Labour still singing the spend song

Wookster

Just watching one of their puppets on Newsnight critisising the Tories for exceeding their borrowing targets and suggesting they would be borrowing less right now than had they spent more.

Perhaps someone replaced the plus button with a minus on their calculators.

Sir_Humphrey

When are you going to admit that you got this very, very, wrong.

I told you this would happen.

Wookster

Sir_Humphrey wrote: »

When are you going to admit that you got this very, very, wrong.

I told you this would happen.

The sheery idiocy of the spend song has been thoroughly exposed by events just across the water... or have you not read the papers?

Sir_Humphrey

Wookster wrote: »

The sheery idiocy of the spend song has been thoroughly exposed by events just across the water... or have you not read the papers?

I do read the papers, but not the Daily Star as you seem to.

You seriously think this is all down to spending, and not tax evasion, the Euro and corruption?

Did you know that Italy has only a small deficit and Spain ran a surplus before the crash? Did you know that the bonds even of free market Austria are under pressure?

In fact, do you know what you are talking about? Actually, I already know the answer to that.

What people like you wanted to happen in the UK is happening, and it is now obvious that it is a complete Charlie Foxtrot.

Thrugelmir

Sir_Humphrey wrote: »

You seriously think this is all down to spending, and not tax evasion, the Euro and corruption?

Very much down to financial mismanagement on a huge scale.

Road_Hog

Sir_Humphrey wrote: »

I do read the papers, but not the Daily Star as you seem to.

You prefer the Morning Star instead, eh comrade?

Mr_Mumble

Wookster, seriously, why do you bother getting wound up by these programmes? It can hardly be good for your health.

Sir_Humphrey wrote: »

Did you know that Italy has only a small deficit and Spain ran a surplus before the crash? Did you know that the bonds even of free market Austria are under pressure?

Yep, that's all to do with the Euro and the EFSF (a set up that means the Italians are supposed to borrow at 7% to guarantee the debt of the Greeks who're being lent money at 3.5% - there is just a domino effect in terms of bond and CDS prices here - are the French, Austrians, Dutch and Germans willing or able to take on this burden?). Oh, and if you think Austria is free market how would you categorise Hong Kong, Taiwan or even mainland China which has half the government revenue to GDP rates? Now remind me what countries are booming at the moment, the low tax tiger economies of east Asia or the high tax economies of the Mediterranean?!

What people like you wanted to happen in the UK is happening, and it is now obvious that it is a complete Charlie Foxtrot.

Government spending is 20% above its revenue and government revenue is at a historically high level around 38% of GDP. I don't want to talk for Wookster but me personally, I'd have actually done some cutting. We saw nominal cuts of 30% after WWII in government spending and the economy recovered - that was real austerity. The bozos at the BBC now call 5% per annum increases in spending "austerity", what an insult.

Rochdale_Pioneers

We're told that we should accept NHS privatiation and free schools because it doesn't matter what system is used as long as the outcome is right.

So, for the economy the outcome we want is people in employment paying taxes and not receiving benefits. There are a multitude of schemes out there designed to do just that, taking a small amount of government money and creating jobs with it. The Guardian today has a prime example - a furniture refurb business in Liverpool that takes unemployed dossers, trains them and employs them. Cameron visited and declared it exactly the kind of scheme Britain needs - then withdrew the funding it needs to operate.

We have two alternatives*. Accept that unemployment is going to keep rising and accept lower tax receipts and higher benefit bills. Or invest some of that cash you were going to waste on unemployment into getting people employed. Apparently we should accept it when private sector bodies replace the public sector running hospitals if outcomes are better, but we cannot accept the reverse when it comes to jobs. Why not?

The Big Society insists charity should step in. Which would be fine if the charities didn't rely on government funding to operate which is being withdrawn. I don't want public sector non-jobs creating, but its clear that for the private sector to create jobs in the most deprived areas some cash is needed to get them going. So spend a little to gain ore benefit later - in business its called "investment". Why doesn't the government want to invest a little to save a lot?

