was not his decision to make. The only one with a real hope of deterring the Soviets was Truman.

[Simon_Jester]

Poland could not be protected from the Soviets. A few years later, the place might have been "liberated" from the Soviets, in the sense of "destroy the village to save it," because the Allies would be fighting a nuclear-heavy World War III across its territory. Bad move.

[ChaserGrey]

Look up "Operation Unthinkable" if you want the details. Essentially, after VE Day but before VJ Day British PM at the time (can't remember if it was before Attlee replaced Churchill or after) asked the Imperial General Staff about the prospects of going to war with the USSR over Eastern Europe. The response was, stripped of the usual polite talk, "Don't be fucking silly".

[Simon_Jester]

More or less. And it was Churchill's idea- but I don't think he was out of line in wanting to draw up the plan, at least. Some things need to be gamed out to prove they can't be done, and planning Operation Unthinkable probably saved a lot of stupid recriminations among the British government in the following years.

Of course, your typical fire-eating American conservative these days seems to have forgotten it ever happened...

[rolls eyes]