Corbynomics: A Dystopia

setmefree2

I was stunned to hear a trade union leader being interviewed at the TUC conference by Sky News parroting Corbyn that it would be a great idea to start printing money for infrastructure projects.:eek:

Equally stunned that said same TU leader seemed to be claiming that Joseph Stiglitz, Paul Krugman and Danny Blanchflower backed Corbynomics. Given that Corbynomics seems to involve taxing people at 60 % to 80% I find that hard to believe. All the above economists are anti-austerity including tax hikes on the so called rich.

Also sick of hearing that the top 10% of earners haven't suffered enough since the 2008 crisis - when in fact they have suffered and lost the most. And yet Labour want them to cough up yet more.

cepheus

setmefree2 wrote: »

I was stunned to hear a trade union leader being interviewed at the TUC conference by Sky News parroting Corbyn that it would be a great idea to start printing money for infrastructure projects.:eek:

Equally stunned that said same TU leader seemed to be claiming that Joseph Stiglitz, Paul Krugman and Danny Blanchflower backed Corbynomics. Given that Corbynomics seems to involve taxing people at 60 % to 80% I find that hard to believe. All the above economists are anti-austerity including tax hikes on the so called rich.

Also sick of hearing that the top 10% of earners haven't suffered enough since the 2008 crisis - when in fact they have suffered and lost the most. And yet Labour want them to cough up yet more.

Anywhere else I would have assumed the post above was a spoof, but on here who knows?

Jeremy Corbyn's policies have been endorsed by Paul Krugman and Joesph Stieglitz. Both of whom have a Nobel Prize in economics.

http://www.spectator.co.uk/life/mind-your-language/9627852/why-would-jeremy-corbyn-want-to-be-credible-when-he-can-be-incredible/

.string.

setmefree2 wrote: »

The results show supporters paying £3 to vote were to the left of the full party members and largely signed up to support Corbyn. 83% voted for Corbyn versus 49% of labour members.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-34221155

Thanks for finding that, from the data it appears that the newly registered voters swung the day for Corbyn.

I have to wonder if those newly registered voters were in any way encouraged by Union Bosses.

Purely as a coincidence of course I note that Corbyn is giving his first major speech to .... Drum Roll .... The Trades Union Congress.

One has to wonder why his first speech is not to his Party.

I have to shake my head and wonder how the Labour Party has engineered its own immolation in this way.

setmefree2

Interesting article here:-

Paul Krugman Gets The Accusation Against Labour Slightly Wrong

http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2015/09/14/paul-krugman-gets-the-accusation-against-labour-slightly-wrong/

When Labour came to power in 1997, and for a couple of years afterwards (as they followed the spending plans of the previous conservative government) public spending was of the order of 35 to 36% of GDP. This gave reasonable budget surpluses. Because no matter how people really try it seems that the most you can get out of the UK economy in taxation, over the long term, is in the 37-38% of GDP range.
Labour wanted to increase this amount: they wanted to get closer to that Nordic social democracy basically. Which is fine (even if I disagree) as a political goal. So, government spending rose and rose again, up to more like 43 to 44% of GDP. And in a massive boom that’s going to be covered by strongly rising tax revenues. For given that marginal tax rates are higher than average tax rates strong growth will feed through into stronger than that rises in tax revenue.
All of which is just peachy: except that in the long term we still just can’t abstract more than about 37-38% of GDP into tax revenues. This is a bit like the puzzle about Federal taxation in the US. There’s been all sorts of different tax regimes over the decades. But no one has consistently managed to get Federal revenue over 20% of GDP and nor has it ever really fallen below 16% or so (outside horrendous recessions). We do seem to have something analagous to the Laffer Curve here. No, not the detailed argument of Art Laffer, but just, well, certain economies are willing to cough up a certain portion in taxes. And much as politicians might try to change this the people will change their behaviour so that attempts to gain higher portions simply don’t work in that long term.
And that’s the argument about Labour over spending. Not that they had a huge deficit. But that they were spending many percentage points of GDP more than can be, in the long term, collected in taxation, that likely future deficit being covered simply by the massive boom going on. So, when the boom ended there was going to arrive that massive deficit. Which is indeed what happened. Subsequent deficits have indeed in part been caused simply be the recession, sure. But the recession also uncovered the unsustainable nature of the Labour spending over those years.
Which is why the current government is planning to take government spending as a percentage of GDP back down to 35% again. What it was before Labour came to power in 1997 and what can be easily covered by the amount of tax that can be usefully abstracted from the British economy.
One may or may not believe that a smaller state is a better one (I do but you don’t have to). Similarly one can also believe that the recession caused deficits could have been better dealt with. But the complaint about Labour’s spending is not that they were running an excessive deficit. It’s that they were over spending relative to the long run tax take from the British economy. The boom covered that up, the recession revealed it. That’s the actual complaint and thus the point that needs to be refuted before being able to prove that all of us small state types are wrong.

I hope Corbyn and his team read this.

chucknorris

.string. wrote: »

Thanks for finding that, from the data it appears that the newly registered voters swung the day for Corbyn.

I have to wonder if those newly registered voters were in any way encouraged by Union Bosses.

Purely as a coincidence of course I note that Corbyn is giving his first major speech to .... Drum Roll .... The Trades Union Congress.

One has to wonder why his first speech is not to his Party.

I have to shake my head and wonder how the Labour Party has engineered its own immolation in this way.

Unfortunately this won't last all the way up to the next election though, by then, and in time to campaign, and look half reasonable (certainly by comparison what was behind them) the labour party will have got rid of Corbyn.

setmefree2

chucknorris wrote: »

Unfortunately this won't last all the way up to the next election though, by then, and in time to campaign, and look half reasonable (certainly by comparison what was behind them) the labour party will have got rid of Corbyn.

You raise an interesting point.

If the polls consistently show he will not win maybe he will just stand down - say in 2 years? Maybe he'll be pushed? Or maybe everyone will just bog on regardless?

gadgetmind

setmefree2 wrote: »

The results show supporters paying £3 to vote were to the left of the full party members and largely signed up to support Corbyn.

I agree with the 2nd part of that but question the 1st. I nearly paid £3 to register and vote so that I could vote *for* Corbyn. Why? Because I think he'll cause massive infighting in the Labour party resulting in a schism. Divide and conquer.

cepheus

.string. wrote: »

Thanks for finding that, from the data it appears that the newly registered voters swung the day for Corbyn.

I have to wonder if those newly registered voters were in any way encouraged by Union Bosses.

Purely as a coincidence of course I note that Corbyn is giving his first major speech to .... Drum Roll .... The Trades Union Congress.

One has to wonder why his first speech is not to his Party.

I have to shake my head and wonder how the Labour Party has engineered its own immolation in this way.

He was the strong preference for all groups of members. The £3 supporters would have made no difference to the result, in fact he would still have won on the first ballot. The job of Corbyn now is to win back the narrative from the dominant right wing media which keeps feeding the electorate propaganda. The difference with Labour supporters is that they rely less on Sky and the press and more on social media where the debate is more balanced.

gadgetmind

cepheus wrote: »

The difference with Labour supporters is that they rely less on Sky and the press and more on social media where the debate is more balanced.

More balanced? They seem to hang around exclusively with their left wing buddies, which is why the general election result was such a smack in the face.

setmefree2

Lets be honest Jeremy Corbyn’s a bit dim (two Es at A-level), didn't finish his degree at North London Poly and he hasn’t had a new thought since imbibing the politics of his Left-wing middle-class parents in the 1950s.:D

He comes across as a rare politician who believes what he says, even though nearly all of what he says is nonsense.