Re: It's a Double dip : Thu Apr 26, 2012 10:23 am  

Dally wrote: Right then. What would you prescribe? As I see it to cut the unsustainable deficit and still growing debt (which HMG are currently failing to do, despite being their flagship policy) there is a combination of options: - raise taxes - raise tax take through economic growth - cuy government spending How would you go about it and why? As I have said in this forum so many times, even before the election, ... yes, the deficit needs to be cut but "when and by how much" is the issue, it's the speed and methods that Osborne favours that are utterly wrong. Raising VAT reduces GDP. Laying-off public employees reduces GDP (despite Pickles' denials that many would lose their jobs ... what an idiot). Failing to provide fiscal stimulus reduces GDP. Comparing the UK to Greece damages confidence and reduces GDP. Putting thousands of people into the 40% bracket gives them less to spend and reduces GDP. The technical definition of a recession is two consecutive qurters of reduced GDP. Osborne's tactics are GDP-reducing ... it's his very own recession. If you compare the UK with the EU and US since 2008 ... their GDPs are now above what they were in 2008, the UK's is now 4.5% down on 2008. Ask yourself, what's the difference? He's like a lapdog sitting at the feet of Standard and Poor waiting for a biscuit. But, hey, we're all in it together. http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/polit ... -23833367/

Dally wrote: Right then. What would you prescribe? As I see it to cut the unsustainable deficit and still growing debt (which HMG are currently failing to do, despite being their flagship policy) there is a combination of options: - raise taxes - raise tax take through economic growth - cuy government spending How would you go about it and why? As I have said in this forum so many times, even before the election, ... yes, the deficit needs to be cut but "when and by how much" is the issue, it's the speed and methods that Osborne favours that are utterly wrong. Raising VAT reduces GDP. Laying-off public employees reduces GDP (despite Pickles' denials that many would lose their jobs ... what an idiot). Failing to provide fiscal stimulus reduces GDP. Comparing the UK to Greece damages confidence and reduces GDP. Putting thousands of people into the 40% bracket gives them less to spend and reduces GDP. The technical definition of a recession is two consecutive qurters of reduced GDP. Osborne's tactics are GDP-reducing ... it's his very own recession. If you compare the UK with the EU and US since 2008 ... their GDPs are now above what they were in 2008, the UK's is now 4.5% down on 2008. Ask yourself, what's the difference? He's like a lapdog sitting at the feet of Standard and Poor waiting for a biscuit. But, hey, we're all in it together. http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/polit ... -23833367/

Re: It's a Double dip : Thu Apr 26, 2012 10:27 am  

Ferocious Aardvark wrote:

How the fsck can he think it is even possible for a coutry to get better when nobody has any money left, half have no job, and the rest are being squeezed to the fscking pip squeaking point and mugged at every opportunity? What is going to kick start the economy?
.

Exactly the point I was trying to make yesterday. In stopping my ESA and giving my hubby a pay freeze for 4 years with the threat of regional pay looming, we have no spare money to spend on anything other than essentials for us to live.

This government have done nothing to promote growth whatsover probably hoping that coming in gung ho cutting everthing and everyone would just solve the problem. Well newsflash, it hasn't solved a thing except heap more misery and stress on decent, honest people who never caused it in the first place.

Re: It's a Double dip : Thu Apr 26, 2012 11:15 am  

Ferocious Aardvark wrote:

:lol:

Always makes me chuckle, this. A poster or posters slam government policies which are even to an economic illiterate making things much worse, and some apologist comes back with "well, what would YOU do"?.

As if any person is qualified to be Chancellor of the Exchequer and could post a 25,000 page economic plan for the country.

Idiot.

The general and rather obvious point is NOT to do what they are doing, because they said it would work, yet all indicators clearly and indisputably point to it NOT WORKING Dally.

No, there is no monster lurking under Gideon's bed, or a malevolent fairy somewhere cursing his potions, such that despite his genius efforts, everything is getting worse rather than better.

