Corbynomics: A Dystopia

Eric_the_half_a_bee

All economists would disagree? Take just 5 minutes to educate yourself:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndmmO07ckAU

Rusty_Shackleton

Thrugelmir wrote: »

Brown didn't save the banks. He just stopped the entire UK financial system crashing on the that weekend in October 2008. In When both RBS and HBOS as was the case with Northern Rock, found to be illiquid. RBS was partly nationalised and HBOS merged with Lloyds. Though no one told the markets at the time that LLoyds were given a Treasury loan of £25 billion to keep HBOS solvent.

QE was to maintain stability in the money markets. That's all. Financial engineering of the highest degree. To allow time for the banks to trade their way out of their mess.

Looking back one wonders how it was ever allowed to happen. We'll never know I suspect. As Brown is unlikely to ever tell the tales of what was said with his mates. .

The UK enjoyed illusory boom times on the back of the tax receipts. Will that period of time be restated to show the inconvenient truth. No it won't. As the statistics won't make good reading .

Brown saved the financial system by saving the banks. There would have been a run on the banks, this is all intertwined.

Don't you realise everything to do with the economy is financial engineering to the highest degree? It's been a long time since any currency was backed up by a literal resource behind the representation/receipt that is money. It's all fiction and all about what people believe in.

If every GBP was backed up by a fixed amount of gold held in a vault somewhere, then yes, money would be a zero sum game (as you appear to be treating it), but I can't emphasise this enough: Money is NOT a zero sum game - it is to individual actors such as you and I, but not to the economy overall. Want to increase the value in the economy? Technological innovation, making money change hands and move faster, investing in things that provide more output in the future than they would today... these all increase the overall value of the economy (i.e. GDP).

Rusty_Shackleton

Eric_the_half_a_bee wrote: »

All economists would disagree? Take just 5 minutes to educate yourself:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndmmO07ckAU

hahaha, Friedman? Yeah, okay! Ignoring that he's been dead quite a while (and out of the field for longer), the dramatic worldwide growth of the 20th century was largely under Keynesian economic policies. The growth under the likes of Reagan and Thatcher was based on speculation and gambling, eventually leading us to the GFC. The real economies of the world were built on Keynes. The American economy under Obama, recovered with Keynesian policies (as were we under Brown).

RE: austerity and so on, here's some sources for you to go educate yourself:
IMF (hardly left wing) thoughts on austerity
Paul Krugman, nobel prize winning economist, saying the case for cuts was a lie
The academic consensus on the impact of austerity
Another leading economist with strong anti-austerity views is Joseph Stiglitz (former chief economist of the World Bank) but I can't think of a good link at the moment, but his books Making Globalization Work and The Price of Inequality are superb if you actually wanted to learn about macroeconomic policy.

The likes of Krugman and Stiglitz have led the likes of the World Bank and IMF (both neoconservative free-market economic supporting organisations) and advised governments, and they go completely against the work of Friedman - why? Because their work is contemporary and looking retrospectively at the disaster of Friedmans work.

Thrugelmir

Rusty_Shackleton wrote: »

Without the uneducated masses being complicit in acting against their own interests, they would never get away with scale of what they've done to this country.

Now we are getting to the nub. You regard yourself as being superior. Better informed. That's the trouble with politics in certain areas these days. Dominated by bigots. An unhealthy state of affairs.

Thrugelmir

Rusty_Shackleton wrote: »

Don't you realise everything to do with the economy is financial engineering to the highest degree?

Mismanagement is what we are discussing. Not the theroy. With hindsight so apparent that Brown lost control of the economy in a financial sense. Reflective review of his pronouncements such as Mansion House speeches say as much. He was out of his depth.

Rusty_Shackleton

Thugelmire, I don't regard myself as superior, but I am better informed. Thats what education is. Its why if you're ill, you trust your doctors opinion over your mate down the pub.

The problem with politics these days is this idea that people being entitled to an opinion means those opinions should be listened to, regardless of what evidence and the people who work/study in the field (and so are by definition better informed) say. I believe we should base policy on evidence and experts, not what makes a good soundbite. The current trend is to undo the enlightenment, I think thats wrong on every level, and is an incredibly unhealthy state of affairs.

Eric_the_half_a_bee

Rusty_Shackleton wrote: »

I don't regard myself as superior, but I am better informed.

That is a classic. You should use that as your signature.

Enterprise_1701C

mrginge wrote: »

I thought we'd all got past this nonsense that there is no downside to endless increasing borrowing, but apparently not.

The idea that when it all goes pear shaped you just print off a massive cheque, crack on as normal and start another great pile of debt is beyond ridiculous.

Isn't that what Venezuela have been doing? Corbyn seems to love their ideas.

Rusty_Shackleton

Haha Eric, sorry, it wasnt meant to sound arrogant. Simply that, while Im not an expert by any measure, I have studied the subject and read a lot around it, and the arguments Im putting forward are based on decent sources. Many (but not all) of the arguments against what Im saying could be taken almost directly from a tabloid. e.g above talking about economy like a household budget, literally no economist (even those in favour of austerity) would seriously make the comparison (ignoring when they use it as an illustration for those who dont have a good understanding of econ).

mrginge

So you DO believe that a cycle of building up debt followed by devaluation is the path to long term growth in a globalised economy.

Thanks for clarifying.

It's always good to have intellectuals such as your good self tell the rest of us morons how the world should work.

:doh: