ChezGiven

The Q3 performance of the UK economy has nothing whatsoever to do with policies implemented since the middle of Q2. Current peformance relates to past policy. Current policy is endangering the seeds of growth, which are related to Brown's fiscal expansionary policies.

They also say its the cause of 99% of Alien abduction stories.

Never had it waking up but did used to get it going to sleep sometimes, usually after being on a 3 day bender.

Excellent news. The cuts havent been implemented yet. The forecast for this quarter (which is versus this time last year) were downplayed because of the 50% tax rate and the VAT changes. The economy is now displaying the performance associated with investments made 12 months ago. Its lagged. The new government hasnt actually done anything yet, no costs are cut and no tax changes that werent already planned by Labour have been made. The debate is about what happens once the cuts have been implemented, not before.

Its caused by over tiredness isnt it? The brain is shutting the body down for sleep before it shuts itself down completely, or something like that.

I was never confident of his finishing when he played for us, would get into positions one on one with the keeper time and again but his conversion rate into goals from there was poor. However, since then (especially last season) that aspect of his game has massively improved. I would agree with Stevie because if he was English he would have over 80 caps by now.... well, he's better than Defoe anyway.

Never said he was good enough. There you go again with the imaginary dialogue. I also think Ryan Taylor is poor, should have been a kicker in American football. Doesnt make up for his lack of pace, strength on the ball or bottle. Great striker of the ball though, he'll more than likely start on weds. We'll see how Simpson takes to the derby.

I still dont understand your thrust here. The government and their independant advisors have models that predict a rise after a recession. Im sure they take into account lags etc and yet still believe their models to be right. Was it not the norm in the 80's and 90's to come out of recession, followed by private sector growth Are we getting hung up on headline figures of 19% cuts when in truth this is actually 4.9% cut for the first year and so on. It may be the economy does grow as expected or better and the whole thing gets even better. The bottom line however in all of this is that there is more than one train of thought out there and you know fine well that this is an argument that cant be won in advance. Brown was clearly using a different model to Cameron, thats for sure. We did come out of recession in the 80s and 90s but Japan didnt. One therefore doesnt follow the other. The basic answer is 'Not everyone is using the same models'. The enormously boring answer is: There are 2 broad schools, neoclassical (Real Business Cycle Models) favoured by amongst other the godfather of monetarism, Milton Friedman. It argues against any form of fiscal policy (as Matt just mentioned due to crowding out) and in its purest form rejects the role of governments in economic policy. Eyebrows should be raised there. These models all do the same thing, how will firms, household, banks and everyone else react to a change in economic conditions brought about by shocks or policy? The predicted changes in behaviour of individuals, predicts how good or bad the change is for the economy. You need to know where you are today (problematic when data is lagged) and find an equivalent situation in history to give you data to feed your predictions. So in essence they are based on how we all act with the model required to make an assumption about our behaviour. This assumptions is called 'rationality' so everyone acts in exactly the right way to ensure the outcome of his action is the best for him. Sound stupid? It gets better, the classical approach also assumes that a very special thing called an 'economic equilibrium' (everyone is as happy as possible) not only exists but is the norm. The supporters of this model have strongly argued for decades that government spending only has limited positives and should not be used as a tool in the economy. Then there are Neo-Keynesian models that still assume people are rational but that markets are not perfect, failures exist and in particular things like prices and wages are sticky or inflexible in the short-term. This makes much more sense to anyone living in the real world. This school spends much more effort explaining individual behaviour and drives further into the psychology of people's actions (micro-economics) to show that, in contrast to the dominant thought (capitalism in its fairly pure form has really dominated for a while) that managing markets via government intervention was justifiable and a good thing. Now, the next distinction is between models used by banks and markets in practice that are simple to use but stunningly shit and a joke in the profession and new DSGE models. These new models are really complicated to populate with data but are much simpler in structure. The ECB have a Neo-Keynesian DSGE called the Smets-Wouter ( http://www.ecb.int/home/html/researcher_swm.en.html ) but is not been applied to individual countries. Its also been recently shown as a bit outdated (2003) and doesnt work in abnormal recessions (which we have because of the interest rates). In this case the Romer / Bernstein model is a better predictor. http://www.voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/4818 So its far from clear everyone is using the same model. The smaller banks and market tend to use the old defunct macro models that are still the most prevalent (even though academia has moved on from their earlier works). Then there are plenty of central banks using either RBC (classical) models, keynesian models, DSGE ones or none of the above. Finally we really dont know whether anyone reading the outputs has the first clue about the subject or is driving an agenda. What we do know that by using data from the Great Depression and running it through the latest predictive model that has been developed specifically to deal with the financial crisis says that spending now will move the economy onto a permanently higher level of GDP. Thats the Eggertsson paper i quoted, the lad from the NY federal reserve. You are right of course, this debate wont be resolved today. However, worth pointing out that retail sales in the UK have slumped in the last 2 months. There's that laggy data again http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economi...n-spending.html

