Politics Thread!

[pogo]

It proved impossible because GROWTH FELL thanks to Osborne's first budget, reducing the tax income and forcing him to borrow. And borrow. And borrow.

No, it doesn’t work like that. You can’t just keep running a deficit and expect growth to close the gap. That was the key fallacy of Reaganomics, the idea that you could just cut taxes, raise spending, and the growth generated would pay for it all. But it didn’t work for Reagan and it won’t work here. If you have a deficit and want to reduce borrowing you need to make cuts. The larger the deficit the larger the cuts.

Don’t forget that for a time we had the largest deficit in the world, as a percentage of GDP. It was inconceivable that we could persist with a deficit of over 10% of GDP (which means 1 in 4 of every pound the government spends is borrowed) for any length of time. Cuts were inevitable and unavoidable whoever was in power.

[pogo]

Protecting the rating was a manifesto pledge.

As for that slowest-recovery-since-records-began "amazing growth" stuff?

Parallel universe... where facts and opinion do not collide

A foolish pledge to make, like eliminating the deficit by 2015. Turns out things outside the governments control (the EU crisis) had a significant impact. Which is also why our recovery has been so slow. It’s very hard to grow when your trading partners are in deep recession and are following economic policies which lead to great uncertainty.

[zip accident]

This country's economy has got steadily worse since the beginning of the 1970s. I think it dates from Harold Macmillan saying "You've never had it so good", with his party being determined that the middling well off would become poor again.

Back then, unemployment was so low that it was possible to have a TV show taking the piss out of the unemployed without there being riots in the streets.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Worker-DVD-1965 ... the+worker

[pogo]

Not worse. It’s kept growing but growth has slowed, as it has in all developed economies. Some of this is demographic; birth rates have declined while people are living longer, and both tend to reduce growth. Some of it is technological, as we seem to have run out of easy wins from technological improvement.

What growth there is now is less beneficial to us. E.g. communication and transport have grown massively but this has mostly benefitted people in other countries with open economies. The main benefit to us has been a wider range of cheaper things to buy in the shops, which has improved welfare and helped keep inflation down but doesn’t show up in GDP figures.

There’s also a lot of variation between economies. Other countries have it worse than us with worse growth or worse demographic problems, or both. The UK is doing better than average, in part due to immigration which boosts growth and lessens the demographic problem – though it does mean per-capita GDP growth is less than overall GDP growth.

[Absolute_Zero]

@Zip

McMillan spake thus in '57 - by my estimate, you were around to hear it.

As a centrist, I have to say that I'm greatly enjoying the Student Union fulminations and wild-eyed ravings of YakYak's Marxist Mafiosi. I'd blame the voters... definitely not the angry, hate-filled visage in the mirror.

[zip accident]

@Zip

McMillan spake thus in '57 - by my estimate, you were around to hear it.

Yeah, but not to pay attention to politics. I can't say whether I actually heard it broadcast, I certainly wouldn't have heard it live.

As a centrist, I have to say that I'm greatly enjoying the Student Union fulminations and wild-eyed ravings of YakYak's Marxist Mafiosi. I'd blame the voters... definitely not the angry, hate-filled visage in the mirror.

Marx is dead. Which seems to have given some people the idea that corruption is acceptable. I suspect that is going to explode nastily in their faces. The romans had corrupt emporers, sometimes, but in the end, you have the army/police, and you have the people, and if you don't keep at least one of them in a good humour, you're out, and in a corrupt regime, out means dead.

[(o)(o)]

People who voted Tory knew exactly what they were voting for.

Eg disableds storming parliament.



More chaos to follow tomorrow..

[merman]

It proved impossible because GROWTH FELL thanks to Osborne's first budget, reducing the tax income and forcing him to borrow. And borrow. And borrow.

No, it doesn’t work like that. You can’t just keep running a deficit and expect growth to close the gap. That was the key fallacy of Reaganomics, the idea that you could just cut taxes, raise spending, and the growth generated would pay for it all. But it didn’t work for Reagan and it won’t work here. If you have a deficit and want to reduce borrowing you need to make cuts. The larger the deficit the larger the cuts.

Don’t forget that for a time we had the largest deficit in the world, as a percentage of GDP. It was inconceivable that we could persist with a deficit of over 10% of GDP (which means 1 in 4 of every pound the government spends is borrowed) for any length of time. Cuts were inevitable and unavoidable whoever was in power.

And it's been repeatedly pointed out to you in this thread that the debt as a percentage of GDP is still high, despite the cuts. The Tory cuts continue to be ideological.

300,000 more children could be forced into poverty because of the tax credits cut. So what do they do? Change how poverty is measured. That's not dealing with the problem.

Cameron's speech the other day was a load of hot air.

[gravy]

@Zip

McMillan spake thus in '57 - by my estimate, you were around to hear it.

As a centrist, I have to say that I'm greatly enjoying the Student Union fulminations and wild-eyed ravings of YakYak's Marxist Mafiosi. I'd blame the voters... definitely not the angry, hate-filled visage in the mirror.

You're a centrist, who do you vote for?

[Absolute_Zero]

^ LD

[gravy]

You need to vote a bit harder mate.

[Absolute_Zero]

ditto

If I could have voted for a particular [unavailable] outcome, it would've been a two year extension of the previous arrangements.

[(o)(o)]

David Cameron calls IDS a liar!

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015 ... ameron-dwp

Apparently benefit related deaths is an 'emotive' issue - so the numbers need to be fudged to keep spirits up.

Thoughtful!

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/be ... ow-5939071

[pogo]

And it's been repeatedly pointed out to you in this thread that the debt as a percentage of GDP is still high, despite the cuts. The Tory cuts continue to be ideological.

Cuts don‘t reduce debt, directly. They only lower the deficit. And they have been very successful in doing so; the deficit has halved from the 11% it reached under Labour. So no, the cuts were not ideological, but necessary and unavoidable. If Labour had won in 2010 (or managed to cobble together a coalition) so they were in power the last five years then they would have made cuts to reduce the deficit too.

[(o)(o)]

..Tory cuts continue to be ideological.

Cuts don‘t reduce debt, directly. They only lower the deficit.

Only?

BOLLOCKS!

Cuts can increase the deficit. It's called "False economy".

The "savings" being made create bigger costs that pop up elsewhere.

Conservatives know this but proceed anyway = ideological.

Proof :

"...it is likely that the [benefit cap] as it stands will generate a net cost"