FT: The cost of burgeoning national debt

Wookster

Is that the best you can do Rochdale? Why don't you crawl back to planet Rochdale and come back when you can answer my simple (yep, simple) questions about the UK deficit.

Or are you in a bad mood because Merv had a go at Brown today?

Rochdale_Pioneers wrote: »

I meant WTFookster. Or one of his socks.

Rochdale_Pioneers

Wookster wrote: »

Is that the best you can do Rochdale? Why don't you crawl back to planet Rochdale and come back when you can answer my simple (yep, simple) questions about the UK deficit.

Or are you in a bad mood because Merv had a go at Brown today?

I'm still waiting for you to post (a) a source for your figures, and (b) the methodology. Show us what you have and we can see how factual/accurate/relevant it is. Otherwise its just you typing a number on a screen.

Incidentally as I invented "Planet Wookster" as your la la land, I will take your imitation of it as "Planet Rochdale" as the most sincere form of flattery.

Wookster

Rochdale_Pioneers wrote: »

I'm still waiting for you to post (a) a source for your figures, and (b) the methodology. Show us what you have and we can see how factual/accurate/relevant it is. Otherwise its just you typing a number on a screen.

Seeing as you seem to be a bit slow I'll ask that again:

ust answer the questions: which country (counting national debt in the same way that the UK is) is running in excess of a 10% annual deficit in 2009? Which country has increased its national debt by 14% in the 2008/2009 tax year?

Can you answer a straight question or will you play Planet Rochdale's obfuscation game?

I can see where you coined the phrase 'Planet xxx' comes from - you've been told you've been living there before!

Rochdale_Pioneers

Wookster wrote: »

Seeing as you seem to be a bit slow I'll ask that again:

ust answer the questions: which country (counting national debt in the same way that the UK is) is running in excess of a 10% annual deficit in 2009? Which country has increased its national debt by 14% in the 2008/2009 tax year?

Can you answer a straight question or will you play Planet Rochdale's obfuscation game?

I can see where you coined the phrase 'Planet xxx' comes from - you've been told you've been living there before!

You show me a source that authenticates your numbers and I will answer. What you get from me are facts and figures with charts and links to charts so that people can go look at the data and decide what they think about it. This is called "evidence". What you do is post the same statistics drawn from thin air and refuse to back them up with any evidence or rationale. Thats called "bluster".

If your numbers are rooted in reality then you will have drawn then from a source. Link to the source so we can have a look, and we can have a discussion about economics. If not then we have to assume that you have made them up - and there is therefore no question to answer.

Generali

Braveheart100 wrote: »

I think that people who are living of the sweat of others, such as yourself (even if they are family) probably should'nt be calling for the end of socialism - which is there to protect the vunerable particularly the unemployed. Not everyone has the luxury of being able to live with their in-laws for free when they lose their jobs. I'm from an old fashioned generation of men and I don't see how you can boast about spending all that time exercising and debating on the web when you have a family to feed and put a roof over their heads. Personally, I would have thought that losing your livlihood would make you more considerate of the vunerable and less fortunate. It would seem not. But then what else would you expect of someone who worked in the city.

Having fallen on hard times you would think that you would be more sympathetic to the fact that socialists are trying to help the unfortunate and poor.

Funny how you are a heartless Tory despite losing your job. maybe when you have been unemployed for a year then maybe you will maybe get to understand why people are socialists?

PS Is your signature there to remind people how much money the financial sector has cost us in 12 years? You must be very proud of yourself and your cronies for the mess they have created.

Do you want to discuss something or just throw insults at me? My opinion is that the poor and rich alike do better from Capitalism than Socialism. If you subsidise something you get more of it - if you subsidise poverty you get more poverty. I realise that's a pretty subtle argument, probably too subtle for you to cope with, whichever log-in you're using.

You've got 8 posts and already taken such a strong dislike to me. You really must think the posters on here are stupid.

I've put you on ignore along with your other usernames.

Toodle pip!

PS I'm a Libertarian not a Tory. If you're going to abuse me, please get your facts right!

ninky_2

Generali wrote: »

Do you want to discuss something or just throw insults at me? My opinion is that the poor and rich alike do better from Capitalism than Socialism.

