Austerity Vs Growth

System

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

You could make massive cuts to the NHS and Welfare State, reduce taxes to stimulate economic growth, and that would indeed get us back to growth.

Politically impossible of course, so a complete waste of time even discussing it.

No it isn't. No one has ever tried it.

But it doesn't have to be the NHS that suffers the cuts.
I have been advocating this for years:
1) Replace all state benefits and pensions with a flat rate £140 pw per person, given to everyone regardless of income.
2) Scrap the entire departments of pensions, employment, benefits, etc
3) Abolish car tax, put the tax on fuel
4) Scrap the entire DVLA, retaining only a small registration section
5) Abolish corporation tax
6) Replace all other income taxes with a flat rate
7) Abolish capital gains and inheritance tax
8) Scrap the entire HMRC apart from a small section dealing with the flat rate tax

Someone work out what that would cost/save, and if it's not enough I'll give you some more departments to abolish.

Graham_Devon

Clifford_Pope wrote: »

No it isn't. No one has ever tried it.

But it doesn't have to be the NHS that suffers the cuts.
I have been advocating this for years:
1) Replace all state benefits and pensions with a flat rate £140 pw per person, given to everyone regardless of income.
2) Scrap the entire departments of pensions, employment, benefits, etc
3) Abolish car tax, put the tax on fuel
4) Scrap the entire DVLA, retaining only a small registration section
5) Abolish corporation tax
6) Replace all other income taxes with a flat rate
7) Abolish capital gains and inheritance tax
8) Scrap the entire HMRC apart from a small section dealing with the flat rate tax

Someone work out what that would cost/save, and if it's not enough I'll give you some more departments to abolish.

I guess the answer to all of this is always going to be "so more are unemployed then?".

I agree with the wastage, and what you could cut back on. It's the people this leaves unemployed which I believe to be the biggest factor of why it's never going to be done.

grizzly1911

The_White_Horse wrote: »

they need to sack at least 20% of public sector and then reduce the remaining workers salaries by 30%. I was speaking to someone yesterday who told me his wife is a physio in the nhs - on 50k!! absolute insanity. and think of the final salary pension liability. it is a disgrace. the public sector needs massive cuts. if they want to strike, fine. i am willing to fight them.

I would be surprised if the physio you refer to just does clinical work I would expect their to be additional duties included at that grade. Many NHS pensions schemes are only 50% after 40+ years service. Of course we could do away with the pension s all together and just keep them on bread an water through state handouts at the end like all other who have done nothing to provide anything into the countries pot.

Private physios don't come much cheaper, fine if you don't need one of course. Of course we could all self insure and have such a shining example as the US health system. Clinical services in the NHS are pretty much on the bone. Large swathes of NHS operational/logistics/facilities is already in private hands. Mony clinical salaries have already taken a 15% pay cut through wage freezes.

Don't dispute there is some apparent bloat in local authorities and Government directly and through bureaucracy.

The cuts you mention would only work if you actually don't need the people and services, and you could exterminate them at the same time.

If either of those scenarios can't be met the problem/cost will just pop out somewhere else, a bit like trying to deflate a balloon.

If we do need them then they will have to be paid for through the private sector one way or another by us individually or collectively.

If we don't need them then they will simply go onto the ever growing unemployment list. Yes we could cut benefits possibly but that needs structural change in our economy and society to achieve.

This country wastes far to much on luxuries and not enough on core requirements. We are quite happy to consume from the fart east. We are like a leaking bucket.

In the"good" times much more spending and consumption was contained in the UK with a smaller population and far fewer aspirations.

Mrs_Bones

I think the argument of austerity against growth is being over done. There is a middle ground and we can do both. I also think this county needs to do some spending in order to give growth a kick start. Spending should not automatically equal borrowing though.

I do think it's very much like a household. If the household gets into financial trouble, you make cuts where you can (but you can't cut everything). One think you do cut up is the cards and you stop borrowing. Then you prioritize the money you've got and decided where you spend it to get the most from your money, ie Marks & Spencer's is out and Aldi is in.

The current government is no different. They've made a few cuts, but some were based on ideological whims rather than sound sense, there is more they could cut. They have not stopped borrowing, in fact they are borrowing more. On the final point, like successive governments between them they are failing dismally. We are not using the money we do have in a constructive fashion. If we could stop playing party politics and PR spin machine games just for a little while there are lots of way's we could achieve more with the money with got. Off the top of my head I could think of several things and I'm sure most of the rest of us on here could as well. There just does not seem to be any down to earth common sense in the government, all they are doing is tinkering around the edges looking for good headlines in tomorrows papers.

StevieJ

chucky wrote: »

Most people on here just don't understand that the economy is not like a household budget where you can cut expenditure to make savings.

It's a little bit more complex, you do need investment and more importantly growth.

It doesn't have to be public investment, toll roads?

grizzly1911

StevieJ wrote: »

It doesn't have to be public investment, toll roads?

Like the successful M6 Toll?;)

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

Mrs_Bones wrote: »

I do think it's very much like a household. If the household gets into financial trouble, you make cuts where you can (but you can't cut everything). One think you do cut up is the cards and you stop borrowing. .

It's nothing like a household.

A person has an income limited to a lifetime..

A country has the ever growing revenue from it's taxpayers until infinity, with inflation eroding the value of debts over decades or even centuries.

StevieJ

grizzly1911 wrote: »

Like the successful M6 Toll?;)

Yes just like that

As a spokesperson for the RAC told us, “it’s difficult to draw any proper conclusions from such a limited trial, but the data we have certainly doesn’t undermine our support for a national road pricing scheme in the future.”

Conclusion

Whilst the data on the M6 toll pilot is somewhat inconclusive, there is certainly scope for interpreting it in a different light to that which is offered by the Campaign for Better Transport.

Indeed it is worth noting that the Highways Agency report does just that, claiming that “five years on, the M6 Toll continues to provide an alternative route to the M6 for motorists and has improved congestion and journey times on the M6.”

With such difficulties existing in judging the worth of a 27-mile stretch of road, the implications the pilot has for the proposed national scheme is near impossible to gauge.

http://fullfact.org/factchecks/the_m6_toll_success_or_failure-1546

Sapphire

I admire those car workers in the north who realized their company would lose a contract and thus thousands of jobs if they did not accept conditions that included not being given a pay rise for two years. The company won the contract and thus ensured that thousands of jobs would be guaranteed, in an area of high unemployment.

This reminds me of what the Germans did prior to unification – they all seemed to pull together, accepting wage freezes, etc, and successfully achieved the massive task of uniting East and West Germany.

We need more of that attitude in Britain – there is a huge sense of entitlement here.

And we need to get a grip on immigration – let people in who are going to be useful to the economy, but not those (the majority) who simply want to sponge off taxpayers and will drag the economy down still further. This includes citizens of EU countries. If EU laws state that we have to let in every Tom, !!!!!! and Harry, then the laws need to change.

Graham_Devon

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

It's nothing like a household.

A person has an income limited to a lifetime..

A country has the ever growing revenue from it's taxpayers until infinity, with inflation eroding the value of debts over decades or even centuries.

It's wholly unethical and immoral to spend the money of those not yet born to save ourselves.

This is what you do not seem to grasp. I feel the majority of the country would feel the same way as myself.

You may not have kids, and therefore your viewpoint may be limited by that. But most do, and most do not want to see their children suffer so that we don't have to suffer today.

I cannot really put it any more succinctly than that. If you truly believe we should sell our childrens future to make our immediate future better, then I really do feel you are one of the very few.