Politics

[CleeToonFan 1]

Because everywhere outside the North East is full of nothing but floating voters.

[Happy Face 29]

 

It was a simple question that you have dodged.

 

Have you any proof that Austerity is having a major impact on our economy?

 

 

Why in christ are you so keen on it if you're so sure its doing fuck all?

[Meenzer 15449]

Let's see. Any chance of £50 til the weekend?

 

Any peer-to-peer facilitator would give you a default probability of 98%+ over a three-day horizon, aka the "Tassimo clause".

[Christmas Tree 4711]

 

Im Homeeeeeeee!

[Christmas Tree 4711]

 

Why in christ are you so keen on it if you're so sure its doing fuck all?

 

Im not, but like you Im sometimes a bit f a stickler for facts. When posters suggest that Austerity is a major factor effecting the economy, Id like them at least to back it up with proof from a proper source.

[Christmas Tree 4711]

CT, you obviously didn't read Martin Wolf's op-ed in today's FT. you ought to, he's one of the country's most respected economists and he's rubbishing everything you're posting on the matter

 

some highlights

 

So in summary, a Labourite, honoured under Blair suggest we borrow and spend. Nothing new, move along.

[Happy Face 29]

 

Im not, but like you Im sometimes a bit f a stickler for facts. When posters suggest that Austerity is a major factor effecting the economy, Id like them at least to back it up with proof from a proper source.

 

It is a factor, as agreed by all sources except Cameron and confirmed by many sources quoted in this thread.

 

 

[Dr Gloom 21861]

 

So in summary, a Labourite, honoured under Blair suggest we borrow and spend. Nothing new, move along.

 

clueless.

[BigWalrus 0]

Im not, but like you Im sometimes a bit f a stickler for facts. When posters suggest that Austerity is a major factor effecting the economy, Id like them at least to back it up with proof from a proper source.

 

Austerity measures budgeted for will have just as much of an impact.

 

If I think we're about to lose a big public sector contract because the local authority has just had its budget for next year slashed, I might put off buying the new car / house / extension. Instead, I'll save my cash until things pick up again.

 

However, if this happens en masse, the companies selling the cars, the houses and the extensions will struggle for sales, they'll have to reduce their head count and the cycle begins again.

 

 

You can spin figures about the economy any way you want - if you look hard enough there'll often appear to be a correlation between two completely unrelated measures. This is why it's dangerous to rely too much on high level figures to come to a reasoned conclusion. There are so many other factors at play in something as complex as an economy. Exchange rates, the relative strength of the labour market, the trade surplus / deficit, the public / private mix, the reliance on exports for key commodities plus many, many other factors.

 

The best way to look at it is to put yourself in the shoes of a person in a normal job, a person owning a small business or a person running a large business. How would you rationally react to the perception that your job is at risk, your hours are to be cut or your salary is going to stagnate?

[Happy Face 29]

[Happy Face 29]

we’ve had what has to be one of the most decisive combinations of scholarly critique and real-world tests of an economic doctrine ever — and expansionary austerity has failed with flying colors. The IMF went about identifying austerity through an examination of actual policy, and A-A’s results were reversed. Critics showed that all of the alleged examples of expansion through austerity involved factors like currency depreciation or sharp falls in interest rates that don’t apply now. Osbornian policies in the UK led to stagnation; and in the euro area, well …

[PaddockLad 17130]

So much for the strength of the coalition

 

The Tory MP David Burrowes has written to the attorney general, Dominic Grieve QC, asking him to review the eight-month sentences imposed on Chris Huhne and Vicky Pryce on the grounds that they are "unduly lenient".

 

Is he doing this becuase he's a pathetically mean spirited busybody, or because he's a tory, or do the two things go hand in hand?.....

[Howmanheyman 32847]

Not too sure why Theresa May thinks she's the next Margeret Thatcher all of a sudden. Always struck me as an awful politician.

 

You do get the feeling that they are on the verge of self destructing, which seems madness given the candidates who are available to take over.

She had a nice pair of tits to be fair.

 

 

 

 

(Just to take some attention away from CT's political wumming, don't you know).

Edited March 14, 2013 by Howmanheyman

[Christmas Tree 4711]

Recovery is finally "in sight" for Britain's beleaguered economy, the governor of the Bank of England has said.

 

Sir Mervyn King said that "momentum" was building within the economy which would become apparent during the course of the current year.

 

But in an interview with ITV News, he cautioned that it did not mean a return to pre-recession levels of private consumption and public spending.

 

Instead, he said there would have to be a "big shift" in resources towards exports and manufacturing investment as the economy re-balanced.

 

"There's no point pretending we can go back to the pattern of demand we saw in 2006-2007," he said.

 

"We need a big shift of resources towards exports, towards manufacturing and business investment. The consequence of that is we have to accept that private consumption and public spending will not grow as rapidly.

 

"We will get back to the level of unemployment and the path of output, we won't get back to the pattern in which we had a big trade deficit, consumption was high and exports were relatively weak.

