UK's PM Brown Says He Saw It Coming - Ten Years Ago!

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On a day in which the government of Iceland resigned - and called for an election on May 9th as a result of protests against the country going bankrupt - Britain's prime minister, Gordon Brown, says he saw it all coming ten years ago.

Britain's soothsayer-in-chief revealed his insights in a speech today: 'As I said in Harvard ten years ago, we need an early warning system so that international financial flows are properly monitored.'

Last week Brown had claimed he had not seen the current credit crunch coming. He has so far evaded any responsibility for the current global recession, despite being the UK's finance minister (chancellor) since 1997, and its current prime minister. He has also evaded taking responsibility for the lax regulations in London's financial centre, the City, since he established its regulatory regime at the end of the 1990s. London became the global hub for free capital, with everyone from Russian oligarchs to American financiers enjoying the tax-free environment and loose ways of the City.

The rush of money into the UK made credit cheap and easily available. In turn, Brits saw their homes rise spectacularly in value. As a consequence, the whole country went on a borrowing binge, racking up enormous debts and borrowing on their homes - in effect, treating houses like cash machines. This worked well up until the global credit crunch hit.

To be fair, Brown has made it his pet project to push for a new global architecture for the world. He has spoken about it on many occassions and used to garner respect around the world for his knowledge of this issue and his ideas.

'We must create a framework for the international governance that we currently lack. We must consider at a global level the regulatory deficit. For a decade I have said that the current patchwork arrangement is inadequate.’

What has hurt him lately has been the disconnect between his often bright ideas, and his actual policies. He oversaw an historically unprecedented increase in personal debt in the UK, and at no time did he take action to curb it.

The true test now for Brown will be if he can make his ideas match his actions. So far, he has failed to prove he genuinely supports a savings culture and a sound economy not addicted to speculative bubbles. 

LINKS:

• The list of the 25 most guilty people for pitching the world into the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Website: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/jan/26/road-ruin-recession-individuals-economy