Good old Vince - looking after the North

ash28

sunshinetours wrote: »

Forget the north south rubbish - but removal of unelected quangos will probably only be a good thing for value for money for the country

Is not the Office of Budgetary Control a new quango?

Will it not be more a case of get rid of a few, create a few?

Thrugelmir

Sir_Humphrey wrote: »

Let's hope the ConDems don't amputate the head.

Well the previous Labour administration appear to have committed Hari-Kari. As they appear to be clueless as to how to dig the UK out of the hole that was dug.

While the recession was global. Labour policy must take the credit for at least 50% of the problems now.

An economy where Finanacial Services accounts for 8% of GDP but 24% of tax revenues is very worrying. Particular as the Labour spin machine went into full flow against greedy banks. Bash the goose to often it'll fly off to where its more welcome.

Sir_Humphrey

Learning political soundbites and slogans is no substitute for understanding economics.

I am not defending the boom economy. However, Gideon's adherence to pre-Keynesian economics is very worrying. His plan is based on the idea that the public sector is crowding out the private sector, which in the current circumstances is simply not the case.

The state can help the economy by aiding private industrial investment and public works. It worked in the 1930s when the national debt was far higher than it was today. The only objection is based on tin-foil hatted objection to state intervention.

robin_banks

Sir_Humphrey wrote: »

Learning political soundbites and slogans is no substitute for understanding economics.

I am not defending the boom economy. However, Gideon's adherence to pre-Keynesian economics is very worrying. His plan is based on the idea that the public sector is crowding out the private sector, which in the current circumstances is simply not the case.

The state can help the economy by aiding private industrial investment and public works. It worked in the 1930s when the national debt was far higher than it was today. The only objection is based on tin-foil hatted objection to state intervention.

That's politics though not economics, which is why there may well be problems in his relationship with Vince 'the' Cable.

tomterm8

robin_banks wrote: »

That's politics though not economics, which is why there may well be problems in his relationship with Vince 'the' Cable.

I disagree; it is politics AND economics... high politics, where the fate of nations is decided.

Thrugelmir

tomterm8 wrote: »

I disagree; it is politics AND economics... high politics, where the fate of nations is decided.

And as during the WW2, there comes a time when fighting a common enemy is more important than scoring points. Some issues are so fundamentally important that words just aren't enough.

Rochdale_Pioneers

Look at it on the brght side - Boy George is about to definitively prove that the thing not to do with an economy like ours is to slash spending. Then we can stop listening to the right and their shrill abuse of Keynes and do it right next time.

In the Tor fantasy world, its not a global crash, its just the UK and its all Brown's fault. So we need to pay most attention to the markets and slash spending and therefore jobs now. This will allow all those people in non-jobs to work for the private sector and do something useful.

Meanwhile in the real world the whole of Europe is in the quicksand and sinking deeper, with America little better. We're not going to trade our way out of the hole because our trading partners are in a worse mess than we are. Our businesses aren't going to develop a million new jobs, therefore what we are going to do is transfer people from "non-Jobs" to long term dole and thus shrink the economy at the time when recovery is nice and small and able to be snuffed out by say slashing spending and dumping people on the dole.

Thank god we have someone like Osborne in charge with a large knowledge and experience of economics and a firm grasp of facts vs dogma to guide us through. Otherwise we might risk repeating the mistakes of Howe in creating a deep and prolonged recession and mass unemployment in a way that had even his own economic adviser telling him that he was making it worse. Although this time we get to blame the LibDems as well as the Tories,

vivatifosi

Whatever the value of the RDA, there's a more political issue at stake here, that as a result of these changes we could be discussing for years to come.

Southern RDAs were trying to push through massive house building plans against the will of the Conservative party. So it wouldn't surprise me if this was at the root of the wish to get rid of them. In the longer term we'll have to wonder what impact this will have on house building, availability and house prices (especially on this forum!), for example:

http://www.eera.gov.uk/News/news/2010/mar/spoke-listened/