2017 GE 1

[Happy Face 29]

20 minutes ago, Christmas Tree said:

 

Nothing wrong with that in principal except the younger generation tend to be less aware of the past economic difficulties caused by Tax and Spend.

 

After 11 years of the last labour government (2008) the deficit was £41 billion

 

7 years into a Tory government that has slashed mercilessly the deficit is £43 billion.

 

The benefit that yongsters have is that they don't buy into received wisdom. The older ones seem to think that because the bins weren't collected back in the 70s no Labour government should ever be allowed to handle the finances again.

[Dr Gloom 21847]

tories in 2010: we will eliminate the deficit by 2015

 

tories in 2017: we will eliminate the deficit by 2025

 

beyond parody tbh.

 

austerity has been such an omnishambles, i can't understand why anyone trusts them on the economy anymore. i've said it before but i put it down to a middle england perception that they're rich toffs so they must know how to handle money. 

[Rayvin 5186]

2 minutes ago, Dr Gloom said:

austerity has been such an omnishambles, i can't understand why anyone trusts them on the economy anymore. i've said it before but i put it down to a middle england perception that they're rich toffs so they must know how to handle money. 

 

QFT. Austerity is directly responsible for all this madness.

[NJS 4375]

Thing is the deficit is meaningless to nearly everybody except for its use to beat labour - morons who think a country's economy is like a household one. 

 

The yanks are sitting on trillions of debt but Obama still tried to stimulate the economy - as has been said many times, austerity is ideology not economics. 

[Renton 21393]

7 minutes ago, Happy Face said:

 

After 11 years of the last labour government (2008) the deficit was £41 billion

 

7 years into a Tory government that has slashed mercilessly the deficit is £43 billion.

 

The benefit that yongsters have is that they don't buy into received wisdom. The older ones seem to think that because the bins weren't collected back in the 70s no Labour government should ever be allowed to handle the finances again.

 

That's some selective data you've cited there. The deficit leapt to 154 million in 2010 to 2011 as a somewhat inevitable consequence of the recession after the crash. This wasn't labour's fault and happened pretty much to all countries, but you've clearly been duplicitous in your section of data there and the scale of the problem the UK was exposed to.

[Renton 21393]

6 minutes ago, Dr Gloom said:

tories in 2010: we will eliminate the deficit by 2015

 

tories in 2017: we will eliminate the deficit by 2025

 

beyond parody tbh.

 

austerity has been such an omnishambles, i can't understand why anyone trusts them on the economy anymore. i've said it before but i put it down to a middle england perception that they're rich toffs so they must know how to handle money. 

Or simply because it suits middle England, the working class are idiots, and the young lazy and feckless. Comes down to education and social responsibility ateod, something completely lacking in post Thatcher UK. 

[Renton 21393]

5 minutes ago, NJS said:

Thing is the deficit is meaningless to nearly everybody except for its use to beat labour - morons who think a country's economy is like a household one. 

 

The yanks are sitting on trillions of debt but Obama still tried to stimulate the economy - as has been said many times, austerity is ideology not economics. 

It's hardly meaningless but it is without doubt much more complex than the Tories would have you believe. 

[Rayvin 5186]

1 minute ago, Renton said:

Or simply because it suits middle England, the working class are idiots, and the young lazy and feckless. Comes down to education and social responsibility ateod, something completely lacking in post Thatcher UK. 

 

Middle England is being eradicated by the Tories as well. This can't go on forever...

 

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/jul/19/middle-income-families-poverty-ifs-report

[Happy Face 29]

23 minutes ago, Renton said:

 

That's some selective data you've cited there. The deficit leapt to 154 million in 2010 to 2011 as a somewhat inevitable consequence of the recession after the crash. This wasn't labour's fault and happened pretty much to all countries, but you've clearly been duplicitous in your section of data there and the scale of the problem the UK was exposed to.

 

I left it out exactly because the crash was a global economic disaster, not one caused by spend and tax that CT thinks Labour can't get right.  They did fine with their version of it for 11 years.

[NJS 4375]

25 minutes ago, Renton said:

It's hardly meaningless but it is without doubt much more complex than the Tories would have you believe. 

I meant meaningless in the context of everyday life - people know how well off they are but can't see any connection with that and the deficit or indeed any other metrics. 

 

That's why I find bragging about growth of GDP to be so irrelevant - we might as well use a system of five smilies to measure economic performance. 

[Kid Dynamite 7009]

1 hour ago, Christmas Tree said:

 

I can't se any uk government turning it's back on oil state investment. Just won't happen. 

 

As for extra money, the Tories have already budgeted 30% extra for counter terrorism and whether we need more 20,000 more police is debatable given the 30% drop in crime, the country's finances and imo, the little impact (if any) it would have on terrorism.