It just seems so fundamentally basic; they are throwing more and more people out of work (what is it now - 20% of the entire young generation on the scrapheap??), and everyone has less and ever less to spend, whilst at the same time being relentlessly mugged by increases in tax and the march of prices such as fuel (big Brucie bonus there for Gideon).

I am not an apologist for government policy. I am not asking for a 25,000 report. Just an overview of approach. Again, you mock their approach - but what broad alternative would you propose?

Re: It's a Double dip : Thu Apr 26, 2012 11:21 am  

Dally wrote:

I am not an apologist for government policy ...

But when someone says it's not working, you ask for an alternative – as if you actually believe that, in spite of something not working, there isn't one.

Re: It's a Double dip : Thu Apr 26, 2012 11:31 am  

Mintball wrote:

But when someone says it's not working, you ask for an alternative – as if you actually believe that, in spite of something not working, there isn't one.

Not at all. There are reasons why the policy is not working - too many illogical tax rises for one. However, some of the inane, emotional suggestions put forward above would not work either and make things worse.

Re: It's a Double dip : Thu Apr 26, 2012 11:52 am  

They haven't a Plan B because they never had or even considered having a Plan B. They devised a shit or bust approach to tackling the economy and it's all unravelling in front of their eyes. They had convinced themselves that a global upturn would allow them to bank enough to offer us plebs a sufficiently large sweetener that we'd forget all about the shafting we'd received, caused directly by their callous disregard for anyone apart from big business and big money.

I may seem masaochistic but I'm willing to bear more of this, if only so the generation that have never previously known life under a conservative government will hopefully see just what a bunch of evil bastads they really are

Re: It's a Double dip : Thu Apr 26, 2012 12:10 pm  

Dally wrote:

Not at all. There are reasons why the policy is not working - too many illogical tax rises for one. ...

So, what broad alternative would you propose?

Re: It's a Double dip : Thu Apr 26, 2012 12:10 pm  

cod'ead wrote:

I may seem masaochistic but I'm willing to bear more of this, if only so the generation that have never previously known life under a conservative government will hopefully see just what a bunch of evil bastads they really are

I sort of came to that conclusion myself some time ago, our now grown up children just never had to endure the Thatcher/Major years and probably wouldn't believe what we told them anyway - hopefully a quick four years of torment will set their minds straight for the rest of their lifetime and by the time the next generation need a short sharp shock then I'll be long gone.

I just wish that there was some opposition because the nearer the next election looms the more I keep getting these cold sweats that the same daft bas'tads will vote for the current incumbents again.

Re: It's a Double dip : Thu Apr 26, 2012 12:13 pm  

In a way, this government is a victim of its own unwavering belief in the private sector and the free market.

When economic times were relatively good, they could turn the country over to these forces with minimal disruption, other than to the working classes who frankly aren't their core support and therefore don't matter.

The private sector is being handed the keys to the country through the massive public sector cuts and reforms, only to find that there's no food in the fridge, the bank account has been cleaned out and the general public are watching them like hawks to make sure they don't take more than they are entitled to. Unsurprisingly, they've walked away and left the government to sort its own mess out, which it appears incapable of doing.

Re: It's a Double dip : Thu Apr 26, 2012 12:22 pm  

Andy Gilder wrote:

In a way, this government is a victim of its own unwavering belief in the private sector and the free market.

When economic times were relatively good, they could turn the country over to these forces with minimal disruption, other than to the working classes who frankly aren't their core support and therefore don't matter.

The private sector is being handed the keys to the country through the massive public sector cuts and reforms, only to find that there's no food in the fridge, the bank account has been cleaned out and the general public are watching them like hawks to make sure they don't take more than they are entitled to. Unsurprisingly, they've walked away and left the government to sort its own mess out, which it appears incapable of doing.

We are printing money to pay back Government bonds because that's where the real money is going - they don't trust the government to deliver on promises of economic growth but they'll always deliver to repay the loans. Instead of all the money that has been released through quatitative easing goping to the banks, they'd have been better dropping from the sky, at least it would have then been spent in the economy. If a fraction of the money printed through QE had been spent on capital projects, we'd be half-way to solving the unemployment problem.