 

"That balance has to be changed. Policies are in place to achieve it. We are on track to achieve it. Recovery is in sight."

 

He said that the economy would even have grown last year by 1.5% if it was not for falls in construction and North Sea oil production.

 

"There is momentum behind the recovery that's coming. And I think that during the course of 2013 we will see the recovering come into sight. When - I can't possibly tell you and it would be silly of me to pretend that I could," he added.

 

Mr King, who is due to retire from the central bank in June, used similar language when he presented the BoE's quarterly economic forecasts last month.

[Christmas Tree 4711]

Budget 2013 in a few hours.

 

Can't wait. Love all this sort of stuff. The hissing from opposition benches as gloomy forecast unfold followed by the cheering from Government benches as good news is plucked from thin air.

 

Not expecting anything major ( as there's no money left), but a few tweaks here and there.

 

[Tooj 17]

You can't wait to hear how the weakest in society are going to be targeted again?

[Meenzer 15449]

Sitting there with a lob-on, smirking into his beans on toast.

[Christmas Tree 4711]

You can't wait to hear how the weakest in society are going to be targeted again?

 

Have you seen the budget?

 

Tell that to the millions earning 10 grand or less who now won't pay any tax at all.

 

 

[PaddockLad 17130]

Have you seen the budget?

 

Tell that to the millions earning 10 grand or less who now won't pay any tax at all.

 

Thats trotted out a lot by the Tories. Any independent figures to back it up?

[Gemmill 44539]

Budget Day. Both Osborne and CT at their absolute worst.

[NJS 4375]

 

Have you seen the budget?

 

Tell that to the millions earning 10 grand or less who now won't pay any tax at all.

 

I find it sickening that anyone earns that in the first place. If any business pays people that I'd rather see them fold.

 

I know its a new concept CT but when they trot out how much better off YOU are why don't you think about other people who are being screwed.

[Park Life 71]

Recovery is finally "in sight" for Britain's beleaguered economy, the governor of the Bank of England has said.

 

Sir Mervyn King said that "momentum" was building within the economy which would become apparent during the course of the current year.

 

But in an interview with ITV News, he cautioned that it did not mean a return to pre-recession levels of private consumption and public spending.

 

Instead, he said there would have to be a "big shift" in resources towards exports and manufacturing investment as the economy re-balanced.

 

"There's no point pretending we can go back to the pattern of demand we saw in 2006-2007," he said.

 

"We need a big shift of resources towards exports, towards manufacturing and business investment. The consequence of that is we have to accept that private consumption and public spending will not grow as rapidly.

 

"We will get back to the level of unemployment and the path of output, we won't get back to the pattern in which we had a big trade deficit, consumption was high and exports were relatively weak.

 

"That balance has to be changed. Policies are in place to achieve it. We are on track to achieve it. Recovery is in sight."

 

He said that the economy would even have grown last year by 1.5% if it was not for falls in construction and North Sea oil production.

 

"There is momentum behind the recovery that's coming. And I think that during the course of 2013 we will see the recovering come into sight. When - I can't possibly tell you and it would be silly of me to pretend that I could," he added.

 

Mr King, who is due to retire from the central bank in June, used similar language when he presented the BoE's quarterly economic forecasts last month.

 

Who owns it?

[ewerk 30385]

Budget 2013 in a few hours.

 

Can't wait. Love all this sort of stuff. The hissing from opposition benches as gloomy forecast unfold followed by the cheering from Government benches as good news is plucked from thin air.

 

Not expecting anything major ( as there's no money left), but a few tweaks here and there.

 

It isn't fucking theatre, it affects real people.

[Christmas Tree 4711]

 

I find it sickening that anyone earns that in the first place. If any business pays people that I'd rather see them fold.

 

I know its a new concept CT but when they trot out how much better off YOU are why don't you think about other people who are being screwed.

 

Lots of people earn less than 10,000. Lots of people work part time.

 

Would you prefer them to be paying tax at £6,000 as they did under Labour?

[Christmas Tree 4711]

 

It isn't fucking theatre, it affects real people.

 

Oh how wrong you are.

 

 

From the Socratic dialogues of Plato, through the dialectics of Marx to the eloquent disputatiousness of Radio 4's The Moral Maze, we have long been entranced by the employment of argument and counter-argument, the head-to-head gladiatorial contest that uses logic and reason rather than sword and trident.

 

Generations of 20th-century political scholars learned that the truth might be found, not in the assertions of vested interests, but in a simple mantra: Here is a thesis. There is an anti-thesis. Somewhere between the two is a synthesis, which we can trust to be true.

 

Debate is the human face of theoretical logic. Debate gives us courtroom dramas such as Twelve Angry Men and TV's Perry Mason, where analytical logic and remorseless argument freed the innocent and nailed the bad guys.

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/great-debates-when-politics-gets-gladiatorial-1929773.html