 

As for immigration, I'm not sure how increasing the minimum wage would reduce it? It will be even more appealing to migrants and just cause a knock on effect through most wage structures.

 

Im all for all this free stuff and extra spending, just not as euphoric about it as some of you. A lot of trust is being put in a handful of inexperienced old "marxists", to have suddenly found the formula to shangri-la. Let's not forget thirst people couldn't even galvanise the support of their own MP's and have only been kept in situ by a well organised "young" movement.

 

Nothing wrong with that in principal except the younger generation tend to be less aware of the past economic difficulties caused by Tax and Spend.

 

If it goes wrong, everyone's taxes go up, borrowing / mortgage rates rise, more is taken from public spending to pay ever higher debt payments and recession job losses follow.

 

I obviously hope it works, but I won't be surprised in the slightest if we're in the shit before the next election. 

 

About that 30% drop in crime....

 

 

[Renton 21393]

9 minutes ago, Happy Face said:

 

I left it out exactly because the crash was a global economic disaster, not one caused by spend and tax that CT thinks Labour can't get right.  They did fine with their version of it for 11 years.

 

Howay man. You used unrepresentative figures to show the conservatives "slashing" of the deficit has had no effect. They could justifiable point to a two thirds reduction.

 

No, I don't agree with their policies and I think an investment and growth policy would have been more effective but no need to misrepresent history. 

[Park Life 71]

Austerity doesn't work because its main side effect is a deflationary and stagnant economic cycle.

 

The European institutions know this but since the crash it has been put in place across Europe and especially the PIGS because there is real fear about Sovereign debt, the bond market and the bad signals this sends to the financial institutions who guarantee the lending and debt restructuring. Overspending and gambles on real estate projects and social spending in Italy, Spain and so on has put their debt in dangerous proximity to GDP. The system has been pretty frozen since 2008 hence the ECB buying debt in the market and deploying Quantum easing.

 

The political class have shown themselves across the board to be economically illiterate but fearful of the Banks and worry that somewhere down the road the 1.5 trillion in debt repayments across the EU every 3 years will become unsustainable (Bonds and other Govt. sureties will fail or become too expensive). So in their idiocy and general fear they have embarked on austerity at the behest of the ECB/IMF which is adding to the problem. It's a loop with no escape as economies continue to shrink and unemployment goes up.

 

One or other Govt. needs to break out of this cycle and spend big to energize their economy. The UK could and should do it immediately. Austerity is a road to nowhere kept in place to protect the euro and debt financing of failed politicians, speculators and bad banks.

 

There's no mystery here. Just that it isn't explained properly to the masses.

[Christmas Tree 4711]

1 hour ago, Dr Gloom said:

the labour manifesto is more keynesian than marxist tbf - no magic forumla but an established economic model that boosted global growth after the war.

 

and a lot of what corbyn is suggesting would be considered mainstream policies in many european countries. he's talking about renationalising public services utilities, not the ftse 100 - how is that marxist? meanwhile the promise to spend over 200bn on infrastructure could stimulate growth, improve productivity and raise living standards. we should have been doing this throughout the austerity years, which tbf, have been shown to be a massive failure. 

 

One mans "massive failure" is another mans 3 million extra jobs, deficit vastly reduced, economy which beat all expectations. Obviously a viewpoint not shared by the majority in here for all the reasons that have been done to death, but make no mistake, IF it doesn't work, the end result could make "austerity" look like the good old days.

 

I remember in my 20 somethings when interest rates soared into double figures. Could those of you with mortgages cope if that happened.

 

Anyway, JC is still getting my vote and will be PM on Friday, but it's not an easy vote for me to make.

 

 He says living in a massive Labour safe seat. I do have to remind myself at times that I don't have the casting vote for the country

[Alex 34913]

Lolz

[Meenzer 15432]

5 minutes ago, Christmas Tree said:

JC is still getting my vote

 

Somewhere in a two-kitchen house in Kentish Town, Red Ed is carving tears of frustration into a slab of granite.

[Christmas Tree 4711]

1 hour ago, Happy Face said:

 

After 11 years of the last labour government (2008) the deficit was £41 billion

 

7 years into a Tory government that has slashed mercilessly the deficit is £43 billion.

 

The benefit that yongsters have is that they don't buy into received wisdom. The older ones seem to think that because the bins weren't collected back in the 70s no Labour government should ever be allowed to handle the finances again.

 

Revised wisdom of cutting your stats off to years early or ignoring the crippling PFI's and to some degree the over use of tax credits which let employers off the hook and hangs round the governments neck today.

