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Tory cuts could be mighty unpleasant
Comments
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The_White_Horse wrote: »h
who cares what they do? they all think they are great and necessary and have so many "skills" surely they can do anything they want. they can start a cupcake factory? Open a hairdressers, start a restaurant or a security firm. Who cares.
In the LONG RUN - which is something the lefty never sees, it will be better. Yes, of course things might have to get a bit worse, but that is life.
We should care, less working people = more crime, more homeless, less spending, less business, bad circle.0 -
To reinforce Stephanie Flanders' and Rochdale Pioneer's point:
FT - A Conservative Budget: not that different to LabourRochdale_Pioneers wrote: »I say again. Ignore the polls. People couldn't give a toss about national debt if they feel that THEY have to take the pain and the people responsible - the landed who keep their IHT cut and the bankers only goven a stern warning - get off scott free. The Golden Age of Austerity for the many to allow the few to continue the good life is not a vote winning position.
You can't go on about the £7bn per annum in savings being too little and then rail too hard against IHT changes that amount to 'only' £1bn and are likely to be delayed. Banging on about bankers (does this include Halifax counter staff?) is becoming a tired attack. Rich bankers can move residence in a heartbeat and many will go to Switzerland or Hong Kong before the introduction of the 51.5% tax rate.
I think you don't give the average voter enough credit Rochdale. When government expenditure is nearing £700bn and you don't collect £500bn in taxes then there is only one party at fault, that of the current administration. Not the Tories, not the bankers, not some mythical global economy and not the Americans (have I covered all the usual token villains Brown uses?)"The state is the great fiction by which everybody seeks to live at the expense of everybody else." -- Frederic Bastiat, 1848.0 -
Rochdale_Pioneers wrote: »I say again. Ignore the polls. People couldn't give a toss about national debt if they feel that THEY have to take the pain and the people responsible - the landed who keep their IHT cut and the bankers only goven a stern warning - get off scott free. The Golden Age of Austerity for the many to allow the few to continue the good life is not a vote winning position.
This from the guy who gloried about the "profit" he made on selling his old house via HPI, to now being in NE on the tradeup house.
Honestly.. Labour thinking. Labour policies. Living under a Labour government since 1997. "The economic miracle." :rolleyes:
I see your god-head ex-leader has bought yet another super expensive house for cash, whilst the no-more-boom-and-bust architect of it still bangs on about the problems being global and it started in America.
There was no Labour economic miracle. Just a wild reckless party. Time for your education Labour supporters.It's 1979 all over again, but worse
Ken Clarke is right. The Tories will inherit a worse economic mess than in 1979. That's why George Osborne's austerity measures are required. It's right that people should retire later, that the middle classes go without some benefits, that Whitehall and red tape are cut and public sector workers endure measures already familiar to private sector workers. It's right because without such changes the UK is bankrupt, however you vote or wherever you work. It's right because, yet again, we've found you can't trust Labour with the economy.0 -
The_White_Horse wrote: »what difference does it make what I do?
It would make my life enriched for me to have this knowledge.The_White_Horse wrote: »What do you do?
I work for the Government's Health Eating Initiative. My role is a Young Person's Fruit and Vegetable Facilitative Development Coordinator. My team of 12 and I don't have a specific agenda as such, but we work to create healthy eating environments, cultures and societies within the domains in which young people operate. The pay isn't that great but the pension makes it worthwhile.0 -
Rochdale_Pioneers wrote: »WHAT has to be done? What precisely has Osborne announced? Darling has a published budget to cut the deficit in half in 4 years. QUOTE]
Has he? He's stated that that is the aim, but unless I've been hiding in a bunker for the last few weeks, I don't recall seeing any specifics.
Labour talked a lot last week about savings from 'inefficiencies' and cutting 'low priority projects' but where is the detail?
Can you point me to a list of policies; NOT policy objectives please?0 -
As shadow chancellor George Osborne outlined a series of savage public spending cuts.....
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/politics/politics-headlines/will-we-ever-have-bananas-again%2c-daddy?-200910072116/Please take the time to have a look around my Daughter's website www.daisypalmertrust.co.uk
(MSE Andrea says ok!)0 -
But King went on to say that the pace at which the public finances are put back on an even keel must be dictated by the state of the economy.
“The speed at which the fiscal stimulus should be withdrawn has to be dependent on the state of the economy,” he told MPs in June. “There is no point in presenting a profile for the reduction in deficit that is independent of the state of the economy.”
And this is where the parties really differ.
Brown and Darling want action once the economy is back on its feet. Cameron and Osborne want it now. Osborne argues that the monetary stimulus provided by the Bank of England in the form of interest rate cuts and quantitative easing has had a far greater impact on the economy than the fiscal stimulus provided by the Government.
He says the cuts in rates from 5% to 0.5% are saving British households £30 billion a year in interest payments — far more than the £12.5 billion giveaway from the temporary reduction in VAT from 17.5% to 15%.
So under a Tory Government spending would be slashed, by £80 billion according to CEBR estimates, and taxes raised, by £20 billion. At the same time, interest rates would stay low and quantitative easing would flow to stimulate the economy.
But the strategy carries severe risks. Moving too aggressively could stop the recovery in its tracks and plunge the economy back into recession.
It could also send unemployment sharply higher than the 10% rate an incoming Tory Government would inherit should it win the election.
And the weak pound, while driving exports, is pushing up the price of imports and in turn inflation. If inflation rises above 2% sooner than expected, the Bank of England will have to raise interest rates and suck the money it has pumped into the economy back out.
Such a withdrawal of both fiscal and monetary stimulus could be a disaster for the economy and for Osborne.
