Corbynomics: A Dystopia

Fella

scaredofdebt wrote: »

Brown inherited a small deficit in '97 and turned that to a small surplus by 98/99 and a larger surplus by 00/01

That then went back to a small deficit until 08/09 when the global recession hit.

That's how Brown & his supporters would like to tell the story.

You are effectively saying that the massive boom years were "normal" and the global bust was an aberration.

That's clearly incorrect. The bust was merely the correction to the boom that went before.

Brown appeared to (to some) to be competent because his massive spending was masked by those boom years. When the inevitable bust hit, the true state of the nations finances were revealed.

The Global Bust was the best thing that ever happened to Brown, is it's allowed him to perpetrate he version of the story you just repeated ever since. It's a lie. He overspent, and on an insane scale. Had he been remotely competent he'd have been running up a large surplus during the boom years and our economy could have then handled the bust without needing "austerity".

Fella

scaredofdebt wrote: »

The Conservatives seem to think we will take more tax by reducing Corporation Tax, which seems unlikely given we already have the lowest rate by quite some margin of all G7 countries. I suppose their theory is it will attract more business/investment and also stimulate growth.

The problem is austerity doesn't stimulate growth and there is some evidence to suggest it stifles growth. So the two policies are at odds.

The same people said the same things when the Tories proposed the cuts to corp tax that they've made already. And now corp tax receipts are at record highs and far higher than they were before.

Thrugelmir

scaredofdebt wrote: »

Brown inherited a small deficit in '97 and turned that to a small surplus by 98/99 and a larger surplus by 00/01

Brown didn't do anything. The subsequent suplus's were generated by the policies already in situ.

To reduce the size of the public sector workforce. Redundancy payments have had to be made. This cash is paid now as a lump sum. To recoup same can take a further couple of years. Before the savings are actually realised. Like a supertanker. The economy takes a long time to change direction or for an existing policy to come to a halt.

antrobus

Tromking wrote: »

I`ve said repeatedly on this thread and others how I would do it, I'm happy to repeat if you wish....

It's a long thread. 229 pages.

Tromking wrote: »

...To paraphrase, the UK having corporation tax rates at the G8 average,...

Corporation tax is responsible for about 6% of government revenues. Income tax and NIC are 43%. VAT and various sales taxes raise 29%. I don't see the logic of picking a small source of revenue to load with extra tax.

Table 1. Sources of government revenue, 2016–17 forecasts
https://www.ifs.org.uk/bns/bn09.pdf

It's people that pay taxes. It's best to be honest up front and tax them, rather than taxing some intermediary and hoping the public don't squeal when the taxes come back and hit them later on. A good example would be (and here's some ancient history) Gordon Brown's Great Pension Tax Raid. A cunning plan at the time, but now you know why almost every defined benefit pension scheme has a deficit and have been closed for new entrants.

Why can't somebody else pay for it might work as a comedy routine, but it does not really work as a basis for fiscal policy.

Tromking wrote: »

...diverting the £12 billion from the foreign aid budget, ...

Whilst I am of the opinion that there is a good deal of bollox in the foreign aid budget, for a wealthy nation like the UK to turn its back completely on the world's poor would be a step too far. And if I wanted to be a bit rhetorical about it, I'd say it was outUKIPing UKIP. They only wanted to reduce the foreign aid budget to £2.5 billion.:)

Tromking wrote: »

...restricting the ability of private sector companies to abuse the tax credit system with part time workforces etc....

How exactly?

I'd have thought the easiest way would be to abolish tax credits. But wouldn't that mean that tax credits were yet another Gordon Brown invention with unintended consequences. History, ancient or otherwise, still appears to be be relevant.

Tromking wrote: »

..Apologies for missing your admission that the austerity as implemented by the Tories needs an immediate rise on the basic rate of income tax.

Oh give over with that silly rhetoric.

If a government wishes to spend more money it needs to raise more revenue. That's just a plain fact. It's not a criminal offence. 'Admission' indeed.:rotfl:

antrobus

Fella wrote: »

..That's clearly incorrect. The bust was merely the correction to the boom that went before...

Brown indulged in a certain amount of jiggery-pokery to try and obscure the fact that the UK was running a structural fiscal deficit of some 2% of GDP.

But it's important to remember that the 'Nice Decade' was really a credit fueled extravaganza. People have now forgotten about the scale of Housing Equity Withdrawal, aka the measure of "new borrowing secured on dwellings that is not invested in the housing market". And we are talking about billions of pounds a year during that NICE decade.

Housing Equity Withdrawal is now negative.

Fella

Fella wrote: »

The Corbynistas are doing everything they can to change the topic off of Venezuela. It appears the Momentum brief is to change the subject to Saudi Arabia (ie something that has nothing whatsoever with the topic of Venezuela) every time it comes up.

As pointed out earlier, the Momentum brief has gone out: Kevin Maguire in the Mirror, dutifully reproduced in the "Independent", both doing as they're instructed:

https://www.indy100.com/article/jeremy-corbyn-venezuela-condemn-theresa-may-arms-saudi-arabia-kevin-maguire-7882101?utm_source=indy&utm_medium=top5&utm_campaign=i100

Moby

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yI1j8g1Jsq0

Fella

"The moment was filmed by Mr Corbyn's press officer and put on his Snapchat"

Still perhaps some people will be fooled.

Oh dear Jeremy Corbyn

Car1980

Fella wrote: »

That's how Brown & his supporters would like to tell the story.

You are effectively saying that the massive boom years were "normal" and the global bust was an aberration.

That's clearly incorrect. The bust was merely the correction to the boom that went before.

Brown appeared to (to some) to be competent because his massive spending was masked by those boom years. When the inevitable bust hit, the true state of the nations finances were revealed.

The Global Bust was the best thing that ever happened to Brown, is it's allowed him to perpetrate he version of the story you just repeated ever since. It's a lie. He overspent, and on an insane scale. Had he been remotely competent he'd have been running up a large surplus during the boom years and our economy could have then handled the bust without needing "austerity".

That's the simplistic 'the treasury is run like a household budget' view. By your logic RBS would have been left to sink because £45bn simply didn't exist. The household budget analogy would by like suddenly being required to buy a Ferrari. I haven't seen any bailiffs going round to the Treasury asking for their £45bn back.

Fella

Car1980 wrote: »

That's the simplistic 'the treasury is run like a household budget' view. By your logic RBS would have been left to sink because £45bn simply didn't exist. The household budget analogy would by like suddenly being required to buy a Ferrari. I haven't seen any bailiffs going round to the Treasury asking for their £45bn back.

No, the correct analogy would be if someone bet their household budget every year on red on roulette, & then smugly applauded themself on how well they were managing their finances each year it came up and they could spend far more than they should.

Then the year it finally comes up black they blame their bankruptcy on outside events they had no control over.