Corbynomics: A Dystopia

kabayiri

Wild_Rover wrote: »

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This appears to be what Labour thinks passes for debate. Corbyn and his supporters do their nut because May won't debate their man, yet nobody appears to know how the funding will be found to nationalise National Grid (about £40bn) nor, when pressed, explain what the promise to abolish tuition fees ACTUALLY MEANS.
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If you announce that from intake year X there will be no more tuition fees, then all those planning to attend in years X-1, X-2, etc will simply defer their plans.

I know for a fact that is what advice we would give! Why saddle up with debt for the sake of a year's delay (or two)?

This simple example is one of many where people will game the new rules, and the predicted revenue streams Labour is banking on will simply vanish into the ether.

Zxcv_Bnm

Zxcv_Bnm wrote: »

It need not cost anything to nationalise any company.

You just pass a law making it illegal for them to charge anyone anything for what they do.

Their revenues and share price collapse and you then buy the company for nothing having crippled it first.

Of course this will wreck the pension funds etc who tend to own utility shares, but they're for old people who don't vote Labour anyway so who cares.

and in fact Labour's Barry Gardiner has just confirmed on the Daily Politics that that's what they'd do - separate National Grid into a company that owns the assets and another that has the license, each of which is worthless without the other.

So state expropriation then

As for the uncosted promises, they'd just borrow the money then deliberately default on the loans I would think

Moby

antrobus wrote: »

My point is that state capitalism does not work. The history of the twentieth century demonstrates that. China abandoned state capitalism in favour of market capitalism, and as a result 800 million people were taken out of poverty.

Market capitalism does work, it produces economic growth. Which pays for things. And is the test of whether or not it works. The fact that there are areas where it produces results that people don't like are fixable. Eventually. That's what governments are for.

What this means is that we should all reject that kind of Marxist-Leninist nonsense at the earliest opportunity. Even if it does arise in the form of pseudo-Trotskist transitional demands. See the current Labour manifesto.:)

P.S. Note that the World Bank states that that, "China has shifted from a centrally-planned to a market-based economy", and that "its market reforms are incomplete". Its economy is not controlled by the state.

I think Atlee's Govmt proves this wrong as a sweeping statement. It took the Govmt to face down the vested interests of private medicine to bring in the new system. The 'cradle to the grave' changes....nat. ins., state pensions, national education standards etc. A market economy is more successful I totally agree when you are referring to consumer products. It's not one or the other ....it's where you draw the line. The banking crisis showed what the consequences can be from a totally laisses- faire system. No-one is arguing for the return of total state control. What I'm saying is the 'marxist' finger pointing from the right is used to divert from the flaws within capitalism. It becomes pretty childish in this country, especially during an election. Luckily the control of the media by a few right wing magnates is decreasing because many get their info now from social media. Re. China.......... I would say the state does intervene as and when it wants to through their state owned and state controlled 'enterprises' whatever the world bank says.

Fella

Zxcv_Bnm wrote: »

and in fact Labour's Barry Gardiner has just confirmed on the Daily Politics that that's what they'd do - separate National Grid into a company that owns the assets and another that has the license, each of which is worthless without the other.

That interview was stunningly bad. Yet another Labour shadow cabinet moron who does not have a clue about his own manifesto. He was actually worse than Dianne Abbott, a feat most would have considered impossible.

Have a watch. You can literally see him trying to make up what he's saying as he goes along.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGMkFahWbhI

[Deleted User]

Fella wrote: »

That interview was stunningly bad. Yet another Labour shadow cabinet moron who does not have a clue about his own manifesto. He was actually worse than Dianne Abbott, a feat most would have considered impossible.

Have a watch. You can literally see him trying to make up what he's saying as he goes along.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGMkFahWbhI

I had no time for former Secretary of State for Scotland Forsyth, but the expression on his face at about 2 mins 45 sec into the clip was priceless.

The debt at the moment is £1.73bn. Labour wants to proceed with currently planned infrastructure borrowing of about £50bn a year, and add another £25bn a year for 10 years, and borrow or in some other way fund the other things like the as yet unexplained National Grid nationalisation, but at the end of the 5 year parliament "we would have the debt reduced from where it stands today", according to Barry Gardiner.

Did Barry have the same maths teacher as Dianne Abbott?

Maybe our resident expert on the Labour Party, good old Wildkitty, could explain? It's certainly been a while since I was in a maths class, but excluding anything else for nationalisation, the Labour formula appears to be, for a 5 year Parliament

£X + (£50bn × 5) + (£25bn × 5) < £X

(Or something like that)

If I had handed that in at school, I think I'd have received back in red ink "0/10, see me".

WR

Moby

The Bow Group ain't happy about May's new plan for spreading inherited wealth. Very interventionist this isn't it! Good way for the Govmt to stop families passing on inherited wealth and use their property wealth to pay for hard pressed public services instead.............strange times. I reckon there will be lots of private care providers rubbing their hands as well! 'The Bow Group, a Conservative party thinktank which used to be establishment and centrist but which in recent years has focused on goading the party leadership, has put out a press statement denouncing the care plans as “the biggest stealth tax in history”. This is from its chairman, Ben Harris-Quinney. These proposals will mean that the majority of property owning citizens could be transferring the bulk of their assets to the government upon death for care they have already paid a lifetime of taxes to receive. It is a tax on death and on inheritance. It will mean that in the end, the government will have taken the lion’s share of a lifetime earnings in taxes. If enacted, it is likely to represent the biggest stealth tax in history and when people understand that they will be leaving most of their estate to the government, rather than their families, the Conservative party will experience a dramatic loss of support.'

setmefree2

To be honest if this is the plan - I don't personally have any problem with it.

The social care changes proposed are that the value of someone's property would be included in the means test for receiving free care in their own home - currently only their income and savings are taken into account.
People will be able to defer paying for their care until after their death. Those in residential care - whose property is already taken into account in the means test - can already do this.
There will also be an increase in the amount of wealth someone can have - savings and the value of their home - from the current £23,250 to £100,000 before they lose the right to free care.
That means that however much is spent on social care, it becomes free once someone is down to their last £100,000.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2017-39956541

Moby

According to Frazer Nelson in the Spectator...........the tory MP's will be so !!!! a hoop over brexit that they'll suck it up:- Mrs May is the most left-wing leader the Tories have had in perhaps 40 years. In normal times, this would set her at odds with the MPs on the right — the ones Sir John Major once referred to as the ‘!!!!!!!s’, for whom regicide is a form of relaxation. But not now. The Thatcherite MPs are those who are most committed to Brexit; having regarded the whole idea of leaving the EU as a dirty fantasy, they still cannot quite believe that it is coming true. For them, the national question — leaving the European Union and crushing the Scottish Nationalists — matters more than gas bills. As one senior Tory puts it: ‘As a Conservative I have three priorities: the nation, security, and a low-tax economy. David Cameron gave me none of those three — Theresa May gives me two. So I’ll bank those!

setmefree2

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt defended the manifesto proposal, telling BBC Breakfast: "Everyone will have the security of knowing that they can pass on £100,000 to their children and grandchildren. At the moment, you can be cleaned out to as little as £23,000 so that's four times more."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2017-39956541

Moby

She even gets half a cheer from Polly Toynbee. Surely a fairer system would have been a cap?:- https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/may/18/theresa-may-social-care-lottery-tory-manifesto