The myth of Austerity Part III

MacMickster

GeorgeHowell wrote: »

All this "austerity is killing the patient" codswallop is just Labour propaganda again.

If a family gets into debt they are told to budget, cut back on luxuries, economise, make do etc . until they balance their books. Only a nutcase would tell them to try to spend their way out of it. Why considered so different for the country as whole ?

The answer of course is Labour -- having got us into this unholy mess they have nothing else to say in opposition.

It is not just a case of making cuts. Yes, any family/country with debt problems must cut out all unnecessary expenditure. This means cutting some benefits and "nice to have" but not essential services.

At the same time, the family/country should make longer term plans to improve their income. For our economy this means investing far more heavily in infrastructure that will provide tangible assets to make us more competetive in the future. Housebuilding on a large scale (so that wages can be lower in the future), nuclear power stations (so that we are not reliant on other countries to meet our energy needs). High speed rail however is probably not needed. In 20 years time I would imagine that the need for business travel will have significantly reduced, as meetings will take place virtually. The other key to capital investment is that it must happen NOW - not in 20 to 25 years when we will already have been left behind by our competitors.

Thrugelmir

MacMickster wrote: »

In 20 years time I would imagine that the need for business travel will have significantly reduced, as meetings will take place virtually.

People need to live closer to their place of work.

homelessskilledworker

MacMickster wrote: »

Then imagine that after 3 years of talk about living an austere lifestyle to try to get a handle on your debts, you are still spending far more than you are earning and so continuing to increase the credit card balance. In fact you are increasing it year on year by more than the other person did in 9 of the 10 years.

Can you still put all of the blame on the other person, or do you need to start accepting at least a little bit of the responsibility yourself?

The thing is there is no solution, not one that does not involve a lot more pain. None of the parties had any hope of fixing the problems post 2007 in two years, the only reason the present government are getting it in the neck right now is because people are hurting and they need to sound off at somebody.

The problems we have now will take a generation to fix, I personally was hoping they would go for a quick nasty shock that would have got rid of the zombie companys and then start getting some real growth.

Every trick in the book has been used now, and we still have a flat economy, either we get rid of the dead wood now or we continue like we are for a decade or longer.

posh*spice

GeorgeHowell wrote: »

That's nonsense too, it takes far more than two years to sort out the sort of economic and public financial shambles left after thirteen years of Labour. There is no quick fix, that's just left wing propaganda -- like the above post.

Oh please. We have no economic growth and our debts are spiralling out of control. Yet all that emanates from the Treasury is a deeply negative air of resignation, a collective failure in imagination and leadership that seems to say there is nothing further that can be done other than to watch, wait and accept our fate. What does this Government stand for, beyond tweaking policy – sometimes in a manner which is quite negative for economic growth....pure rubbish!

Thrugelmir

posh*spice wrote: »

there is nothing further that can be done other than to watch, wait and accept our fate.

Probably sums up 50% of the population.

The UK was entreprenurial once upon a tome.

I_Wanna_Retire_Someday

Wookster wrote: »

Welfare will rise to 32.5% of all spending, up from 28.5%,

The bulk of the overshoot lies in pensioner benefits and spending on tax credits (and if the great bulk of today’s jobs “miracle” is in relatively low-paid private sector work, it will carry on rising, regardless of government attempts to cap benefits at below the rate of inflation.)


Without growth, all these commitments are unaffordable and unsustainable.

Thrugelmir

I_Wanna_Retire_Someday wrote: »

Without growth, all these commitments are unaffordable and unsustainable.

Changes to pensions etc will be made an election issue. Then there's a clear mandate for change.

The electorate will be given choices at the next election. Not palatable I should add.

Fella

LauraW10 wrote: »

You need to do some reading. Try googling "Why austerity doesn't work"

If you're going to be that patronizing you really ought to understand at least a tiny bit about the facts.

Here's one to start with: We currently have no austerity, we're spending more than Labour did in at least 12 of their 13 years in power.

So you're talking utter drivel basically.

Norfolk_Jim

The problem is that whole system was unsustainable from the start. You can't have infinite growth in a finite world but the entire system is built on the basis that you can grow forever.
The only solution is either be content and stand still, allowing the rest of the world to catch up, or accept that the bubble will burst, burst it and take the nasty medicine then restart the whole failed model all over again from scratch.
In the absence of big land based wars and nasty pandemics we are economically speaking totally stuffed.
But if you want somewhere to start - we have to reintroduce the concept of no work, no pay. People may be unemployed but theres no good reason why they should be idle. The elephant in the room is that you get benefits for nothing - contribute nothing - do nothing - you still get the benefits.
I know people who have made themselves unemployable so they will never be forced off their benefit dependent lifestyle by having to work - Thats the first thing that needs to be changed IMO