Osborn hasn't a clue

mayonnaise

lemonjelly wrote: »

Osborn is the chancellor, but is he genuinely qualified? I mean, apart from folding towels in a hotel for 6 months

You're giving him way too much credit there.
The towel folding job lasted merely a week or two.
And it was in Selfridges, not a hotel.

IronWolf

lemonjelly wrote: »

Say 77 highly qualified economists:
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/jun/12/osborne-plan-has-no-basis-in-economics



This is from people who know what they're talking about generally. I mean sure, Osborn is the chancellor, but is he genuinely qualified? I mean, apart from folding towels in a hotel for 6 months one summer he's never really worked, and only has the job because of his schoolmates.

Economists don't know what they're talking about though, economics is just a pseudo science more akin to astrology than scientific method.


Keynesian economics, which is the most popular at the moment, has been truly debunked over the last 20 years.


How anyone can trust economists when they still believe in ridiculous notions like the Efficient Market Hypothesis is beyond me.

antrobus

lemonjelly wrote: »

Say 77 highly qualified economists:

This is from people who know what they're talking about generally.....

There are thouands of economists working in the UK. I dare say, you could get 77 of them to say anything, if you tried hard enough. You know what they say, ff all the economists in the world were laid end to end, they'd still never reach a conclusion.:)

lemonjelly wrote: »

.... I mean sure, Osborn is the chancellor, but is he genuinely qualified? I mean, apart from folding towels in a hotel for 6 months one summer he's never really worked, and only has the job because of his schoolmates.

As opposed to who exactly? Darling? Brown? What kind of qualifications to you want of a Chancellor of the Exchequer?

cells

Generali wrote: »

Australia ran a surplus for many years very successfully.

There is a school of thought which goes that it is highly risky to run a trade and budget deficit at the same time. Both Labour and Tory Governments have done that since the mid-70s.

so its worked well for 40 years seeing as things have only gotten a lot better since then.....

princeofpounds

He initially claimed to eliminate the deficit within 5 years. He failed.

Yes. He promised too much; that is what politicians often have to do in order to get elected. He might have failed his own expectations, but he hasn't done a bad job as the deficit is sharply down.

In the last 5 years, Osborn & co borrowed more money, than Labour did in 17 years.

Given Labour opened up a whacking great deficit in the last 24 months of their rule, which is now going to take something like 8-9 years to close, this is not surprising.


If you lend your mate your car, but slash the tires first, don't be surprised if his fuel consumption ends up higher than yours.

As well as borrowing, spending has also been higher than under labour.
Average public spend as % of GDP:

Thatcher 41%
Major 38%
Labour 39%
Coalition 42%

Talk about a false yardstick. You should be looking at the spending at the END of the government's reign, to see what they achieved, rather than what they inherited.


Thatcher 39%
Major 38%
Labour 47%
Coalition c42%





I'll be very clear on this, as I am not a partisan closed-minded person. Labour's economic management in the first half of their reign was actually perfectly good.


They followed tight Tory spending plans for the first couple of years (indeed you could claim this was the best period of public finances, a legacy of Major's government but unachievable without the Labour discipline of that period).


The spending rises they put in place in the following few years were affordable as a consequence.


Things only started to go wrong later on in their reign. Spending crept ever-higher, and peaked just after the crisis.


I do not blame Labour too much for creating the crisis (at least, I doubt any government was prepared to discover and fight the risks that were building).


But I absolutely do blame them for driving up spending/GDP when GDP was at a cyclical high. The levels of spending only appeared normal because the economy was extraordinary. Then subsequently, as revenues fell, spending was further increased in an expensive attempt to cushion the blow.


This is the really critical point that often gets lost - the typical Labour line is that spending appeared normal until the crisis. Well, it did if you don't understand what a debt to GDP ratio actually means in practice (hint - there are two numbers to worry about, not one), and then you ignore all the actions in the two years subsequent to the crunch.


As for your posts in general, you can't have it both ways - criticise the coalition for cutting too fast, then complaining when they are forced to spend more money than they would otherwise like. It doesn't help your credibility.

Thrugelmir

lemonjelly wrote: »

Nonsense.
He initially claimed to eliminate the deficit within 5 years. He failed.
He consistently moves the goalposts.
In the last 5 years, Osborn & co borrowed more money, than Labour did in 17 years.
As well as borrowing, spending has also been higher than under labour.
Average public spend as % of GDP:

And Labour in 2 General Elections has offered no credible alternative plans. What Osborne inherited was 13 years of Browns incompetence. Winding back much of the damage is going to take a long time and prove very expensive to the UK.

I'll judge Osborne at the end of this period. So far he's doing an Ok job. Though the most difficult part is yet to come. As he'll take stick whatever options are choosen. Then we'll see if is the person for the job.

Conrad

lemonjelly wrote: »

This is from people who know what they're talking about generally.

I recommend you to a brilliant book entitled 'Future Babble', which forensically shows how 99% of economic predictions end up wrong (aside from the most basic, obvious, technocratic stuff).


99%+ of the worlds economists did not predict the Banking crash. Always the same, most of them are rear view mirror experts.

mwpt

lemonjelly wrote: »

Nonsense.
He initially claimed to eliminate the deficit within 5 years. He failed.
He consistently moves the goalposts.
In the last 5 years, Osborn & co borrowed more money, than Labour did in 17 years.
As well as borrowing, spending has also been higher than under labour.

I see this mixed argument against the conservatives fairly often. The argument goes:

"Cutting public borrowing and public expenditure is the wrong thing to do because it will result in an economic contraction. And anyway, he has borrowed and spent more than anyone else so he is a liar."

Which doesn't really make much sense as a coherent argument to me.

purch

lemonjelly wrote: »

highly qualified economists:

That's an Oxymoron if ever I saw one

purch BSc (Econ) :eek: