Does anyone remember the recession caused by the conservatives?

Question

Boom and bust.

How many of you lost your homes, your work, your life?

Just for the record, I posted this question on the UK & Ireland site because I wanted answers from Brits not yanks. So if you are a yank answering, remember that you answer is null and void, and won't be getting a best answer.

Answer 1

Yeah, sure do. 17 to 18% interest rates on homes, 21% interest rates on automobile loans. Problem with your question is.... CARTER was not a conservative. :)

Let's not forget those 10% unemployment rates.

Answer 2

You have to look at the post-war period as a whole and not isolate the years 1979-1997 and merely focus on the negative aspects of Thatcher's reforms.

In the late 1970s Britain was in a terrible economic mess suffering from stagflation (high unemployment and high interest rates) and structural unemployment. The situation needed rectifying and that's just what Thatcher did with her monetarist reforms.

All economies grow and receed cyclically, it is the job of government to manage these periods so that the effects are not too severe. The problem with the British is our propensity to binge during the good times, rather than to save in times of prosperity for the recession. The credit bubbles were not foreseen by Thatcher who envisaged prosperity based on personal self-reliance and private sector initiative.

That we have not had a recession under Labour is due to the windfall on mobile phones and Gordon Brown's raiding of private pensions which netted billions for the government.

However government debt was £571.8 billion in 2006, 1 in 4 workers work in the public sector, the UK's debt owed by people is higher than its GDP, we are probably at the peak of a house price bubble, the money supply is too high and inflation rampant in some sectors.

When the next recession hits the UK it could be on the same scale as the Great Depression of the 1930s and will make the recessions under the Conservatives look minute by comparison.

Answer 3

Problem is, Labour has increased debt by an unprecedented amount. Each time interest rates go up, more people go the wall. People remember the bad and forget the good.

Don't forget that you pay through the nose in tax with Labour so even if we're on a low interest rate, you are paying more than under Thatcher. Imagine having interest rates up to 15% and still paying the huge taxes. I think 99% of the population will go bust.

It will have to go pop sometime and no doubt when a different party gets in to sort out all of this Labour mess.

Answer 4

Great question - nobody seems to talk about this anymore when it is such a relevant subject. Yes we may not agree with Blair for leading this country into an illegal war and causing misery and suffering to millions of people, but at least the economy has been fairly well managed during the 10 years labour have been in power, something which would have been inconceivable when you think back to the Wilson period.

Yes, Thatcher carried out some necessary reforms, but she went too far and sold the soul of the country to big business and the US in the process. Slowly but surely those mistakes are now being reversed and Cameron and his cronies should not be allowed to change that.

Answer 5

Do you think that only Conservatives own stock because I have news for you there are as many and maybe more Democrats invested in the market. Not all Conservatives are selling because they are smart enough to know that the time to buy is now.

Answer 6

I certainly do.

People were thrown out of work for no reason, then told it was their own fault.

Loan Sharks plundered People caught in bankruptcy.

The coal fields closing just so we could buy cheap from South Africa (Tory Major Shareholders in the Wankie Coal Fields).

Rip Off merchants in sharp suits.

Many have never recovered.

Answer 7

No, I do remember the recessions and misery caused by Trade Union greed. I remember bodies piling up unburied, random power cuts, telephones never working, every industry was systematically destroyed by demarcation and wildcat strikes. The honest workers were bullied into going along with whatever idiocy the thuggish leaders wanted.

Answer 8

Yes I remember it. Thatcher, then Major crippled the economy with their incompetence. They encouraged people to borrow money beyond their means, chasing a dream that the whole world can buy a home, then made over 3 million of us jobless. I remember it, the day my father had to sign on for the first time ever, and post the keys to the mortgage lender. But we are still alive, with a much better government in place.

You should specify "UK" - the Americans have hijacked the word "conservative" to mean something else in their corrupt version of English.

Answer 9

Yes , I do remember and an awful time it was .
Some of the previous answerers forgot that this is a UK site , the question has nothing to do with Republicans and Democrats , we're talking about Thatcher and Major

Answer 10

I remember it - it was truely a terrible time. I owned a studio flat - paid about £24k for it - I was 21 and it was the first property I bought. It sounds cheap now but my goodness - I was skint and had to have three jobs to pay the mortgage! Interest rates rose very quickly from about 6% to nearly 16%. House prices fell and people owed more on their mortgage than the value of their house - known as negative equity. Thousands and thousands of people lost their homes. I didn't lose mine but as I said, I had a full time office job, worked in a pub on the evening a couple of nights a week AND had a saturday/sunday job in an estate agents (when you are 21 you have the energy!!). I would do the same again if I needed to. Mobile phones were introduced around this time - they were litterally the size of a shoe box and you had to carry this massive battery around with you! lol!

Answer 11

I was laid off in August of 2001, a month before 9/11. When the attacks came, I knew it was gonna be difficult to find a new job. Unemployment cut me off in November, and I moved in with my parents the following month. Finding no work in their town, I filed for bankruptcy in March or April of 2002, and after another year of job-hunting, I returned to college (for the aid money as much as for the schooling). I'm now in a PhD program, which is good, but I never did find work - and no one will ever convince me that Bush's policies had nothing to do with it. Even the interest on student loans has gone up under Bush...