 

That said, im referring the more old fashioned tax and spend Labour governments. Remember bankrupting the country and having to go cap in hand to the IMF. It was the IMF then who imposed  massive austerity, bit like the Greece scenario of the last few years.

[Park Life 71]

7 minutes ago, Christmas Tree said:

 

One mans "massive failure" is another mans 3 million extra jobs, deficit vastly reduced, economy which beat all expectations. Obviously a viewpoint not shared by the majority in here for all the reasons that have been done to death, but make no mistake, IF it doesn't work, the end result could make "austerity" look like the good old days.

 

I remember in my 20 somethings when interest rates soared into double figures. Could those of you with mortgages cope if that happened.

 

Anyway, JC is still getting my vote and will be PM on Friday, but it's not an easy vote for me to make.

 

 He says living in a massive Labour safe seat. I do have to remind myself at times that I don't have the casting vote for the country

Lot of these jobs are slight of hand tho aren't they. Low Paid or Part time etc...Poor service economy stuff. The key is a massive spend on R&D and industry and skill training. It will take 10 plus years but the start has to be made now. The lie of artificially enhanced booms in housing etc only leads to problems down the road.

[Christmas Tree 4711]

1 hour ago, Dr Gloom said:

tories in 2010: we will eliminate the deficit by 2015

 

tories in 2017: we will eliminate the deficit by 2025

 

beyond parody tbh.

 

austerity has been such an omnishambles, i can't understand why anyone trusts them on the economy anymore. i've said it before but i put it down to a middle england perception that they're rich toffs so they must know how to handle money. 

 

Remind me what date Labour have put on eliminating the deficit?

[Park Life 71]

3 minutes ago, Christmas Tree said:

 

Revised wisdom of cutting your stats off to years early or ignoring the crippling PFI's and to some degree the over use of tax credits which let employers off the hook and hangs round the governments neck today.

 

That said, im referring the more old fashioned tax and spend Labour governments. Remember bankrupting the country and having to go cap in hand to the IMF. It was the IMF then who imposed  massive austerity, bit like the Greece scenario of the last few years.

It all comes down to what you spend on. Spending the North Sea oil bonanza on tax cuts for the rich is the very definition of it.

Edited June 6, 2017 by Park Life

[Happy Face 29]

27 minutes ago, Renton said:

 

Howay man. You used unrepresentative figures to show the conservatives "slashing" of the deficit has had no effect. They could justifiable point to a two thirds reduction.

 

No, I don't agree with their policies and I think an investment and growth policy would have been more effective but no need to misrepresent history. 

 

I take your point about how I've made it reflect on the Tories. Agree, their "recovery" predicated on austerity gives them a two third reduction in deficit since the crash to pont at.

 

I see the recovery as something we could have spent our way towards or cut our way back to and the only measure of success for either is how quickly it was achieved.  In America, where they have not been as severe with cuts, the recovery was much more rapid.  Here it's taken 9 years to get close to where we were before the financial crash.  The tories still aren't able to generate a level of income that will get the deficit lower than any pre-crash labour figure though, so when CT is having his usual dig about Tory financial prudence and Labour profligacy oi think it's fair to frame it in this way.

[Dr Gloom 21847]

ah, the good old days of austerity: 

 

benefits slashed, council budgets decimated, hammering social care, front line services cut, libraries closed.

 

demand for food banks increasing every year of austerity: food banks dispatching record numbers of over a million food parcels last year. 

 

it was a golden era

 

 

 

 

[Park Life 71]

1 minute ago, Happy Face said:

 

I take your point about how I've made it reflect on the Tories. Agree, their "recovery" predicated on austerity gives them a two third reduction in deficit since the crash to pont at.

 

I see the recovery as something we could have spent our way towards or cut our way back to and the only measure of success for either is how quickly it was achieved.  In America, where they have not been as severe with cuts, the recovery was much more rapid.  Here it's taken 9 years to get close to where we were before the financial crash.  The tories still aren't able to generate a level of income that will get the deficit lower than any pre-crash labour figure though, so when CT is having his usual dig about Tory financial prudence and Labour profligacy oi think it's fair to frame it in this way.

Nothing will change till we move away from a service industry low paid economy. Germany is the highest investor in manufacturing and R&D for a a reason.

[Rayvin 5186]

[Park Life 71]

1 minute ago, Dr Gloom said:

ah, the good old days of austerity: 

 

benefits slashed, council budgets decimated, hammering social care, front line services cut, libraries closed.

 

demand for food banks increasing every year of austerity: food banks dispatching record numbers of over a million food parcels last year. 

 

it was a golden era

 

 

 

 

It doesn't even make economic sense.