*OK so there is a third option - slash the public sector and watch as the private sector frees itself of its shackles and creates far more jobs than have just been lost. Except that as yesterday's job figures demonstrated - 111k jobs cut from public sector in Q2, 41k added to private sector - this dogma is plain wrong.

paulmapp8306

Doesnt matter how you dress it up, if you spend more than you earn your going to be in trouble.

The thing seem to be, everyone wants the best and Labour want to give it to them. Good Free Health, Good free Schools, decent policing, decent armed forces, decent pensions, decent wages (public sector), decent benefits for those who cant work or Cant get work .... the list goes on.

Now this is all fine, IF your income can support it. the problem is we as a country dont manufacture much anymore so dont have a high export income (a side issue is the government keeping the £ week to help companies export when in fact as a & we import more so the general public would actually benefit more with cheaper imports, so a stronger £).

Sooo - what do you do? Well you have to do what everyone does (or should do) in there private lives. you may WANT something but of you cant afford it you cant HAVE it.

WE as a country cannont support the public services we want at the current rate, so we HAVE to cut. Thats fairly simple to see.

There are reasons WHY we can no longer afford the services we want. Technology is one of them. It costs a lot more now for computer systems, high tech equipment, maintenance etc than it used to - so the costs of running services even to the level of 20 years ago is much higher.

There is a LOT of waste, at all levels. Teh actual level of services needent go down much IF waste is targeted. Unfortunately thatws too much bother fo a lot of management who take the easy route and cut jobs.

Case in point - Schools in my area bought iPads for its pupils !!!! they were given them to take how to help with homework. Within a month 80% of them had been broken. So they replaced them. where exactly is this monrey comming from, and whats wrong with pens & paper - and the internet at a library. Oh yes - most kids dont know what a library is do they.

AAANyway. There are more than one factor contributing to the mess were in, but whichever way you cut it, borrowing more money to help get out of debt NEVER works.

Intoodeep

paulmapp8306 wrote: »

Doesnt matter how you dress it up, if you spend more than you earn your going to be in trouble.

The thing seem to be, everyone wants the best and Labour want to give it to them. Good Free Health, Good free Schools, decent policing, decent armed forces, decent pensions, decent wages (public sector), decent benefits for those who cant work or Cant get work .... the list goes on.

Now this is all fine, IF your income can support it. the problem is we as a country dont manufacture much anymore so dont have a high export income (a side issue is the government keeping the £ week to help companies export when in fact as a & we import more so the general public would actually benefit more with cheaper imports, so a stronger £).

Sooo - what do you do? Well you have to do what everyone does (or should do) in there private lives. you may WANT something but of you cant afford it you cant HAVE it.

WE as a country cannont support the public services we want at the current rate, so we HAVE to cut. Thats fairly simple to see.

There are reasons WHY we can no longer afford the services we want. Technology is one of them. It costs a lot more now for computer systems, high tech equipment, maintenance etc than it used to - so the costs of running services even to the level of 20 years ago is much higher.

There is a LOT of waste, at all levels. Teh actual level of services needent go down much IF waste is targeted. Unfortunately thatws too much bother fo a lot of management who take the easy route and cut jobs.

Case in point - Schools in my area bought iPads for its pupils !!!! they were given them to take how to help with homework. Within a month 80% of them had been broken. So they replaced them. where exactly is this monrey comming from, and whats wrong with pens & paper - and the internet at a library. Oh yes - most kids dont know what a library is do they.

AAANyway. There are more than one factor contributing to the mess were in, but whichever way you cut it, borrowing more money to help get out of debt NEVER works.

Quality post. keep it up

Masomnia

Rochdale_Pioneers wrote: »

*OK so there is a third option - slash the public sector and watch as the private sector frees itself of its shackles and creates far more jobs than have just been lost. Except that as yesterday's job figures demonstrated - 111k jobs cut from public sector in Q2, 41k added to private sector - this dogma is plain wrong.

For Q2 yes, but what about over the year?