QT: Hugh Hendry on unemployment and economic strategy (28Oct10)

[Shannmeister]

3 useless politicians and a historian. I bet the politicians will be looking for their cosy private sector jobs when their political time is up and if I'm right the historian spends most of his time in the US. The problem for these kind of people is that they hate it when someone like Hugh tells it as it is, warts and all.

[JohnnyMac2237]

Hugh Hendry is the reason I strive to work in finance to prove moral people with a soul exist in the sector.

[ukipwarrior]

I really hate that gay MP

[gettingrichinamerica]

Hugh rules!

[Aeros802]

Is there a link to the full video? It's always great listening to Hugh Hendry.

[EnglishG3nt]

One of my favourite videos on Youtube.

[tigranvartanovitch]

Isn't it interesting that all the politicians have in answer to Hugh Hendry is snide remarks?

[9012jive]

'we hate the banks when they say 'no and we hate them when they say 'yes' : get over it. Hugh Hendry..spoken like a money profiteer.

we have system failure AGAIN of the usuary monerty system. let it die. sovereign government CREDIT issued free, for the people to use as a means of exchange, is the only sustainable money system. All usuary is predatory and a left over attitude of the past..time to move forward intothe future.

[DickChambers69]

Well done, Hugh.

[bertyUK]

Who's that gimp trying to talk down Hugh near the end of the video with the "confidence line"? - what a drip of a man he is!!

[meursault48]

@bertyUK Chris Bryant. Famously took pictures of himself in his underpants and posted on gay website. Solid judgement, that.

[Stokie09123]

@bertyUK Chris Bryant is his name.

[meursault48]

'You get kicked out. I'm still here'

[01AlanBennett]

Hugh Hendry is in the financial sector - he went on this programme, had nothing intelligent to say, tried to defend torture and sat with a veneer of hideous arrogance. And he came out fine, and happy with himself. Pretty good metaphor I guess

[JasonRadley]

@01AlanBennett I prefer his arrogance to that of the politicians who cluelessly cocked things up in the first place and then sought to blame the banks for anything and everything.

[shelleymofo]

Not sure how anyone thinks Hendry came out of this well? He was ignorant on most issues other than hedge funds. He wanted the banks to lend more and lend less, the government to further cut housing benefit, to slash the deficit in the same way the Irish did so we can avoid being like the Irish now and also condoned torture. Politicians can't employ your kids but Hugh Hendry might! Eclectica Asset Management has approx 10 -15 employees. The public sector still employs approx 6m. Vain and idiotic.

[BlackNapkins86]

I think one of my favorite quotes from Hugh went something like, "Hedge Funds, like mine, are the only thing standing between a Nation and Hyperinflation."

[scotchprofessor]

"But we're not here to discuss Scottish independence".

Indeed you're not: this is the BBC. You're not here to discuss Scotland... ever

Typical BBC.

[punkjewellery]

You can see total shock on all there faces, when Hugh tells them the truth without any fear.

It scares them that they can tell he really knows what he's talking about,but have no idea what it all means.

He was predicting what was gonna happen with the Euro at least a year before it happened.

[vasselini]

He managed to talk for 5 minutes without actually saying a sentence that made sense.

[borjon23]

Hugh Hendry is a fatuous dick. Schama had him dead to rights at 1:29. Yes, if this global financial crisis has taught us anything it's that politicians should be more slavish to hedge fund managers and speculators. Everyone knows how over-regulated the poor banks were.

[vinnyflintoff]

Hugh is absolutely right. Government cannot create jobs, they have to create incentives for the private sector and big business so they can hire people. Only then will there be more jobs. and yes that includes the unpopular notion of lowering taxes for the wealthy. because its the rich that ultimately create jobs, not the poor or the middle class. But the affluent people in a society. If you were to increase taxes, the rich wouldnt pay. They would pack up and leave. Example; Compare NY and Texas

[gwangjuboy1]

HH failed to answer the question - he merely stated that there are some countries with worse unemployment rates than the UK. He could have at least offered an economic prescription. He was almost suggesting that we should just be stoic about it considering that there are worse levels of youth unemployment elsewhere. Well great advice there captain. He was also wrong in contending that youth unemployment is higher 'in the rest' of Europe. He should stick to the casino.

[JasonRadley]

@gwangjuboy1 What advice did you expect? Get on your bike? Repeal the minimum wage? Restrict immigration? Those would have been honest but bitter pills for you to swallow.

[gwangjuboy1]

@JasonRadley Well yes, that's almost exactly what I expected; hence my criticism! Immigration certainly needs to be curbed, but the minimum wage is simply too low. In fact, while our population increased by up to 3 million people in ten years via immigration (mostly unskilled and semi-skilled) rental costs soared. In the South-east rents went up by 65% in ten years. A disproportionate number of migrants were housed in the region too. Did wages go up by the same margin?

[JasonRadley]

@gwangjuboy1 Do you really think the bearpit of QT is the proper forum for serious economic analysis? If you knew the economic answers already, why do you need HH to repeat them? Anyway, I disagree that higher minimum wages would have any effect on the affordability of housing costs, except to threaten to increase them via inflation.

[gwangjuboy1]

@JasonRadley There is no economic rationale behind the huge discrepencies that exist between executive and shop floor pay. Executives in East Asia earn considerably less than their counterparts in London. The increase in income inequality corresponds to increases in the industrial reserve army via immigration - perhaps you would agree as much. The housing 'market' itself is nothing of the sort. Planning regulations hold developments back while the population skyrockets; result? High rents.