That's the whole point of politics though, once you get to the top, your opinion has weight and power. It wouldnt surprise me in the slightest if Platini's position is influenced by lobbying from 'The Association of French Referees' worried about modernisation destroying jobs.

obsessed.... Was that countdown in years?

Good advice that. Still wake up ocassionally at 4-5am worrying about shit. I've also got into the bad habit of smoking and making a tea when I wake up too early, which is idiotic iyam. That's bad crack like. I find when I've been on the drink I get 5 or 6 hours, but lately I've been forcing myself back to sleep which works wonders. We live in a very masculine macho society where blokes aren't supposed to talk about pressures of life and how they're feeling, but sometimes when you get yourself in a circumstantial bad frame of mind, you feel like you're the only person in the world who's suffering, the only person in the world who's having a bad day, who questions their life, but when you look at the big picture, a lot of people go through bad phases, it's just some people find them easier to deal with, the best way of curing it like I say is trying to focus on the big picture and thinking of brighter days ahead. The toon have the ability to cheer up my worst of moods, and the opposite is true as well. The biggest downside to living with women is you can't use the age old cure of wanking yerself back to sleep. Especially with Mrs P lying there with her German hair trigger - robot like Aryan senses. I love the fact that the thought of shagging her doesnt even cross your mind It's not allowed unless pre-arranged with the required number of polit buro stamps and correct documentation. Gone are the days I would rub myself off on her inner thigh (as she slept) with not a care in the world (it's a delicate art). No questions asked in the morning.

Good advice that. Still wake up ocassionally at 4-5am worrying about shit. I've also got into the bad habit of smoking and making a tea when I wake up too early, which is idiotic iyam. That's bad crack like. I find when I've been on the drink I get 5 or 6 hours, but lately I've been forcing myself back to sleep which works wonders. We live in a very masculine macho society where blokes aren't supposed to talk about pressures of life and how they're feeling, but sometimes when you get yourself in a circumstantial bad frame of mind, you feel like you're the only person in the world who's suffering, the only person in the world who's having a bad day, who questions their life, but when you look at the big picture, a lot of people go through bad phases, it's just some people find them easier to deal with, the best way of curing it like I say is trying to focus on the big picture and thinking of brighter days ahead. The toon have the ability to cheer up my worst of moods, and the opposite is true as well. The biggest downside to living with women is you can't use the age old cure of wanking yerself back to sleep. Especially with Mrs P lying there with her German hair trigger - robot like Aryan senses. I love the fact that the thought of shagging her doesnt even cross your mind

Blackburn are not as good as Stoke so if we get our noses in front, we can beat them. Same with Fulham. Would be happy with WLDDD tbh, with the hope of picking up a win and draw at home from B'burn and Fulham. I'm upbeat about beating both of them. West Ham, Wolves, Blackburn and Fulham all got games against the big boys coming up (us too). Beating those two would be a massive boost. Important to note we are only 2 points off the drop zone.

Blackburn are not as good as Stoke so if we get our noses in front, we can beat them. Same with Fulham. Would be happy with WLDDD tbh, with the hope of picking up a win and draw at home from B'burn and Fulham.