I feel compelled to wade into the playground like a school teacher and say can we stop the personal insults guys? It belittles the ideas you feel so passionately about.

Braveheart100 there is no need to call Generali "heartless". Wookster why the need to throw insults like "twit", "lazy", "stupid", "ignorant" (and all in one post!)

I would like to ask you Generali, because I feel genuinely interested and would like your take on things, how you reconcile your personal situation with your political beliefs?

I think we all form, refine and reinforce our opinions from our own experiences (myself included).

I understand you are currently unemployed at the moment. I also understand that you are relying on your inlaws to support you and your family. (please correct if I'm wrong). I also understand that you are not currently entitled to benefits as your are a recent immigrant in Oz.

I'd like to know;

If you were currently entitled to state benefits would you claim them?

Are you currently actively seeking employment?

If you didn't have inlaws who were willing or able to support you and your family how would you currently be supporting yourself?

Do you think those who don't have inlaws or other private means to support themselves should be entitled to state benefits?

Do you think those who don't have inlaws or other private means to support themselves should make more effort to find employment than you are or accept jobs that you wouldn't be willing to accept yourself to support themselves?

ninky_2

carolt wrote: »

Somewhat unfair - I don't think Generali's politics are 'heartless' - but he does use the 's' word (socialist) as an easy insult - maybe a throwback to years in banking?

On the contrary - I think he doesn't expect anyone to take pity on him or bail him out - so he is, fairly, applying his own standards to others.

is this not exactly what the inlaws are doing?

Wookster

ninky wrote: »

If you were currently entitled to state benefits would you claim them?

Are you currently actively seeking employment?

If you didn't have inlaws who were willing or able to support you and your family how would you currently be supporting yourself?

Do you think those who don't have inlaws or other private means to support themselves should be entitled to state benefits?

Do you think those who don't have inlaws or other private means to support themselves should make more effort to find employment than you are or accept jobs that you wouldn't be willing to accept yourself to support themselves?

I'm not sure what business this is of yours (in the nicest possible way).

Do you have a problem with a system of state support? Do you have a problem with people using that support?

ninky_2

Wookster wrote: »

I'm not sure what business this is of yours (in the nicest possible way).

i think that if you are going to take a political stance then you have to be prepared to discuss and reconcile your own lifestyle and choices within that otherwise you are a hypocrite.

for example, if you oppose private education but send your child to private school then you have to be open about that and be prepared to defend why you made that choice.

likewise if you oppose benefits but are prepared to take the support of others i think you also should defend that.

ninky_2

Wookster wrote: »

Do you have a problem with a system of state support? Do you have a problem with people using that support?

I think if you believe in a free market and survival of the fittest you should either live by that, doing whatever it takes to survive, or starve on the streets.

The alternative to the “every man for himself” philosophy is that we help, or rely on the help, of each other. This can either take the form of the help of private individuals / charity or it can take the form of the state.

The problem with putting the responsibility for this help in the hands of private individuals is that they can impose all sorts of criteria for the offering this help. For example, they may only offer it to friends and family (sons-in-law, for example). Or they might impose religious criteria for helping (as in the case of many charities). We get in a situation where a wealthy elite dictate who is the “deserving” and who the “undeserving” poor.

I think it is far better to put the responsibility for this help in the hand of the State, administered by a democratically elected government. As such, it is influenced by public opinion and (depend on how much equality has been advance in society) free speech. If you are a really civilized society you also make provisions to ensure that the jobs on offer have living wages and reasonable working hours and conditions. A really civilized society also realizes that all this has to be paid for from somewhere so you do this by preventing a disproportionate amount of extreme wealth to be siphoned off into certain sections of society.

You may call this “socialist”. I don’t, partly because the word has taken on the connotations of an insult similar to the word “feminist” in the 80s and partly because I don’t hold with Marxist ideology and the inevitability of its utopian vision. I actually just call it the means by which we free ourselves, through the civilizing process, from the tribal-based alpha-male dominanted existence of pre-civilized Man.