Hard to explain how bad economic crisis is, says Cable

ninky_2

no one is looking at the real reasons we are having to borrow so much. it's not all about waste in public services (some waste is inevitably and more services are under not over resourced). it's state revenue that is the issue. so many assets were sold off to the private sector. this hasn't actually increased tax revenues but it has drastically reduced the profit element of things like bt and british gas that were formerly in state hands.

personally i'd like to see more profits being got from things we all need and kept for the state coffers. for example car insurance. why not make the third party element a standard charge like road tax and have it paid in a similar way? any add ons or extras could be kept in the private sector but the third party element would be at a level that covered costs / outgoings and allowed for profit for the nation.

ILW

ninky wrote: »

no one is looking at the real reasons we are having to borrow so much. it's not all about waste in public services (some waste is inevitably and more services are under not over resourced). it's state revenue that is the issue. so many assets were sold off to the private sector. this hasn't actually increased tax revenues but it has drastically reduced the profit element of things like bt and british gas that were formerly in state hands.

personally i'd like to see more profits being got from things we all need and kept for the state coffers. for example car insurance. why not make the third party element a standard charge like road tax and have it paid in a similar way? any add ons or extras could be kept in the private sector but the third party element would be at a level that covered costs / outgoings and allowed for profit for the nation.

That would be very unfair on low risk drivers.

ninky_2

ILW wrote: »

That would be very unfair on low risk drivers.

rubbish. you might as well say road tax is unfair to people who only go out for the occassional sunday drive. the courts are finding the way risk is allotted to be prejudiced in outlook anyway (for example women drivers should no longer be given favourable premiums).

as long as you are allowed to drive you are deemed fit in the eyes of the law as a safe driver. those who face driving bans for drink driving or repeated speeding aren't allowed to drive anyway.

wotsthat

ninky wrote: »

no one is looking at the real reasons we are having to borrow so much. it's not all about waste in public services (some waste is inevitably and more services are under not over resourced). it's state revenue that is the issue. so many assets were sold off to the private sector. this hasn't actually increased tax revenues but it has drastically reduced the profit element of things like bt and british gas that were formerly in state hands.

This assumes an unlikely scenario where the state runs a business like BT or BG profitably. The only way they could do this would be if they had a monopoly and then the consumer would end up paying through the nose for the lack of efficiency.

ninky_2

wotsthat wrote: »

This assumes an unlikely scenario where the state runs a business like BT or BG profitably. The only way they could do this would be if they had a monopoly and then the consumer would end up paying through the nose for the lack of efficiency.

because telecoms and energy prices are currently such an efficiently run bargain for the consumer........at least we'd know the profits were going to pay for public services.

wotsthat

ninky wrote: »

because telecoms and energy prices are currently such an efficiently run bargain for the consumer........at least we'd know the profits were going to pay for public services.

I wasn't clear enough. They are efficiently run organisations NOW - they wouldn't be if they were state owned. They'd have to receive subsidies either direct from the taxpayer or in the form of higher bill charges.

Red tape would stifle investment. Eventually they'd have to be sold off again so that the private sector could sort them out.

ILW

ninky wrote: »

because telecoms and energy prices are currently such an efficiently run bargain for the consumer........at least we'd know the profits were going to pay for public services.

BT was a basket case before being sold off.

ninky_2

ILW wrote: »

BT was a basket case before being sold off.

in what way?

Thrugelmir

Rochdale_Pioneers wrote: »

Cable is part of the problem he rightly addresses. Its all very well saying "people don't understand it" but when his government is happy to rewrite history and give misleading statements for political reasons is it any wonder?

I've skipped most of this thread, but was interested to see the "its all Labour's fault for not regulating properly" argument deployed early on. And part of this is true - Labour didn't regulate properly, thats a fact. Then you step back and put it in context. Most governments didn't regulate properly - and "properly" is something that can only be defined now, not then. And the Tory response to Labour not regulating properly was to accuse them of over-regulating and to call for even less regulation, the polar oppositite of what we now know is "proper" regulation. So politically whilst the attempts to blame it all on Brown have been hard-fought, the facts scupper the Tories efforts.

And its a similar story on "debt" and "deficit". Can't escape the fact that we entered the crash with less debt than most of our competitors and that this remains the case today - which is why the accepted % of GDP measure used universally gets binned and various spurious measures deployed to prove the point. And whilst the deficit is now high it wasn't pre-crash and besides which the Tories shackled themselves to spend every past penny of what they now brand "Labour recklessness" had they won a 2007 election. And if debt interest now is such a disaster, why when as a % of our economy it was higher under John Major wasn't that an apocalypse?

So its little wonder the public don't get it. Facts are hard to come by and there is little authority behind any of them. When might they get it? Well the big crisis looks likely to be still ahead of us. It seems to be only a matter of time before Greece say "enough", and once the default machine gets in motion revealing how much money we all owe each other, the whole Euro house of ponzi collapses. And thats ignoring the oceans of Euros loaned by western European banks in eastern european property development which those nations cannot afford to repay in a foreign currency on property thats devalued massively since the top of the bubble.

I know there are some loons who say "stick your money under the bed" or "have a few months-worth of food", but in a way I do sypathise with the sentiment.....

Time to move forward RP. The UK has to move forward collectively to survive in the global market place. No time for ranting about the past. Times are changing rapidly. The financial power is moving East. While the West continues to wallows in debt. So what matters is how we address reducing the debt burden we have.

ILW

It was incredibly ineficient.
The service was terrible.
It took 6 weeks to get a phoen installed (if you were lucky)
Their services cost a fortune.
They were losing a fortune (if the subsidy was taken out)
etc etc