Osborne's plan to spend his way out of trouble

wotsthat

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Excuse me?

Hamish is editing out parts of sentences to make it look as if staff are being cut.

Yet you pick me up on posting the FULL sentence, and arguing that what he is saying is not only factually incorrect, but emotional twaddle...and secondly, he's actually resorting to editing out parts of paragraphs!

He simply refuses to answer the question. This isn't about arguing. I started simply by asking what cuts. He refused to answer and turned it around into a personal issue straight away. Re-read. I only asked "what cuts".

Reasonable answer would have led to a reasonable discussion. As it is, it didn't and he ended up simply fabricating stuff by actually deleting words from his apparently quotes.

You'd normally answer none of this and simply have a wisecrack in response. You won't now, as I have highlighted it. But come on. Even you would find it difficult to back someone up when they are purposely editing stuff out to make it look like something else.

You asked for cuts and got a list as long as your arm. You yourself said that only 50% of these were real cuts i.e. from a very long list by your own criteria there have been many cuts.

Then you disputed the difference between a cut and a saving and a grant being renewed. You although thought it was lazy to post such a long list.

You then said, again, what cuts as if this had never happened.

Then you found one cut which had been qualified and so you assumed none of the cuts you previously acknowledged had really happened.

Then once the thread had been wrecked you then asked what cuts (again) and said Hamish was ignoring the question.

I think the way this goes from here is to say something like ..

"where's Hamish; he's ignoring me and has ghosted away"

System

This thread was:
GD: "What cuts???? OMG WHAT CUTS?"
Hamish: *List of hundreds of cuts and reduced spend*
GD: "DUHHH, which ones are putting us in recession?"
Everyone: "Erm, all of them? Government spend is a large part of GDP"
GD: "WAAAAH WAAAH WAAHAHH!"

chewmylegoff

It's a fair enough point given that there actually haven't been any cuts in net terms as government expenditure is still increasing. Further, if the govt just spends a few more billion then GDP will rise, how does that actually help anyone though? Instead of being paid benefits some people will receive money for doing an unproductive job. Brilliant, that's fixed everything!!!

tomterm8

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

Poor Graham, extremely poor.

Try these on for size.....

Reminds me of a certain episode of yes minister. The minister asks for 100,000 job cuts, and the bureaucracy gives it to him... by starting up 100,000 fake positions, and then cutting them.

Of course, in every period of government, money will be moved around (in theory, to make services more efficient). In any given year of any government in the last fifty years, you could probably make a list of programs being cut that would look like 'cuts OMG!!!' if the media wanted them to.

Whether cuts are taking place really depends on the aggregate spending of the government.

Even members of this government like John Redwood say spending is increasing not just in nominal terms, but in real terms.

The numbers don't lie. The government is actually spending more money. You could make an argument that we are experiencing cuts if government spending was only increasing in nominal terms... but it is not.

StevieJ

I don't wish this to be all doom and gloom, some positive news around our way

CHESTER’S long-awaited new theatre is set to be developed in the city centre’s listed Art Deco former cinema.
Culture and recreation cabinet member Stuart Parker received the backing of Cheshire West and Chester council for the plan to use the building, in Northgate Street, to house the £43m cultural flagship.

There will be no compromise on standards. We want the very best. Evidence from the Grosvenor Park Open Air Theatre shows that people are willing to travel for the right quality of event.

http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-news/regional-news/2011/10/17/chester-city-council-approves-new-theatre-plans-92534-29605599/

Kennyboy66

tomterm8 wrote: »

Reminds me of a certain episode of yes minister. The minister asks for 100,000 job cuts, and the bureaucracy gives it to him... by starting up 100,000 fake positions, and then cutting them.

Of course, in every period of government, money will be moved around (in theory, to make services more efficient). In any given year of any government in the last fifty years, you could probably make a list of programs being cut that would look like 'cuts OMG!!!' if the media wanted them to.

Whether cuts are taking place really depends on the aggregate spending of the government.

Even members of this government like John Redwood say spending is increasing not just in nominal terms, but in real terms.

The numbers don't lie. The government is actually spending more money. You could make an argument that we are experiencing cuts if government spending was only increasing in nominal terms... but it is not.

A little disingenous I would say. In terms of importance what is really relevant is;

Spending as a proportion of GDP
Real spending adjusted for inflation
Nominal spending.

The following departments will spend less in real & nominal terms in 2014 than in 2011

Welfare
Education
Defence
General Government

They are respectively the 3rd, 4th, 5th and 7th spending areas of government.

The government has decided to increase spending on transfer payments (pensions) to keep votes and foreign aid to keep the Lib Dems onside and show that they are no longer the "nasty party".


Maybe good politics but its the economics of the mad house.

tomterm8

Kennyboy66 wrote: »

A little disingenous I would say. In terms of importance what is really relevant is;

Spending as a proportion of GDP
Real spending adjusted for inflation
Nominal spending.

What's disingenuous about saying that the government is spending more in both nominal AND real terms this year than it did last year?

I'm confused, frankly, before the election I said that was the right policy (increasing spending at below the trend rate of GDP growth rather than cuts), and after the election I still say that is the right policy.

Tory policy makes a lot more sense economically than their rhetoric before the election. It's broadly right, although I could quibble about where they chose to save the money (I think they should have focused on reducing NHS spending as a proportion of the budget. Foreign aid spending is not really that significant, and infrastructure spending should have been increased.)

Unfortunately, the fact the Tories are following the right policy on government spending is not, IMHO, going to stop us experiencing another recession.

heathcote123

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

Not as a long term solution, no.

When we get back into growth, I think the job of the state should be to get out of the way, shrink itself, and reduce the taxation and regulatory burdens to a minimum.

The thing is there will never be a good time to bite the bullet will there? We'll get back to some kind of moderate 'growth' (with a higher tax burden to cover the cost of the stimulus) politicians will still want pet schemes, promise more than we can afford, and before you know it we'll be back to where we started, only deeper in the hole.

But I also accept that one of the functions of government is to stabilise the economy when markets or the economy become dysfunctional.

And we're well into dysfunctional territory....

I thought the point the boy george made in his speech today was actually pretty spot on. The reason we're still borrowing at around the same rate as germany is because the problems are being tackled (admittedly to slowly for my likeing).

If we go borrowing billions more for a public spending stimulus, there is a pretty good chance we are not going to be borrowing @ 2.5% any more & our interest charges will go through the roof, more than offsetting any gain made through public spending.

The previous government borrowed to spend, not invest.

Don't even get me started on the wasted opportunity that Labour squandered by pandering to the left wing, big government, nanny state mentality of it's base.

Or the near criminal waste of money thanks to the Tories scrapping multi billion pound projects that were nearly paid for.

To be honest, I don't, because both parties have missed the window of opportunity.

We're now doomed to several years of stagnation, or even a mild recession, thanks to competing ideologies and idiotic rhetoric trumping sensible policies from both parties.

This small scale tinkering around the edges is pointless, worse than pointless in fact, because it's just a waste of money as it won't fix the problems.

It's far too little, far too late, and unless govt wakes up and applies some brute force to the problem, nothing will change.

Agree largely, but it's too late. Yes if labour were going to borrow lots it should have been used for more useful stuff, but it wasn't and this is where we are. The tories have got a !!!!!! hand that could bury them until Balls gets a chance to bankrupt us properly.

The brute force imo needs to big big changes to the size of state now, coupled with big corporation tax breaks for businesses hiring new staff in the UK and even bigger ones for companies bringing employment back into the UK. Corporation tax isn't where the monies at, the bread & butter is joe bloggs paying his PAYE & NI and rent and not being on benefits.