Blatantly and given how shite West Ham were overall i saw very little to suggest Simpson is a lot better. He had a more comfortable game than Perch against Stoke, Wigan or Man U and the Wolves game i suppose. However, i'm sure that Perch was just as solid as Simpson for the Everton, Villa, City games. I missed any coverage of Blackpool. For Nani, N'zogbia and the aerial attack of stoke, how would Simpson have coped? Going off last season, shite i would say, was often the weakest link on the pitch. I tried to defend Perch a bit after the Wigan game as i felt the easy-minded scapegoatism required after every macth was assigning our inability to take 3 points on our 'shitest right back in the world'. I'll put money on Simpson being raped in an upcoming game and Perch being back in the side. Its the lack of options that makes me concerned that some very poor performances are being translated into hate from the fans (the debate on this forum contributes to the broad dialogue around the player) and him never having the confidence to ever perform for us. I can understand fans getting on the backs of players who are big time Charlies, in the press spouting off about the club and coming in on big wages then performing like a twat. This lad has come in on low wages, low cost, said nowt, looked nervous, made mistakes. So am finding it hard to hate him and not at all convinced by Simpson, especially after the first half. Second half didnt tell us much tbh. I'd have S. Taylor in the position as soon as possible but fuck knows when that will be. p.s. i know some prick like oztoonfan will see this as me seeing Perch as a good footballer, rather than a relative assessment of our options.

Steve Berry (ex-Mackem) is now head of HR Europe for Synovate based in Paris. Canny lad, met him in the boozer watching the scousers last season.

Thought i'd put this in the match thread. Hopefully this run in the team lasts and he might improve a wee bit more. Needs to cut out the silly mistakes, he seems too relaxed at times. Maybe he is meditating too much. Thought his passing was better on Saturday though. He still gave it away a bit too much but it was a massive improvement on the last 3 or 4 games where his passing has been atrocious. Great ball in for the 2nd too. Shame he doesnt have an extra yard of pace. I agree his passing has got better. I was trying to work out on saturday if our midfield was flat 4 when defending and narrow 3 with Nolan in behind when attacking. Barton was coming inside as he needed to cover the central areas at times, then had to bust a gut to get back out wide when defending. Or was that him just drfiting in naturally? Our shape seemed quite fluid, it wasnt always strictly 4-4-2.

Hope you dont mind everyone, got me dad to sign up to the site.

Hopefully this run in the team lasts and he might improve a wee bit more. Needs to cut out the silly mistakes, he seems too relaxed at times. Maybe he is meditating too much.

'Dont get caught'

? In the words of Craig David, fill me in.

Not sure about that like. He dropped Smith because he'd signed Tiote, it was always going to be the case he was signed as Smith's replacement. Nolan was injured. Perch was dropped because Simpson was fit - another no brainer really. Agree with the others although again they were fairly logical imo. I'd like to think that perceived alignment between discussions amongst fans and some starting 11s / tactics is because the issues were clear enough for most people to see. Sometimes a manager might not make the changes or set the team out the way fans want because there are unseen issues at play or he sees things differently to the stands. Its daft to suggest he is listening to the fans though, its just people seeing the same things as they were pretty obvious to work out.

Shouldn't you be feeding your child a croissant and fresh milk? Or are you not lactating yet? Predictably, that makes no sense whatsoever.

Quiet bald man. Your fear of me is palpable. Even if I were to imbibe the entire stock of BoozeRUs round the corner, your macaroni-economics would be no match for me. Btw, your post-hoc moralising is evidently full of shit HF he is guilty of a lot more than 2/3 'questionable statements', though it is predictable that you would right off any number of discrepancies and misdemeanors as you clearly model yourself on this man and his agenda-driven ramblings. Only people who drink too much post like that.

Yeah, that's why I said i like him so much. It's fair to scrutinize anyone and everyone. I've posted one out of Cole's 10 most recent stories on his front page....every one of them could have fitted in a topic on the first couple of pages here, so I hardly "relentlessly post every blog entry he produces". There's not really that much controversial about him though. 2 or 3 questionable statements in 10 years or so. Feel free to criticise any of his Wikileaks coverage too.