UK Coalition Government Comprehensive Spending Review - Oct 20th 2010

bendix

sinbad182 wrote: »

Did you not get the slightest impression that maybe he wasnt being entirely serious with the redundancy post....?!

It beggars belief, doesn't it? Not just that he couldn't see the original claim was exaggerating to make a point, but also that he actually highlighted it and suggested not many would get that amount.

How sad.

Blacklight

sinbad182 wrote: »

Did you not get the slightest impression that maybe he wasnt being entirely serious with the redundancy post....?!

There's no point in even trying to explain. The thread's been Devon'd*, all is lost. It's like Godwin but much, much worse.



*Devon's law: "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of Graham losing the plot and exploding all over the thread in an angry rant that has no bearing or relevancy to the original topic grows exponentially."

angrypirate

Rochdale_Pioneers wrote: »

1) The 20% figure comes from the Tories not from Labour
2) You utterly misunderstand what a deficit is. Its spending outstripping income. To close it you either cut spending or increase income. In our case a massive drop in tax receipts caused by the recession created much of the deficit.

So what would Labour cut? Simple - the deficit. Not spending, the actual deficit. Like it was cut by £20bn more than expected back in the Spring when tax receipts started to recover thanks to growth

Please can you tell me what labour do to get rid of the deficit then? They would either have to cut spending or increase taxes. I think you are the one who doesnt understand what the deficit is.

StevieJ

angrypirate wrote: »

Please can you tell me what labour do to get rid of the deficit then? They would either have to cut spending or increase taxes. I think you are the one who doesnt understand what the deficit is.

Or maybe look to increase GDP that will cut spending (benefits) and increase taxes ( more working and higher company profits), I admit not an easy one to pull off, but an option nevertheless This would obviously also include cuts to non GDP generating expenditure e.g. Trident.

Rochdale_Pioneers

angrypirate wrote: »

Please can you tell me what labour do to get rid of the deficit then? They would either have to cut spending or increase taxes. I think you are the one who doesnt understand what the deficit is.

You really don't get this do you. Ever seen a balance sheet? A profit and loss account? The deficit is an unbalanced balance sheet - spending more than you earn. A government earns money by taxing people - to earn more it either needs to increase existing taxes - make people paying tax pay more - or find new things or people to tax.

A million people stopped paying taxes when they lost their jobs. They stopped spending money and paying tax on that, that made businesses not make profits which were taxable.

To cut the deficit you can affect either or both sides of the balance sheet - cut spending or increase income. Oik keeps using the household budget analogy. Most families have a fixed income, so to cut a deficit they have to cut spending. For governments they don't have a fixed income, it rises and falls with the economy. And cutting spending can have a direct effect on the income if it affects economic performance.

So to increase tax revenues you don't have to increase taxes, just as to decrease our tax revenues we didn't decrease taxes. Get people back to work, have them paying taxes again and spending money, and you increase tax receipts. This cuts the deficit.

Why is this simple principle so difficult for right-wing commentators to understand?

A._Badger

Rochdale_Pioneers wrote: »

Why is this simple principle so difficult for right-wing commentators to understand?

Because you're writing complete nonsense, so sensible people have to wrestle with your voodoo economics.

If those jobs are provided by the state they cost more than they raise in taxes. You can (and your party did) hide and fiddle and twist so those costs fail to appear in black and white but, sooner or later, they come back to haunt you.

They are currently the spectre at your feast.

Why don't you just accept that Labour has been rumbled yet again and wait until the public forgets the complete and utter mess you made of the country with your nannying, bullying laws, unwanted wars and financial mismanagement on a grotesque scale?

It's too much to hope you won't ever win an election again, but I hope it won't be for decades. Which might give us time to get rid of the current bunch of clowns, too.

Frankly, the sooner both your parties (and the idiotic Lib-Dumbs) are done away with, the better.

olly300

Rochdale_Pioneers wrote: »

A million people stopped paying taxes when they lost their jobs. They stopped spending money and paying tax on that, that made businesses not make profits which were taxable.

To cut the deficit you can affect either or both sides of the balance sheet - cut spending or increase income. Oik keeps using the household budget analogy. Most families have a fixed income, so to cut a deficit they have to cut spending. For governments they don't have a fixed income, it rises and falls with the economy. And cutting spending can have a direct effect on the income if it affects economic performance.

So to increase tax revenues you don't have to increase taxes, just as to decrease our tax revenues we didn't decrease taxes. Get people back to work, have them paying taxes again and spending money, and you increase tax receipts. This cuts the deficit.

Why is this simple principle so difficult for right-wing commentators to understand?

Keyesian Economic theory is only suppose to be used in times of recession like now not when the economy was supposedly in good nick.

Unfortunately putting that theory into practise when the economy was suppose to be healthy means in times of recession we don't have the money or can be lend the money to do it, which is why we have to have the massive cuts.

If we had politicians like Norway i.e. think in the long term not only about when they will be next up for election we wouldn't be in this mess.

antrobus

Rochdale_Pioneers wrote: »

The deficit is an unbalanced balance sheet

The only way to get an unbalanced balance sheet is to employ an accountant that can't add up. At which point, you sack the accountant, and employ another one who can.

Balance sheets always balance. It's why they're called balance sheets.

antrobus

Rochdale_Pioneers wrote: »

Why is this simple principle so difficult for right-wing commentators to understand?

Part of the answer might be that you don't appear to have appreciated that the problem is that we have a structural deficit of £100 billion plus; i.e. a deficit that won't go away unless we do something about it.

neverdespairgirl

MikeMaloney wrote: »

Yes insane, but your £779.35 weekly is going to be capped at £500wk.

Just out of interest how much of your £779.35 week was for rent and council tax? So how much left to live on?

£500 a week rent, £32 a week council tax. So £247.35 a week to live on.