[gwangjuboy1]

@JasonRadley and in response to whether I think QT is a proper forum for economic analysis, Hugh Hendry is a fund manager so I would expect him to know something about it; which he certainly does. He just didn't give a good account of himself here.

[JasonRadley]

You really can't be a regular watcher of QT. I stopped watching it years ago. It's party political talking heads.

[gwangjuboy1]

@JasonRadley I agree, and it's one of the reasons I get sick of it. There is rarely any intellectual discussion, just party political points scoring. That's why I was disappointed with HH's contribution, because he usually has something to say that's worth listening too. The best QT I ever saw featured Christopher Hitchens, but then there are very few public figures in the UK who can match that man's intellectual prowess.

[JasonRadley]

@gwangjuboy1 Was that the one with the Hitchens brothers and BoJo?

[SirOneoneselfandone]

He is a legend

[NotHomelessAnymore]

Aside from being a pompous arsehole and a bully, he has some gall taking snipes at people or even MENTIONING the recession when people like him got us into a recession in the first place and have cost the government billions in revenue with their offshore accounts. Chris Bryant is no saint himself, but I'm glad he put him in his place.

Ed Davey for some reason seems inent on alienating Scottish voters towards the Lib Dems... forever.

Thanks for uploading.

[Maino88]

@NotHomelessAnymore Idiot. Hedge funds and speculators did not get us into recession. Central banks and gvts got us into recession, sowing the seeds of our downfall by vastly overinflating a housing bubble and using the taxation proceed to create an illusion of prosperity that we couldn't afford. Speculators like Hugh stand up against governments who pursue policies that will lead to ruin. Its the politicians whoare the problem. Short-termist arses who pursue reckless policy for electoral gain.

[anyfekinnamewilldo]

@Maino88 Spot on!

[NotHomelessAnymore]

Their erroneous speculations have cost the government billions in bailouts, while their tax evasions continue to cost the country billions more. I'm sorry, but am I supposed to believe it is a coincidence that the country with the largest number of hedge funds in Europe just also happened to the be the hardest hit in the recession? Arguably the worst recession since the WSC, also caused by boom and bust economics and an under-regulated financial sector, both of which hedge funds thrive upon.

[Maino88]

@NotHomelessAnymore Absolute nonsense. The health of our banking system had everything to do with bad business decisions, and the governments awful economic policies. HSBC & Barclays, healthy banks who acted properly show what responsible lending & sensible decision making can achieve. RBS who entered into a disastrous merger pre-crisis, and Lloyds who were forced into an appalling acquisition by Mr Brown - their performance and subsequent bailouts was down to poor management and govt policy.

[borjon23]

@Maino88

Really? I didn't know that Lehman Brothers was a central bank or a government. That's fascinating. I am an idiot indeed. But I suppose you'll tell me that Lehman Brothers et. al. were valiantly warning against their own speculative collapses?

[Maino88]

@borjon23 Errr...what? I'm defending speculators not banks. Lehman, Northern Rock, Bear were all managed by fools. But the seeds of their downfall were sown by government and central banks. Sub-prime was the fault of federally backed mortgage agencies that underwrote toxic debt and wrapped it in the "security" of the federal ribbon and sold it on. Many speculators hedged against these banks throughout late 07 and early 08 because they saw what the politicians couldn't and wouldn't see!

[asmodeus585]

@Maino88: Yes, just like it was portrayed in the "Yes, Minister" series.

[bonfirejovi]

@Maino88 Your kidding right? The Central banks provided the guns but hedge fund managers were the ones that shot the innocents by leveraging themselves 30:1 and purchasing all these other highly leveraged derivatives.

[Maino88]

@bonfirejovi No. Hedge funds are often highly leveraged, but resilient funds are never over-exposed. The funds don't shoot things down. They take positions against poor business management and poor economic governance. Funds risk their clients money, and their own money. The heads of funds are heavily invested in the funds. There was no bailout for hedge funds. In 2009, 190 funds were liquidated. They took bad decisions. They paid the consequences.

[ChristopherAdderley]

@Maino88 Bang on! Let's frame your comment! Print it out and distribute it! haha

[gwangjuboy1]

@Maino88 I think you need to understand the cause of the economic crisis. Watch Alan Greenspan admit that the 'self interest' model failed; then read about his close ties to Ayn Rand; then read how influential he was in shaping American economic policy for decades. He argued that self interest would ensure that the banks lend carefully. We now know that investment bankers eager to issue more mortgage-backed bonds told retail banks to lend to just about anyone.Gvernment wasn't involved enough!

[lynnybee888]

thank you for this video !!! i'm always looking for HUGH HENDRY !!!

[aisha18100]

How often do you watch video's on this channel and view comments.

All politicians are self serving, thieving cunts.

[losarman]

@aisha18100 hedge fund managers are jsut the latter

[justjacqueline2004]

Gosh Hugh has really come down in the world sitting in with a bunch of creepy shits.Hugh screw em.

[liarpoliticians]

@justjacqueline2004 But he just showed how unintelligent the rest of the panel is.

[ChristopherAdderley]

@liarpoliticians Apart from Schama. He's a nice chap too!

[marquisevirginie]

@justjacqueline2004 hugh hendry was one of the few independent thinkers on msnbc. he knows there is only the gold standard, ie a fixed amount of money , on which to base cost accounting to make decisions. what the hell is he doing