Chancellor on course to hit targets

CLAPTON

hallmark wrote: »

An unelected leader is a substantial problem & if you can't see why you're a moron.

but you didn't say that an elected leader would be mandatory but that you would accept one from a list

so it might appear that we have two morons here

hallmark

yawn .....

IronWolf

We don't elect leaders in the UK, you elect your MP, based on the party manifesto. We are not a Presidency

chewmylegoff

lvader wrote: »

How about if we didn't have debt and had money saved for a rainy day, many people live just fine following that rule. Not all countries have debt and run deficits either.

there are no major economies without government debt. even countries which consistently run surpluses (e.g. australia) still have government borrowing.

whilst, obviously, the less we owe to people the better, the idea that we could just "save for a rainy day" and therefore somehow eliminate our government debt and any need for future borrowing is just completely unrealistic.

if you disagree, please explain how any modern government could have successfully pursued such a strategy.

hallmark

IronWolf wrote: »

We don't elect leaders in the UK, you elect your MP, based on the party manifesto. We are not a Presidency

Do you think? Do you think that Labour would have won a 3rd term if Gordon Brown had already been in charge? I don't. And if they'd had someone else in charge last year they may have even managed a 4th.

CLAPTON

chewmylegoff wrote: »

there are no major economies without government debt. even countries which consistently run surpluses (e.g. australia) still have government borrowing.

whilst, obviously, the less we owe to people the better, the idea that we could just "save for a rainy day" and therefore somehow eliminate our government debt and any need for future borrowing is just completely unrealistic.

if you disagree, please explain how any modern government could have successfully pursued such a strategy.

it may be true that most /all governments do indeed have debt; the question is why
in general they have debt because the alternative for any given level of spending, is taxation which is often unpopular especially before elections

there is no economic theory that says government debt is essential for a h

chewmylegoff

CLAPTON wrote: »

it may be true that most /all governments do indeed have debt; the question is why
in general they have debt because the alternative for any given level of spending, is taxation which is often unpopular especially before elections

there is no economic theory that says government debt is essential for a h

the fact that all meaningful nations have debt suggests that whilst there may not be an economic theory called the "essential government debt theory", the reality is that it is part and parcel of running a major economy.

it's also very difficult to flex taxation revenue to match whatever capital spending you may have in a certain period, particularly when governments only run for short periods of time. to take an extreme example, it would have been quite tricky for the government of the day to finance the second world war using tax revenues alone...

lvader

chewmylegoff wrote: »

there are no major economies without government debt. even countries which consistently run surpluses (e.g. australia) still have government borrowing.

whilst, obviously, the less we owe to people the better, the idea that we could just "save for a rainy day" and therefore somehow eliminate our government debt and any need for future borrowing is just completely unrealistic.

if you disagree, please explain how any modern government could have successfully pursued such a strategy.

I understand why we have debt and don't really think it's an issue if kept under control. You came up with a very silly hypothetical statement saying all the banks would go bust if we didn't have debt, that is nonsense.

chewmylegoff

lvader wrote: »

I understand why we have debt and don't really think it's an issue if kept under control. You came up with a very silly hypothetical statement saying all the banks would go bust if we didn't have debt, that is nonsense.

Well, that is exactly what would have happened in practical terms, if we didn't have government borrowing, because the government would have been unable (or unwilling) to borrow money to bail out the banks, and then several of them would have gone bust, which would have in turn cause the rest of them to fail.

The silly hypothetical statement in this thread is the one which is along the lines "wouldn't it be a wonderful world if there was no debt", not the factual observation of how part of the national debt has come about. I find it a bit odd that you are seeking to describe something which actually happened as hypothetical idiocy.

lvader

A correct way of putting would have been.

"The banks would have gone bust had we not bailed them out"

What you said was

chewmylegoff wrote: »

If we had no national debt, all of our banks would have gone bust and we'd all be totally screwed.

This is plain stupid and wrong. We already had lots of debt before bailing out the banks. Bailing the banks really hasn't changed anything. The deficit is a structual one not related to the banks.