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard-business/article-23752884-city-still-has-not-made-up-its-mind-about-osborne.doCan you slash the budget next year without tanking the economy? Labour like to say you can't. They want to make the debate between them and the Conservatives one of "reckless" spending cuts versus Labour's "wise" restraint. That will be central to Gordon Brown's approach to both the G20 Leaders' Summit in Pittsburgh next week and the Labour party conference a few days later. He will say that the global economy can't afford to be taken off life support just yet. And nor can the UK.
But there are two problems with this line of argument. First, unlike all the major G20 countries, the UK is already planning to tighten fiscal policy by 2% of GDP in 2010. (Within the G20, only Argentina plans to tighten in 2010 as well.) If it's a risky thing to do, then it's a risk that Labour is already planning to take.
Second, the slogan about reckless cuts and the economy misses out two large chunks of the economic equation - namely monetary policy and the exchange rate.
As I discussed at some length earlier in the summer, there lots of different policies supporting the economy right now, and when it comes to "exit strategies" it matters a great deal which comes first. If the government - any government - announced tighter budget plans starting in 2010, it is possible that the bond markets would reward that government by pushing down long-term interest rates (also known as the interest rate on government debt). That could stimulate the economy in its own right by making it cheaper for companies to borrow. It could also, by reducing the return on sterling investments, push down the pound, giving an extra fillip to exporters. That would, non-coincidentally, also help with the long-term need to re-balance the economy in favour of investment and exports.
This is the line the Conservatives are planning to push over the next few weeks. And it's not mad. In fact, senior economists at Goldman Sachs have just published a more sophisticated version of the same argument.
It's tempting to say that tighter fiscal policy would also help defer the day when interest rates have to be raised. Indeed, that is what many economists mean when they talk about sequencing in this context. The argument would be that tighter fiscal policy would help allay fears of inflation, and thus allow the bank to keep interest rates lower for longer.
But, as the Goldman Sachs economists admit, you can't have it both ways. Either the tighter budget will cut overall demand, or it won't. If the net effect is expansionary - thanks to the fall in long-term borrowing rates - then the Bank could have just as much - or even more - reason to tighten than it did before the budget squeeze was announced.
That is what happened coming out of recession in the early 90s: real government spending didn't grow for four years. But a weak exchange rate helped support exports and the overall economy. Growth averaged 3.5% a year and interest rates rose as a result.
The basic point still stands: tighter fiscal policy won't necessarily tank the economy.
But here's the thing to remember. No-one knows for sure. That chain of cause and effect I outlined - between tighter spending and lower long-term borrowing rates and a lower exchange rate - involves a lot of loose links. We would usually expect bond yields to fall with such a change of policy, but this is a time when the Bank of England will be getting out of the business of buying tens of billions of pounds worth of government debt. The bond market will not necessarily be acting as we would usually expect.
The effect on the pound is even more unknowable, at least in the short term. It could fall, due to the fall in long-term rates. But it could also rise, in the expectation that growth will be higher than previously thought. Remember that all the textbooks would predict that quantitative easing would lower the exchange rate. Yet sterling rose significantly in the months after it was announced, probably on the grounds that it would help the economy.
Phew. Like so much that's happened in the past year, this isn't an easy topic to have at the centre of a general election. But it's a hugely necessary one. Especially because there is one thing all sides - even the economists - can agree on. If the economy doesn't recover properly, then it doesn't matter whether the plans for the budget are loose or tight. They won't be achieved.
The recovery might be hurt by a tighter budget squeeze - as Labour suggests. Or it might be helped, as the Conservatives intend to claim. But it matters which turns out to be right. Because you can't cut borrowing or spending as a share of the economy if that economy refuses to grow.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/stephanieflanders/2009/09/0 -
Laura, I feel I should warn you that whitehorse is the same guy that said people living in carboard boxes should pay council tax because they had use of the street lights.
Oh I seeHe reflects this bit of the article
There is a venom in the way many talk about it and an ill concealed relish in the idea that it will soon be put to the sword. The NHS is of course off limits, as to a lesser extent is education. But there is nothing short of contempt for almost everything else. It is now seen as a Tory mission to wipe out huge tracts of it. Because they believe that all the money is wasted, most of the employees don't really have proper jobs and very little of value is achieved, the view is taking shape that a Tory government should slash public expenditure by far more than anyone has yet imagined and do so within days of taking office so that the need to do so can be blamed on the mess inherited from Labour.
I think that seems to sum The White Horse up.If you keep doing what you've always done - you will keep getting what you've always got.0 -
Across the board benefit cuts, especially for these work-shy youths with 10 kids by the time there 20. Unemployment benefit to be for a period of 6 months maximum, for those who have worked in the first place. The system should provide a HAND-UP not a everlasting HAND-OUT.
I'm fed up of the chav under-class who do no work, have no intention of working, provide no input to the system, are no use for the country, yet squander massive proportions of the countries spending. I see these no gooders continually, causing trouble, drinking, smoking, drug using, having half a dozen useless sprogs, and getting paid off the country, income support, child tax credit, child benefit, housing allowance, etc etc etc, is everyone stupid throw these lazy bar stewards to the lions, never mind paying for them.
I hope that the end result of the economic mayhem of recent months is that people realise that the system can't cope on a long term basis under it's present guise. The whole way in which the UK operates needs a overhaul in virtually every respect. People who have earned do not want to continually pay for scroungers, public sector red tape, and everyone elses c0ck ups.
As the meerkat would say SIMPLES ...0 -
I think Vince had hit the nail on the head re the Tories proposals
“Osborne has in effect guaranteed that these policies will pave the way for a return to traditional Tory politics -- hitting the public sector now to pay for tax cuts for millionaires later,” said Vince Cable, who speaks on the economy for the Liberal Democrats, the third-biggest party.
:rolleyes:A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step
Savings For Kids 1st Jan 2019 £16,112
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